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Is this really all that old? The Levallois technique has been found in India dating to 385,000 years ago. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/31/

Is this really all that old? The Levallois technique has been found in India dating to 385,000 years ago. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/31/582102242/discovery-in-india-suggests-an-early-global-spread-of-stone-age-technology#:~:text=The%20more%20recent%20tools%2C%20which,a%20flake%20with%20sharp%20edges https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/31/5821022....

InSteady 3y ago
The article discusses many different techniques, applied to several different materials: >The people inhabiting the region had a remarkably advanced tool kit, with a range of innovative tools from the Upper Paleolithic, including end-scrapers, awls, and tools of former times, including Middle Paleolithic Levallois points, various tanged tools, denticulates, and borers. Sounds noteworthy not necessarily for being the oldest example of any particular tool/technique so much as using all of them together, as well as making use of graphite and collecting toolmaking materials from hundreds of kilometers away. Apparently this diverse toolkit allowed them to thrive by specializing in hunting horses.
- huytersd 3y ago
  Yeah I saw that. The article I linked to points to the tools found used as knives, scrapers, borers and axes. The only new thing I saw was the use of graphite but besides that most of it was already happening 350,000 years(!) before that point which is why it didn’t seem all that remarkable to me. What I found especially remarkable was that the hominid that made all those tools in India wasn’t even Homo sapiens and it is kind of unknown who made them at this point. What’s even more interesting is that these tools were found significantly under the layer of deposits left behind from the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago. There’s so much we don’t know, it’s all very interesting.
wolverine876 3y ago
The number I know is about 500,000 years ago. https://askananthropologist.asu.edu/stories/chipping-away-tools-stone-age https://askananthropologist.asu.edu/stories/chipping-away-to...
- huytersd 3y ago
  That’s Oldowan. Levallois was a more advanced technique found starting in the later Paleolithic.
  - throwup238 3y ago
    Oldowan is ~3MYa to 1.5ish MYa. 500 kYa would be Acheulean or even upper Sangoan depending on the region. I don’t think Levallois started until around 300kYa (the error bars are huge, 385k is another interpretation).
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      Acheulean followed Oldowan, from ~1.8 MYa to up to 250 kYa in some places. For Levallois, I think I'll trust the anthropologist in the link without some better evidence. Let's recall that technology didn't spread then nearly as quickly as today - no way for people in (current) India to know what people in (current) France were doing, for a long, long time.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwup238 3y ago
        Did you read your link carefully? > About 500,000 years ago, Acheulean technology began to disappear, and our ancestors started making tools using a trickier method. The Levallois technique was an important development, as flakes of an exact size and shape could be made. Acheuleun “began to disappear” is not the same as “evidence of Levallois starting”. The whole paragraph is vague and poorly written. There are several intermediary industries like Sangoan and the aging on the first Levallois tools is controversial and based on sedimentary layers, not more precise methods. This is a junk layman article, not a precise description of the evolution from Acheuleun to Levallois
        wolverine876 3y ago
AlotOfReading 3y ago
Lithics terminology is always confusing. Levallois encompasses a huge variety of different traditions. The headlining article here is talking an Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) tradition. It's one of those technical terms that everyone uses a little differently, but usually means something along the lines of "uses middle paleolithic techniques (like levallois) to make upper paleolithic designs". They're associated with the entrance of anatomically modern humans into Eurasia (caveats apply). This site is notable because it's the oldest such site in China. We already know of older sites from the same broad pan-Gobi region (e.g. Tsagaan Agui), they're just not in China.

InSteady 3y ago

The article discusses many different techniques, applied to several different materials: >The people inhabiting the region had a remarkably advanced tool kit, with a range of innovative tools from the Upper Paleolithic, including end-scrapers, awls, and tools of former times, including Middle Paleolithic Levallois points, various tanged tools, denticulates, and borers. Sounds noteworthy not necessarily for being the oldest example of any particular tool/technique so much as using all of them together, as well as making use of graphite and collecting toolmaking materials from hundreds of kilometers away. Apparently this diverse toolkit allowed them to thrive by specializing in hunting horses.

huytersd 3y ago
Yeah I saw that. The article I linked to points to the tools found used as knives, scrapers, borers and axes. The only new thing I saw was the use of graphite but besides that most of it was already happening 350,000 years(!) before that point which is why it didn’t seem all that remarkable to me. What I found especially remarkable was that the hominid that made all those tools in India wasn’t even Homo sapiens and it is kind of unknown who made them at this point. What’s even more interesting is that these tools were found significantly under the layer of deposits left behind from the Toba eruption 74,000 years ago. There’s so much we don’t know, it’s all very interesting.

wolverine876 3y ago

The number I know is about 500,000 years ago. https://askananthropologist.asu.edu/stories/chipping-away-tools-stone-age https://askananthropologist.asu.edu/stories/chipping-away-to...

huytersd 3y ago
That’s Oldowan. Levallois was a more advanced technique found starting in the later Paleolithic.
- throwup238 3y ago
  Oldowan is ~3MYa to 1.5ish MYa. 500 kYa would be Acheulean or even upper Sangoan depending on the region. I don’t think Levallois started until around 300kYa (the error bars are huge, 385k is another interpretation).
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Acheulean followed Oldowan, from ~1.8 MYa to up to 250 kYa in some places. For Levallois, I think I'll trust the anthropologist in the link without some better evidence. Let's recall that technology didn't spread then nearly as quickly as today - no way for people in (current) India to know what people in (current) France were doing, for a long, long time.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwup238 3y ago
      Did you read your link carefully? > About 500,000 years ago, Acheulean technology began to disappear, and our ancestors started making tools using a trickier method. The Levallois technique was an important development, as flakes of an exact size and shape could be made. Acheuleun “began to disappear” is not the same as “evidence of Levallois starting”. The whole paragraph is vague and poorly written. There are several intermediary industries like Sangoan and the aging on the first Levallois tools is controversial and based on sedimentary layers, not more precise methods. This is a junk layman article, not a precise description of the evolution from Acheuleun to Levallois
      - wolverine876 3y ago

AlotOfReading 3y ago

Lithics terminology is always confusing. Levallois encompasses a huge variety of different traditions. The headlining article here is talking an Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) tradition. It's one of those technical terms that everyone uses a little differently, but usually means something along the lines of "uses middle paleolithic techniques (like levallois) to make upper paleolithic designs". They're associated with the entrance of anatomically modern humans into Eurasia (caveats apply). This site is notable because it's the oldest such site in China. We already know of older sites from the same broad pan-Gobi region (e.g. Tsagaan Agui), they're just not in China.