Stone Age tools uncovered in Yemen point to humans leaving Africa and inhabiting Arabia perhaps as far back as 63,000 years ago, according to Anne Delagnes of Université Bordeaux. The archaeologists have been studying the site of Shi'bat Dihya located in a wadi, or gully, that connects Yemen's highlands to the coastal plains of the Red Sea.
      The age of the site puts it at a time when early modern humans were thought to be first emigrating from Eastern Africa to the rest of the world. "The Arabian Peninsula is routinely considered as the corridor where migrating East African populations would have passed during a single or multiple dispersal events," says the study. "It has also been suggested that the groups who colonized South Asia rapidly expanded from South and East Africa along the Arabian coastlines around 60 ka BP (60,000 years ago), bringing with them a modern behavioural package including microlithic (stone) backed tools, ostrich-eggshell beads or engraved fragments. However, this scenario is not supported by any hard archaeological evidence from the Arabian Peninsula. Up until recently, the absence of stratified contexts (archaeological sites) from the entirety of the region has rendered issues concerning the timing and trajectories of the earliest expansions of modern humans into the region largely theoretical."

Read the full story here  http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004807.html
Visit the Stone Age Tools Museum at http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk

NPL analyses surface wear on stone tools

Innovative research by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Bradford used laser microscopes to explore how stone tools were used in prehistory, and the process has helped streamline surface measurement techniques for modern manufacturers.

     Archaeologists at the University of Bradford hypothesised that reconstructing past activities was the best way to study what each tool was used for. They proposed to measure the surface structures of replica stone tools before and after they were used in different reconstructions on two natural materials - antler and wood.
     NPL conducted surface measurement investigations on the replica tools using a confocal microscope to create a map of surface structure. Richard Leach, who led the work at NPL, said: "We measured the surfaces of each tool using a confocal microscope to create a map of its surface structure. Optical measurements create 3D constructions of each surface recorded without physically contacting the surface."

Read the full story here: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-stone-age-tools-modern.html

Visit The Stone Age Tools Museum http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk

New find of Palaeolithic tools in India

In an 'incredibly significant find', archaeologists have discovered prehistoric remains at a river bank in Chhattisgarh’s Sarguja district, indicating continued settlements in the area from prehistoric to late medieval period.
     The tools and artefacts were found during exploration survey by archaeological department of Chhattisgarh government in January this year on the banks of river Renuka (called Renu by locals) in Mahespur area, nearly 40 km from district headquarters town of Ambikapur and around 350 km from Raipur.
     “We have discovered earliest stone age tools on the banks of river Renu. This is an incredibly significant find, since this is the first time Palaeolithic (stone age) tools have been discovered in Chhattisgarh. The remains, retrieved from Mahespur, also establishes for the first time a continuance cultural sequence from prehistoric to late medieval period,” archaeologist Atul Kumar Pradhan said on Sunday.

For full story go to:-
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/prehistoric-tools-artefacts-found-chhattisgarh-416


Visit the Stone Age Tools Museum:-
http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/

Stone Age Europeans discovered America

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.
     A remarkable series of several dozen European-style stone tools, dating back between 19,000 and 26,000 years, have been discovered at six locations along the US east coast. Three of the sites are on the Delmarva Peninsular in Maryland, discovered by archaeologist Dr Darrin Lowery of the University of Delaware. One is in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia. A sixth was discovered by scallop-dredging fishermen on the seabed 60 miles from the Virginian coast on what, in prehistoric times, would have been dry land.
     The similarity between other later east coast US and European Stone Age stone tool technologies has been noted before. But all the US European-style tools, unearthed before the discovery or dating of the recently found or dated US east coast sites, were from around 15,000 years ago - long after Stone Age Europeans (the Solutrean cultures of France and Iberia) had ceased making such artefacts. Most archaeologists had therefore rejected any possibility of a connection. But the newly-discovered and recently-dated early Maryland and other US east coast Stone Age tools are from between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago - and are therefore contemporary with the virtually identical western European material.
     Read the full story in the Independent here:-http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html

Visit The Stone Age Tools Museum here http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/

Dr. Douglas Bamforth will speak about the Mahaffy Cache, a collection of 83 artifacts discovered in 2008 beneath Patrick Mahaffy's front yard in Boulder, Colo., during a landscaping project. The 13,000-year-old tools were made from raw materials originated from the Uintah Mountains in northeastern Utah to Middle Park in the central Rocky Mountains. Bamforth will present about the discovery, the details of its analysis, and its implications for what we know about the earliest occupants of North America. The free program will be held at the Estes Park Museum, this Saturday, Feb. 4, beginning at 2 p.m. No reservations are necessary.

Read the full story here http://www.eptrail.com/ci_19878522

Visit The Stone Age Tools Museum at http://www.stoneagetools.co.uk/