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Addis Ababa January 28/2013 An Ethio-Japanese research team discovered the world’s oldest handaxes and other “Acheulean” tools that are around 1.75 million years old at Konso in Ethiopia, Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage said.
The team headed by Ethiopian archeologist Yonas Beyene, working closely with Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Berhane Asfaw, University of Tokyo paleoanthropologist Gen Suwa, and Japanese Quaternary geologist Shigehiro Katoh discovered the Acheulean tools mostly handaxes, cleavers, and picks.
The Authority said the oldest known Acheulean tools at Konso are estimated to be around 1.75 million years old and match similarly aged as reported in 2011 from northern Kenya.
Together they are the world’s oldest known Archeulean tools.
The earliest Archeulean tools occurred at a time-period when Homo Erectus was just evolving from the more primitive Homo habilis.
This is the first time that early Acheulean stone tools are systematically compared for changes throughout the entire 1.75 to less than one million year time period, it said.
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