Ancient stone tools and cut-marked animal bones discovered in Algeria suggest that modern humans' ancestors called northern Africa home much earlier than archaeologists once thought, a new study reports. The data indicates a rapid dispersal of stone tools out of East Africa and into other regions of the continent - or, alternatively, a multiple origin scenario of early hominin stone tool manufacture and use in both East and North Africa. East Africa is widely considered to be the birthplace of stone tool use by our ancient hominin ancestors - the earliest examples of which date as far back as about 2.6 million years ago. Similar examples of stone tool manufacture and use have been identified in North Africa, dating to nearly 1.8 million years old and generally considered to be the oldest archaeological materials in all the region. The assemblages contained stone tool manufacturing lithic debris similar to that recovered from the earliest sites in East Africa.

Source: The North Africa Journal November 29, 2018 18:56 UTC