Imagining the diet of humans of tens of thousands of years is to think, almost automatically, in the paleodieta. For years we thought that ‘paleo diet’ consisted of eating, above all, meat, but more and more studies have put on the table that our ancestors were not as carnivorous as we believed. And, from time to time, tools appear that support that plant diet in ancient times.
The last? Chinese tools with at least 300,000 years old.
The discovery. In an article published in Science, researchers detail a series of 35 wood tools found in the Gantangqing archaeological site, located southwest China. Using methods such as electronic spin resonance on sediment minerals attached to the tools, researchers have been able to date with a 95% confidence this set of tools in a segment between 250,000 and 361,000 years.
This collection includes tools of all kinds, such as large sticks to dig two hands, hooks and some smaller supplies, and researchers detail that all of them have clear manufacturing marks such as rounded ends, more sharp parts and other polished surfaces.
Collectors. The hunt was present at the time and was of great importance, obviously, but we have already commented that there is more and more evidence about the relevance of collection and plant diet before agriculture. The estimate is that these tools did not serve for hunting, but to process plant foods.
The analysis of both the waste that presents the tools and the use brands indicate that they were designed to excavate and collect grounds and tubers and roots. Hook -shaped tools, for example, could have served to cut the smallest roots and tools to clean vegetables in a precise way.
Contrast. Almost as interesting as the tools themselves is precisely that collecting purpose. The reason is that in Western Eurasia and in Africa wood of that seniority had already been found, but the enormous difference is that the majority of tools were hunting while the Gantangqing repertoire, apart from more diverse, specializes in that plant collection.
Importance beyond diet. Although they are tools of the last years of the lower Paleolithic in which the rock tools were more than established, but there was the hypothesis that, in East Asia the rocks were less abundant than in other regions and the populations depended largely on organic tools. And that need forced the elaboration of the tools made from wood.
And, above all, the discovery puts on the table that the cognitive abilities of the population of the Southeast Asia and its ability to create advanced tools was comparable to that of European and African contemporaries.
In the end, it is always curious to verify how a “simple” discovery, as a tool of tens of thousands of years ago, allows to establish a connection with the diet of that population, their skills compared to those of other areas and how they raffled difficulties to continue advancing. And also how the stone that we always associated with the Paleolithic was not the only protagonist in the technological evolution of the species.
In WorldOfSoftware | About 3 million years ago our ancestors already used tools that they themselves manufactured
