Earliest record of stone-tipped spears found - 85k years older than humans?

A new piece of evidence has been found and dated to 85k years before the earliest known homo-sapiens. This means one of two things, either humans evolved much earlier than previously though, or species prior to homo-sapiens were using tools.

Interesting read...

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/stone-tipped-spears-were-around-homo-sapiens

A stone-tipped spear has been discovered - and it appears to be 85,000 years older than our entire species. This could mean that Homo sapiens evolved earlier than we first thought or humans and Neanderthals weren’t the first ones to use stone-tipped spears. Either way, the implications are huge. This announcement comes from lead author Yonatan Sahle from the Human Evolution Center at the University of California Berkeley and was published in PLoS ONE.

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The obsidian spear tip was discovered in Gademotta, a fossil site in Ethiopia that represents the Middle Stone Age. It has been dated as about 280,000 years old, which predates all Homo sapien fossils by about 85,000 years. While it is possible that there are earlier human fossils out there that haven’t been discovered, that is not the most likely scenario. Instead, our predecessor probably crafted the spear tips.
Homo heidelbergensis lived from about 700,000-200,000 years ago and may be the direct ancestor of modern humans and was probably the one to develop the spear. There are a number of factors that may have contributed to this. The H. heidelbergensis population in this area would have had access to large amounts of obsidian, which is relatively easy to work with. Also, the population here might have been larger which would allow for more collaboration an innovation.

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I think the entire timeline is still a guess. And the evolutionary distinction of us as a species, is wrong also. I think there we were many families of man before the genetic bottleneck, but now there is but one family left. At 280,000 years ago.....who knows?

There are Hindu myths in Sanscrit that speak of civilizations, "before time."

Beefbisquit said:

A new piece of evidence has been found and dated to 85k years before the earliest known homo-sapiens. This means one of two things, either humans evolved much earlier than previously though, or species prior to homo-sapiens were using tools.

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Many species prior to Homo sapiens sapiens used tools, we just aren't sure about thrown spears. Oldowan tools are ~2.6 million years old, and we know that Homo erectus used stone tools.

Here is an excellent documentary about Homo erectus for those who are interested in these types of things.[video=youtube_share;TUliLKSJ4bQ]http://youtu.be/TUliLKSJ4bQ[/video]

I think the articile was very vauge to jump to conclusions

- How was the item dated , and how accurate is the tech.
- How do they know the ariticle is a spear ?? looks like a natural formation to me

According to this great series, Nova's Becoming Human, there were five types of humans all co-existing at once, of which, homo sapiens are the youngest. There seems to be a 100,000 year give or take on the age of our species even among the experts. Here's a link to this Nova series (all 3 parts in one), it's one of my favorite...

[video=youtube;qc3QIk__aJw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc3QIk__aJw[/video]

LIBERTYCHICKEN said:

I think the articile was very vauge to jump to conclusions

- How was the item dated , and how accurate is the tech.
- How do they know the ariticle is a spear ?? looks like a natural formation to me

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I often think that vague theories are stated with too much certainty.

When experts explain the prehistoric cave paintings they talk about how this line expresses rage and that dot means love....

They were fingerpainting with goats blood and dog shit!
It means nothing more complex than that!

The most accurate info. we have on the ancient past is it's anciect

And it was an accident.

MidwesternGro said:

Many species prior to Homo sapiens sapiens used tools, we just aren't sure about thrown spears. Oldowan tools are ~2.6 million years old, and we know that Homo erectus used stone tools.

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Ah, Erectus. That was when we "learned what that hole was for." (Chrisy Hind, the Pretenders)

we lie to act like we know, but in reality we dont know shit!!!

tobinates559 said:

we lie to act like we know, but in reality we dont know shit!!!

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That is where you are wrong. Only the very uninformed, are clueless of the fact that science is discovery, not knowledge. Tech is knowledge.

But, we don't even know why there is air.

We don't act like we know everything. The Press does and you buy into it. We freely admit we stand on the shoulders of a few giant thinkers that got us past some enormous conundrums. Such as, the nature of the EM field and how the Higgs field may co-exist with that...and .perhaps is part of EM. That would be the Grand Unification, the Theory of Everything.

Still just a theory. But the press screws that up and calls it the Theory of Gravity. That does not exist. They call it the God particle for a new layer of meaninglessness.

WE are just beginning to gain a Common Understanding that Gravity is somehow "caused" by the Higgs field. And that Space is somehow altered by the Higgs around matter and biases an "easy path through Space for matter to attract other matter."

Whaa??

So, you only think we think that. You do. We don't.