Archeology and the formation of new knowledge
Шрифт:
The ability to create tools distinguishes even the most primitive human collective from a herd of monkeys. To prove that a prezinjanthrope had tools, Leakey understood, means to prove irrefutably: a prezinjanthrope is a human being. And Leakey found them. Hundreds of stone tools piled in heaps resembling heaps of pebbles. Stones similar to sea pebbles, slightly processed along the edge, turned into universal scraping and cutting tools. Scientists, finding more and more "pebble piles", were convinced that the blows inflicted on each of these stones were systematic. So, after all, they were created by man, not nature!
The discoveries gave impetus to the organization of searches north of Tanzania – in Kenya and Ethiopia. In southwestern Ethiopia, Oldowai stone tools from 1.9 million to 2.2 million years old were discovered, and in Kenya in 1970, the same Oldowai tools and broken bones of animals about 2.6 million years old were discovered. Two years later, in northern Kenya, Louis Leakey's son Richard found the skull and femur bones of the oldest known ancient people at that time. His skull resembled that of a modern man. His supraorbital ridges were not strongly pronounced and his jaw was less heavy and massive than that of a pithecanthropus. This man lived 5-5.5 million years ago.
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