Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia

Shannon P. McPherron (), Zeresenay Alemseged, Curtis W. Marean, Jonathan G. Wynn, Denné Reed, Denis Geraads, René Bobe and Hamdallah A. Béarat
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Shannon P. McPherron: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, DeutscherPlatz 6, Leipzig 04103, Germany
Zeresenay Alemseged: California Academy of Sciences, 55 Concourse Drive, San Francisco, California 94118, USA
Curtis W. Marean: Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, PO Box 872402, Arizona State University
Jonathan G. Wynn: University of South Florida, 4202 E Fowler Ave, SCA 528, Tampa, Florida 33620, USA
Denné Reed: University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station C3200, Austin, Texas 78712, USA
Denis Geraads: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPR 2147, 44 Rue de l'Amiral Mouchez, Paris 75014, France
René Bobe: University of Georgia
Hamdallah A. Béarat: School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

Nature, 2010, vol. 466, issue 7308, 857-860

Abstract: First evidence of tool use Until now, the earliest evidence for tool use by our ancestors or their relatives was from two sites in Ethiopia's Awash Valley. Stone tools manufactured about 2.5 million years ago were found at Gona, and cut-marked bones of about the same age were found in the Middle Awash. The suspicion that hominins used tools even earlier has now been borne out by the discovery at nearby Dikika of two bones, one from a large ungulate, with cut and percussion marks consistent with the use of stone tools to remove flesh and extract bone marrow. The marked bones are about 3.4 million years old and are probably the work of Australopithecus afarensis, the only hominin known to have been in the Awash Valley at this time, and famously the species to which the iconic Lucy (from Hadar, Ethiopia) and the juvenile Selam (or DIK-1-1, from Dikika) belong.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09248

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