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Stone tools 'change migration story' Oman

Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 19 March 2012  Page Views: 8094

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Country: Oman
Stone tools 'change migration story'
Stone tools 'change migration story' submitted by Andy B : A rock (several views shown) from which sharp flakes were pounded off around 106,000 years ago in southern Arabia displays an ancient East African toolmaking style. Credit: Yamandu Hilbert (Vote or comment on this photo)
A research team reports findings of stone age tools suggesting humans came "out of Africa" earlier than has been thought.Geneticists estimate migration from Africa took place as recently as 60,000 years ago. But Oxford researchers say stone artefacts found in the Arabian Peninsula and India point to an exodus starting about 70,000 to 80,000 years ago - possibly earlier.

Dr Michael Petraglia, of Oxford University, whose co-workers include Australian and Indian researchers, presented his ideas at the British Science Festival in November 2010:

"I believe that multiple populations came out of Africa in the period between 120,000 and 70,000 years ago," he said. "Our evidence is stone tools that we can date." Most of the tools are from far inland - hundreds of kilometres from the coasts. This means it was more likely humans migrated by land than in boats, he said.

The tools are found in areas that are often very inhospitable now, but which at the time would have been much more conducive to migration. "During the period we're talking about, the environments were actually very hospitable," he told BBC News. "So where there are deserts today, there used to be lakes and rivers, and there was an abundance of plants and animals."

The team found the stone tools - ranging from a couple of centimetres to nearly 10cm in size - in layers of sediment that they can date using sand and volcanic material found above and below the implements. The tools were mainly either spear heads or scrapers. In particular, some tools were sandwiched in ash from the famous Toba eruption that geologists can date very accurately to 74,000 years ago.

Dr Petraglia's team now hopes to continue its excavations in the region. "We have literally hundreds of projects in Europe and a handful in the Arabian-South Asian belt," he said.

For more, including the evidence of genetics, see www.bbc.co.uk.

Note: Update: - stone tools collected at several sites along a plateau in Oman, which date to roughly 106,000 years ago, match elongated cutting implements previously found at East African sites from around the same time
Contributor Bio for coldrum: Based in Milkyway, contributing since 2002. Favourite site: Avebury.

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"Stone tools 'change migration story'" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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Trail of 'stone breadcrumbs' reveals the identity of 1 of the first human groups by bat400 on Sunday, 15 April 2012
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And another article about similar finds:
A series of new archaeological discoveries in the Sultanate of Oman, nestled in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, reveals the timing and identity of one of the first modern human groups to migrate out of Africa, according to a research article published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

An international team of archaeologists and geologists working in the Dhofar Mountains of southern Oman, led by Dr. Jeffrey Rose of the University of Birmingham, report finding over 100 new sites classified as "Nubian Middle Stone Age (MSA)." Distinctive Nubian MSA stone tools are well known throughout the Nile Valley; however, this is the first time such sites have ever been found outside of Africa.

According to the authors, the evidence from Oman provides a "trail of stone breadcrumbs" left by early humans migrating across the Red Sea on their journey out of Africa. "After a decade of searching in southern Arabia for some clue that might help us understand early human expansion, at long last we've found the smoking gun of their exit from Africa," says Rose. "What makes this so exciting," he adds, "is that the answer is a scenario almost never considered."

All of the Nubian MSA sites were found far inland, contrary to the currently accepted theory that envisions early human groups moving along the coast of southern Arabia. "Here we have an example of the disconnect between theoretical models versus real evidence on the ground," says co-author Professor Emeritus Anthony Marks of Southern Methodist University. "The coastal expansion hypothesis looks reasonable on paper, but there is simply no archaeological evidence to back it up. Genetics predict an expansion out of Africa after 70,000 thousand years ago, yet we've seen three separate discoveries published this year with evidence for humans in Arabia thousands, if not tens of thousands of years prior to this date."


Thanks to coldrum for this link. For more, see: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11.
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Tools of a kind by bat400 on Monday, 19 March 2012
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Culturally speaking, ancient East Africans were a stone’s throw away from southern Arabia.

Stone tools collected at several sites along a plateau in Oman, which date to roughly 106,000 years ago, match elongated cutting implements previously found at East African sites from around the same time, say archaeologist Jeffrey Rose of the University of Birmingham, England, and his colleagues. New finds also include cores — or rocks from which tools were pounded off with a hammer stone — that correspond to East African specimens, the researchers report online November 30 in PLoS ONE.

East African sites that have yielded these distinctive stone artifacts extend southward along the Nile River to the Horn of Africa. “In the mountain of papers speculating about human dispersal out of Africa, a link between southern Arabia and the Nile Valley has never been considered,” Rose says.

Either Africans crossed the Red Sea and trekked into southern Arabia well before an African exodus around 60,000 years ago, or ancient people from Arabia influenced African toolmaking, the scientists suggest.

“The finds in Oman are rather spectacular,” comments archaeologist Michael Petraglia of the University of Oxford, England. “They have a date that is earlier than similar African artifacts, which could imply a migration back to Africa, or at least a flow between African and Arabian populations.”

Although human fossils haven’t turned up at the Arabian location or at related African tool sites, Homo sapiens bones date to as early as 195,000 years ago in East Africa.

It’s unclear whether ancient Oman toolmakers continued eastward to South Asia or stayed put. Their distinctive toolmaking style doesn’t appear at Indian sites dating to around 74,000 years ago, Petraglia says.

Rose sees similarities between the Oman tools and 50,000-year-old stone implements previously excavated in and around modern-day Israel. He speculates that plentiful rainfall between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago made inner parts of Arabia habitable and enabled people in southern Arabia to spread northward and influence toolmaking techniques.

The new discoveries in Oman add to evidence that people reached Arabia’s east coast as early as 125,000 years ago (SN: 2/26/11, p. 5) and a northern inland area by 75,000 years ago.

At least two culturally distinct human groups inhabited Stone Age Arabia, Rose suspects: one in the south and another in the north and east. Intriguingly, DNA studies indicate that people interbred with Neandertals soon after leaving Africa (SN: 6/5/10, p. 5). An ice age between 75,000 and 50,000 years ago may have driven people and Neandertals into parts of Arabia that still had water sources, where interbreeding probably occurred, Rose hypothesizes.

The stone tools found at Oman, and those found at Arabia’s two other early H. sapiens sites, display few similarities, in Petraglia’s view. “This must mean that the story of migration and survival, and out-of-Africa dispersals, is much more complex than we have imagined,” he says.

Thanks to coldrum for the link: http://www.sciencenews.org
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Re: Stone tools 'change migration story' by SueKing on Friday, 05 November 2010
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Cool but it could be the bunch that met Neanderthals and interbred a bit after leaving Africa were the first to survive. The genetics seem to support that. Toba could have meant the earlier emigrants starved?
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