500,000-Year-Old Homo Erectus Tools Found in Sudan

WROCLAW, POLAND—According to a Science in Poland report, an international team of researchers led by Mirosław Masojć of the University of Wroclaw's Institute of Archaeology has uncovered stone tools ranging in age from 500,000 to 60,000 years old in gold mines in eastern Sudan. The artifacts include hand axes and pebble tools made by Homo erectus, and blades made by Homo sapiens. Masojć suggested that Homo erectus migrated through the region, along the coast of the Red Sea, in addition to traveling through the Nile Valley. Some 500,000 years ago, he explained, the now desert-like region was more hospitable. Dried river beds suggest water once flowed toward the northeast and the Red Sea. For more, go to “Homo erectus Stands Alone.”