10.000 Generationen von Menschenmenschen nutzten dieselben Steinwerkzeuge, um einer sich verändernden Welt zu trotzen. An einem Standort in Kenia haben Archäologen kürzlich Schichten von Steinhockern aus Ablagerungen ausgegraben, die sich über 300.000 Jahre erstrecken und eine Zeit intensiver Umweltveränderungen umfassen.

Someone born near the start of the 20th century could have witnessed the dawn of commercial flight, the creation of nuclear weapons, the moon landing and even the early growth of the internet. Technology did not always progress so fast, however, especially not for hominins, our distant human ancestors. In fact, despite major environmental change, a tool technology roughly equivalent to a Swiss army knife was associated with hominin occupation for more than 300 thousand years. 

New findings out of Kenya by an international team of researchers, including Amelia Villaseñor, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, reveal profound consistency in the use of stone tool technology over time. Stone tools recovered from three distinct layers of the Turkana Basin, representing three time periods, show a tradition of continuous tool use spanning roughly 300,000 years, from 2.75 to 2.44 million years ago. This dates the tools to close to the beginnings of Oldowan technology, the earliest widespread stone-tool tradition made by striking flakes off a stone core to create sharp cutting edges.  

The tools were recovered from a site on the northeast side of Lake Turkana called Namorotukunan, which preserves three discrete layers dated to about 2.75, 2.60, and 2.44 million years ago. These layers each preserve different snapshots of environmental conditions from humid floodplains to arid riverine settings. This is the earliest Oldowan record yet reported from the Koobi Fora Formation and among the oldest worldwide.  

David R. Braun, at professor of anthropology at George Washington University and the Max Planck Institute, who led the study, said the site “reveals an extraordinary story of cultural continuity.” 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64244-x

TIL the idea „We’ve tried nothing, and we are all out of ideas“ predates „Necessity is the mother of invention“.