Was there someone before human existence who had the same or may be higher intelligence level? A research conducted by scientists in the deserts of north western Kenya tries to answer this question after they found tools that dated back at least 700,000 years.
The tools, whose makers may or may not have been some sort of human ancestor, poses a challenge to the notion that our own most direct ancestors were the first to bang two rocks together to create new technology.
The discovery is the first evidence of an even earlier group of proto-humans who may have had the thinking abilities needed to figure out how to make sharp-edged tools.
Geologist Chris Lepre said the whole site was surprising; “it just rewrites the book on a lot of things that we thought were true.”
Author Sonia Harmand added that the tools shed light on an unexpected and previously unknown period of hominin behavior, and could tell a lot about cognitive development in human ancestors that they couldn’t understand from fossils alone.
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