Human Ancestors Were Using Fire Earlier Than Previously Thought
Early hominins seemingly first tamed a flame 1.8 million years ago
The post Human Ancestors Were Using Fire Earlier Than Previously Thought appeared first on Nautilus.

Early hominins seemingly first tamed a flame 1.8 million years ago
The post Human Ancestors Were Using Fire Earlier Than Previously Thought appeared first on Nautilus.


Geochemical analysis of 780,000-year-old stone tools from Israel suggests Acheulean (or Acheulian) hominins repeatedly sought specific basalt sources, revealing sophisticated planning and deep knowledge of their landscape.
The post Acheulean Toolmakers Chose Their Stone with Surprising Precision appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
One way archaeologists learn how ancient people, including Neanderthals, did things is to attempt to do those things themselves, a process called experimental archaeology. Normally, that involves making stone tools, butchering deer, or distilling birch tar. But in a new study, it meant doing very destructive things to teeth from one of the worldβs most carefully protected animals.
That's because the archeologists suspected that Neanderthals once used rhino teeth as tools. By using the teeth to make stone tools, the researchersΒ demonstrated that Neanderthals probably did the same thing,Β adding to what we know about the wide range of items in their toolkits.
Some Neanderthal archaeological sites in Europe and Asia seem to have many more rhinoceros teeth lying around than youβd expect. We know Neanderthals hunted a now-extinct species of rhinoceros in Europe and eastern Asia, but the people who had inhabited these sites looked like they had been collecting rhino teeth for some reason.


Β© By Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE - White Rhino Skull, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55453022
Wild chimpanzees in Uganda split into two separate communities and later engaged in deadly attacks against each other. Researchers believe the conflict shows how social relationships alone can fuel polarization and violence. The worldβs largest known community of wild chimpanzees has permanently divided into two separate groups. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin [...] 
New research from the University of Oxford and the University of Reading suggests bipedalism and expanding brain size helped drive the overwhelming dominance of right-handedness in humans.
The post Upright Walking and Larger Brains May Explain Why 90% of Humans Favor Their Right Hand appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.