Stone tools of more than 1 million years old have been found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. That is surprising, because the island is always surrounded by seawater in periods of extremely low sea level and it is completely unclear how long ago people could have bridge such a Zeestraat. It is also surprising because the oldest traces of human presence on Sulawesi so far were ‘only’ 200,000 years old.
But the new find in Callo, southwest-sulawesi, is again not super surprising, because earlier tools of one million years old have been found on nearby, also always surrounded by the Sea Island of Flores. The find of the seven tools on Sulawesi is described in Natureby a large team of archaeologists and geologists, led by Budianto Hakim (Brin-University Hasanuddin, Makassar) and Adam Brumm (Griffith University, Brisbane).
It is not clear who the makers can be of the tools on Sulawesi, bones of that age are not (yet) found. Given old age, it is likely that this is about Gay erectuswho already lived on Java around this time. On Flores, the approximately equally old tools are also usually assigned to Gay erectusalso because there is a strong suspicion that the small flores man (Homo Floresiensis) A diligent descendant is from Gay erectus. The oldest bones of this ‘Hobbit’, which lived on the island about 50,000 years ago, are 700,000 years old. Incidentally, such a drifted bones were never found on Sulawesi.
Wander on a tree
How Gay erectus The sea trip to these islands is unclear. A million years ago, conscious navigation on boats or rafts is unlikely, but drifting on a tree blown away in a hurricane is certainly not excluded.
And not everyone is already convinced of the reliability of this tool discovery in Sulawesi. Archaeologist Wil Roebroeks (Leiden University) praises the quality of the publication, but mainly because he is now very able to evaluate the authors’ arguments by the supplied 3D models. And his conclusions are critical, he reports by e-mail when asked. “Possibly? Certainly! Convincing? Certainly not!”
Roebroek was able to view the seven ‘artifacts’ from all sides and he sees no reason to interpret them as consciously made artifacts. “Because there are no unambiguous traces of operation on the heavily weathered pieces, such as clear residual surfaces, well-developed battles, concentric negatives etc. As far as I am concerned, this is over-interpretation. For such a big claim-in Nature – Expect your better material. ”
And that is precisely why Roebroeks also misses data about the other stones found on the spot. “How many” possible “artifacts – pieces that are in their eyes” doubts “have they discarded to keep these seven?” ROEBROEKS thereby refers to a basic rule that the British archaeologist Charles Warren all in 1920 formulated that the distinction between conscious operations and casual changes of stones must always be based on an overview of the entire group and not through the careful selection of the right copies “.