NEW YORK — Two ancient animal bones from Ethiopia show signs of butchering by human ancestors, moving back the earliest evidence for the use of stone tools by about 800,000 years, researchers say.
The bones appear to have been cut and smashed 3.4 million years ago, the first evidence of stone tool use by Australopithecus afarensis, the species best known for the fossil dubbed “Lucy,” said California Academy of Sciences researcher Zeresenay Alemseged.
“We are putting stone tools in their hands,” said Alemseged, who reports the finding with colleagues in today’s issue of the journal Nature.
The researchers also called the finding the earliest evidence of meat-eating among hominins, an evolutionary group that includes people and their ancestors.
The Associated Press
