Prehistoric Knives Suggest Humans Competed

[Gil]

recent excavation of 400,000-year-old stone tools in Britain suggests that two groups of early humans could have competed with each other for food and turf. In the past, anthropologists have argued that only one group of ancient humans lived in Britain, and that these hominids created and used both axes and flake knives, which were made by flaking off small particles from a larger rock, or by breaking off a large flake that was then used as the tool.


Archaeologists in Ebbsfleet, Kent, investigating the site of a new high-speed rail link connection for the Channel Tunnel, found the remains of a huge Stone Age elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus.

Some form of prehistoric human had chopped up the beast with stone flake tools before consuming the elephant raw. Additional flake tools were found nearby, suggesting that the hunters had camped out in the area.

Butchering an elephant with a flake knife would be comparable to trying to cut into a juicy steak with a rock. If diners could use sleeker, sharper axes, why wouldn't they?

A number of experts think that the Stone Age flake knife users were distinct from the axe makers, which would indicate that two separate groups, and possibly even two separate hominid species, would have simultaneously coexisted in ancient Britain and been in competition for food and resources.

"The evidence is only tantalizing, but it is intriguing," said Chris Stringer, director of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project and a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum, London. "Certainly it suggests Britain may well have been multicultural 400,000 years ago."

Stringer added, "At this time in Europe, Homo heidelbergensis was giving way, or evolving, into Neanderthals. There are hints gleaned from comparing bits of their bones and tools that we have found in Britain and the continent that there may be separate species of this creature: one that made hand-axes and one that did not. This is one of the big questions of human evolution studies today and a major focus for our work."

Before the recent discoveries, clues to Britain's early inhabitants included a shinbone, a couple of teeth, pieces of a skull that probably belonged to one of our early, apish ancestors, and Stone Age flake knives and axes.

The axes demonstrate an early form of technology called Acheulean, which is characterized by two-sided tools with a handhold. These axes resemble almond-shaped rocks with a cutting surface on top, while some experts liken the flake tools to modern box knives. To the untrained eye, most flake tools resemble rocks with edges.

Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine, agreed with Stringer, although Pitts said he thought that the flake knife users, called Clactonians, were not unsophisticated. They just may have had a different culture, similar to how some people today use chop sticks while others use forks.

"Faced with butchering an elephant, you'd get it done a lot more efficiently with hand axes, because they have longer and stronger cutting edges than flakes," Pitts told Discovery News.

Pitts continued, "When you're a good knapper, as these guys were, knocking up a hand axe takes little more time than a bunch of good flakes. You just need to be a bit more prepared, (with) better flint, and a good selection of knapping tools."

Nick Ashton, an archaeologist at the British Museum, thinks that the flake knife fanciers might have been foreign.

"I would now consider the possibility of a group of different people coming from a different part of Europe," Ashton said. "Not necessarily a different species, but a cultural interpretation is plausible."

All three experts, however, agree that two distinct groups, one that favored axes and another that favored flakes, may have coexisted in Stone Age Britain and likely were in competition with each other for food and land. In the future, they hope to determine exactly what happened to the flake-using losers.