In a study published on August 15 in the journal Science Advances, an international team of researchers uncovered traces of human activity dating back at least 2.6 million years at the site of Nyayanga, Kenya. The first toolmakers of the Oldowan tradition, from the Lower Paleolithic, were not content to cut stones found at hand. They selected quality materials and transported them more than 11 kilometers to transform them into tools.
This discovery pushes back the timeline of this behavior by at least half a million years compared to previous archaeological explorations and shows that hominids already had complex cognitive abilities, reports the American online media 404 Media. Long before the invention of modern logistics chains, our ancestors already had a long-term vision, an elaborate organization and a real material culture.
“I always thought that early tool makers must have had more capabilities than we sometimes give them credit for”says Emma Finestone, holder of the Robert J. and Linnet E. Fritz Chair in the Origins of Humanity at the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland (Ohio). She emphasizes the importance of seeing, so early in evolution, hominids capable of planning, deferring the benefit of their efforts and mentally mapping their territory.
Explore the territory to survive
Unlike most animals which use what they find there, some human and related species had already broken with this pattern. They located, selected and transported particular rocks (quartz, chert, granite) several kilometers across the savannah. This mode of action reflects a more thoughtful and cooperative approach than imagined, with each stage of the process – collection, transport, transformation – being separated in time and space.
In Nyayanga, tools were used to prepare plants, but also to cut up large animals, such as the hippopotamus. It is still unknown who these tool makers were. Researchers mention representatives of the genre Homobut do not exclude a missing cousin, Paranthropuswhose fossils were found on site. The latter was not previously considered a tool user. The enigma therefore remains unsolved, opening the way to new hypotheses on the transmission and acquisition of know-how among hominids.
These discoveries are not simple archaeological curiosities. They reveal that already 2.6 million years ago, tool making went beyond simple opportunism to become a real survival strategy. The Nyayanga hominids seem to have laid the foundations of the technology that will shape all of human history.
The excavated tools highlight humanity’s deep dependence on technology: a constant that has continued to strengthen over time. Humans are technological beings, using their creations to survive, explore, thrive and adapt, across all cultures, for longer than we thought.
