200,000-year-old obsidian artifacts are forcing archaeologists to rethink early human movement. Chemical fingerprinting shows these stone tools came from distant sources—long before Homo sapiens sapiens existed. Either our ancient ancestors traveled incredible distances, or organized trade networks emerged far earlier than the fossil record suggested 🪨🔍 The implications for understanding our deep past are staggering
300,000-year-old obsidian challenges assumptions about prehistoric trade depth
Key facts
- Isotope analysis of obsidian artifacts dated to 300,000 years ago reveals non-local origins
- These artifacts predate fully Homo sapiens sapiens
- Evidence indicates humans were trading or traveling long distances far earlier than previously thought
- Such trade networks alter understanding of deep human past
Sources
Evidence from the ∼200 ka Middle Stone Age Sibilo School Road ...pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
This study presents the earliest evidence of long-distance obsidian transport at the ∼200 ka Sibilo School Road Site (SSRS), an early Middle Stone Age site ...
The earliest long-distance obsidian transport - ScienceDirect.comsciencedirect.com
The Kapthurin Formation is a series of sedimentary and volcanic units 125–150 m thick and exposed over an area of ∼150 km2 west of Lake Baringo in the Central ...
Archaeology and Paleoenvironments of the Kapthurin Formation ...ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
Sally McBrearty will conduct archaeological research in the Baringo Basin region of Kenya. In particular she will focus on the Kapthurin Formation in the Tugen ...
Antiquity and Continuity of Human Behaviors in the Middle ...nomadit.co.uk
... Kapthurin Formation, Kenya. Nick Blegen (University of Cambridge) ... (obsidian) artifacts from the region are used to determine distances ...
(PDF) "Early" Middle Stone Age Lithic Technology of the Kapthurin ...academia.edu
The previous studies of the complex record of the Acheulian-MSA Kapthurin Formation archaeological sequence suggests that transition in the Kapthurin Formation ...
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