In their new study, Villa and her associates determined 98 bone tools from Castel di Guido, which was excavated from 1979 to 1991. The findings represent the greatest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids that scientists have described so far. Others were wedges that might have been practical for splitting heavy elephant femurs and other long bones.
One tool stood out from the rest: The team discovered a single artifact carved from a wild cattle bone that was long and smooth at one end. Human beings then discovered the remains and butchered them for their long bones.
Bone tools excavated from Castel di Guido in Italy. Credit: Villa et al. 2021 PLOS ONE
Ancient people could do some outstanding things with elephant bones.
In a new study, University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist Paola Villa and her colleagues surveyed tools excavated from a site in Italy where big numbers of elephants had passed away. The team found that humans at this website roughly 400,000 years ago appropriated those carcasses to produce an unmatched selection of bone tools– some crafted with advanced techniques that wouldnt become common for another 100,000 years.
” We see other websites with bone tools at this time,” stated Villa, an adjoint curator at the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History. “But there isnt this variety of distinct shapes.”
Rental property and her associates released their results this month in the journal PLOS ONE
Elephant tusks and other bones at the Castel di Guido site throughout excavation. Credit: Villa et al. 2021 PLOS ONE.
The study zeroes in on a website called Castel di Guido not far from modern-day Rome. Numerous thousands of years ago, it was the area of a gully that had been carved by an ephemeral stream– an environment where 13-foot-tall creatures called straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) satiated their thirst and, sometimes, passed away.
Castel di Guidos hominids made good usage of the remains, inhabiting the website on and off for many years. The researchers report that these Stone Age residents produced tools using a methodical, standardized method, a bit like a single private working on a primitive assembly line.
” At Castel di Guido, people were breaking the long bones of the elephants in a standardized manner and producing standardized blanks to make bone tools,” Villa said. “This sort of ability didnt become typical till much later on.”
Stone Age tool kit
These tasks of ingenuity came at a significant time for hominids in general.
Right around 400,000 years back, Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were just beginning to emerge in Europe. Rental property believes that Castel di Guidos homeowners were Neanderthals.
A series of pointed elephant bone tools from Castel di Guido. Credit: Villa et al. 2021 PLOS ONE
” About 400,000 years earlier, you begin to see the regular use of fire, and its the start of the Neanderthal family tree,” Villa stated. “This is a very important duration for Castel di Guido.”
It might have been a productive one, too. In their new research study, Villa and her associates recognized 98 bone tools from Castel di Guido, which was excavated from 1979 to 1991. The findings represent the greatest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids that scientists have actually explained up until now. That abundant toolbox used a vast array of useful products: Some tools were pointed and could, theoretically, have been utilized to cut meat. Others were wedges that might have been handy for splitting heavy elephant thighs and other long bones.
” First you make a groove where you can insert these heavy pieces that have a cutting edge,” Villa stated. “Then you hammer it, and at some time, the bone will break.”
However one tool stuck out from the rest: The group found a single artifact sculpted from a wild cattle bone that was long and smooth at one end. It resembles what archaeologists call a “lissoir,” or a smoother, a type of tool that hominids used to deal with leather. The curious thing: Lissoir tools didnt end up being typical up until about 300,000 years earlier.
” At other sites 400,000 years back, individuals were simply utilizing whatever bone fragments they had readily available,” Villa stated.
A lissoir, or smoother, tool made from a wild cattle bone. Credit: Villa et al. 2021 PLOS ONE
Useful finds
Something special, to put it simply, appeared to be happening at the Italian site.
Rental property does not believe that the Castel di Guido hominids were anymore intelligent than their counterparts in other places in Europe. Rather, these early people merely utilized the resources they had lying around. She discussed that this area of Italy does not have a lot of naturally-occurring, big pieces of flint, so ancient human beings couldnt make lots of big stone tools.
Throughout the age of Castel di Guidos bone-crafters, these animals may have gathered to watering holes at the site, periodically passing away from natural causes. People then discovered the remains and butchered them for their long bones.
” The Castel di Guido people had cognitive intellects that permitted them to produce complicated bone innovation,” Villa said. “At other assemblages, there were enough bones for people to make a couple of pieces, but not enough to start a standardized and organized production of bone tools.”
Referral: “Elephant bones for the Middle Pleistocene toolmaker” by Paola Villa, Giovanni Boschian, Luca Pollarolo, Daniela Saccà, Fabrizio Marra, Sebastien Nomade and Alison Pereira, 26 August 2021, PLOS ONE.DOI: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0256090.
Other coauthors of the brand-new research study include Giovanni Boschian and Daniela Saccà of the University of Pisa in Italy; Luca Pollarolo of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa; Fabrizio Marra of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy; and Sebastien Nomade and Alison Pereira of the University of Paris-Saclay in France.