Oldowan tools, consisting of stones with one to a few flakes removed, are the oldest widespread and temporally persistent hominin tools. The oldest of these were previously known from around 2.6 million years ago in Ethiopia, and by 2 million years ago, they were found to be quite widespread. Now, paleoanthropologists have discovered a new, older fossil site from around 3 to 2.6 million years ago in Kenya, where Oldowan tools were not only present, but were also being used to process a variety of foods, including hippopotamus and bovids. Thus, it appears that these tools were widespread much earlier than previous estimates and were widely used for food processing. Which hominins were using these tools remains uncertain, but Paranthropus fossils occur at the site.
The appearance of Oldowan tools around 2.6 million years ago was a technological breakthrough that used systematically produced, sharp-edged flakes for cutting and cobbles or cores for percussion.
Although the Oldowan is often attributed to the genus Homo, multiple hominin species overlapped with these early tools, and it is possible that other genera, such as Paranthropus, made and/or used them.
Some scientists have linked emergent Oldowan technology to the first access to or more efficient processing of nutrient-rich animal carcasses.
Others have argued that plant food processing was the primary goal of early Oldowan stone tool usage, with increased carnivory — and butchery with stone tools) being added to the behavioral repertoire after 2 million years ago.
The evolutionary benefits connected with the emergence of Oldowan technology are unclear because of the paucity of Late Pliocene Oldowan sites, previously known only from the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia.
The new finds from the 3.03- to 2.6-million-year-old site at Nyayanga, Kenya, expand the geographic range of the earliest Oldowan tools by more than 1,300 km and the range of Paranthropus by approximately 230 km to southwestern Kenya.
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