NYAYANGA, KENYA—BBC News reports that more than 300 Oldowan stone tools dated to 2.9 million years ago have been uncovered in western Kenya on the Homa Peninsula. Two molars belonging to Paranthropus, an extinct human cousin with both ape-like and human-like traits, were also recovered at the site. It had been previously thought that Oldowan tools, which were used to butcher hippos and pound plant foods at this site, were only made and used by the ancestors of modern humans. “With these tools you can crush better than an elephant’s molar can and cut better than a lion’s canine can,” said Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Other hominins may have also been processing otherwise inedible foods with this technology, added Thomas Plummer of Queens College. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science. To read about even older stone tools found in Kenya, go to “The First Toolkit.”
