Human Ancestors Were Homemakers

[Adsos Letter]

Source: LiveScience
By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Staff Writer


A basalt handaxe (top) and basalt cleaver (bottom), found at an archaeological site in Israel demonstrating the earliest known living area organization. Credit: Leore Grosman, Computerized Archaeology Laboratory, The Hebrew University.


In a stone-age version of "Iron Chef," early humans were dividing their living spaces into kitchens and work areas much earlier than previously thought, a new study found.

So rather than cooking and eating in the same area where they snoozed, early humans demarcated such living quarters.

Archaeologists discovered evidence of this coordinated living at a hominid site at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel from about 800,000 years ago. Scientists aren't sure exactly who lived there, but it predates the appearance of modern humans, so it was likely a human ancestor such as Homo erectus.

Yet this advanced organizational skill was thought to be a marker of modern human intelligence. Before now, the only concrete proof for divided living spaces dated back to only 100,000 years ago.

http://www.livescience.com/culture/091217-stone-age-homemakers.html

[saltpoint]

1. Recommended.

:thumbsup: :hi:

[asdjrocky]

2. Great story!

[bleever]

3. Curious to know more about how these tools are identified.

I assume from looking at them they show knapping, but unsure how to distinguish them from random pieces of basalt.

[xchrom]

4. Recommend--- is it soup yet? Nt

[Chulanowa]

5. I'm not sure how they came across the idea of it meaning delineated living spaces

It seems to me just common sense. You don't knap your tools i nthe same palce you're eating or preparing food - you don't want to get a shard of flint or something in your grub, after all. And it was probably more conveniant to butcher and prepare the meat and such away from the cooking area - just in case a roving pack of hyenas decided to barge in, there was space between the two sources of food - let hte hyenas snatch one and you make off with hte other.