Early humans used animal bones to craft tools -- more than a million years earlier than scientists previously thought, according to new research published this week.
A group of researchers from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Indiana University made the discovery in East Africa. Ignacio de la Torre, co-director of the excavation and a CSIC researcher, says the bone tools are from the Acheulean period, which is known as the age of the hand axes -- tear-shaped tools with a sharp point made from stone.
"Now, we have a human species here that is able to innovate, to create an innovation by applying a knowledge they know they have or the working of stone," de la Torre tells NPR.
Stone tools from this period are thought to have been created by Homo erectus, an extinct species that resembled modern humans, who lived 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago.
The team began excavation at an archaeological site in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge in 2015 and found the first bone tool in 2018. In all, 27 such tools were found, the majority of which were made from the bones of elephants, hippopotamuses and bovids, according to the new study published in Nature.