Fire treatment to improve stone tools discovered at least 72,000 years ago

September 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - New findings in the form of carbonized rice have indicated that farming in the Yangtze Basin in China existed as early as 4,000 years ago. According to a report in Epoch Times, excavation in the Xiezi Area of Hubei Province yielded a total of 402 cultural relics, including carbonized rice.

September 17th, 2009 DUBLIN - Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old arrowhead in the Burren, in Ireland, which is evidence of what could be the oldest habitation site in the region. According to a report in The Irish Times, Graham Hull, director of the dig, said that the team of archaeologists "were whooping and jumping up and down at the discovery of a stone arrowhead".

September 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of archaeologists has found four giant stone hand axes from the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert in Africa, dating back to the Stone Age, which suggests that the region was once much drier and wetter than it is today. The discovery of the axes is part of the finding of thousands of stone tools on the lake bed, which sheds new light on how humans in Africa adapted to several substantial climate change events during the period that coincided with the last Ice Age in Europe.

September 3rd, 2009 LONDON - New analysis has dated hand axes from southern Spain to nearly half a million years old, suggesting that advanced Stone Age tools were present in Europe far earlier than was previously believed. Acheulian axes, which date to at least 1.5 million years ago, have been found in Africa, and similar tools at least 700,000 years old have been found in Israel and China.

August 19th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric water-filled cave in the Dominican Republic, containing stone tools, a small primate skull in remarkable condition, and the claws, jawbone and other bones of several species of sloths, which offers clues to the Caribbean's earliest inhabitants. The discoveries extend by thousands of years the scope of investigations led Charles Beeker, director of Academic Diving and Underwater Science Programs at IU Bloomington's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and his interdisciplinary team of collaborators.

August 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have found evidence in Africa that humans began using fire to create tools nearly 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, a time that marks the turning point when we acquired intelligence and became "uniquely human." Before finding the 72,000-year-old cache of stone weapons, scientists had thought people began manipulating fire to create tools in Europe about 25,000 years ago. But, according to a report in National Geographic News, the new finds suggest that people in what is now South Africa discovered that heating a stone called silcrete would make it easier to flake, allowing them to shape more advanced blades, knives, and other tools.

August 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of archaeologists has come across evidence which proves that the "Peking Man" was able to use fire roughly 200-000 to 500,000 years ago. "Peking Man" is referred to a group of fossil specimens, hundreds of thousands of years old, discovered in 1923-27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian near Beijing (at that time known as Peking), in China.

August 6th, 2009 LONDON - Researchers at the University of Zaragoza have unearthed what they believe is man's earliest map, dating from almost 14,000 years ago. The research team, led by archaeologist Pilar Utrilla, discovered a stone tablet in a cave in Abauntz in the Navarra region of northern Spain in 1993 but it has taken them 15 years to disentangle the mess of etched lines.

July 27th, 2009 LONDON - Archaeologists have uncovered remarkable evidence that stone age man lived in the centre of Birmingham, UK, more than 10,000 years ago. According to a report in Birmingham Post, the settlers used basic flint knives to hunt and cut meat and used fire to clear areas of woodland for grazing and growing food.

July 12th, 2009 TEHRAN - Archaeologists have discovered what is being dubbed as Iran's largest Paleolithic area in the Mirk hill, located in the southern part of the city of Semnan. The 4-hectare area, which dates back to the middle-Paleolithic era, has yielded numerous ancient objects belonging to Neanderthals.

June 25th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Reports indicate that reinforcement has begun at the Peking Man site in China to prevent one of its walls from collapsing. 'Peking Man' is referred to a group of fossil specimens, hundreds of thousands of years old, discovered in 1923-27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian near Beijing (at that time known as Peking), in China.

May 26th, 2009 LONDON - Rooks, a member of the crow family, are surprisingly innovative when it comes to searching food - they are not only capable of using tools but also making and modifying them for their use. "This finding is remarkable because rooks do not appear to use tools in the wild, yet they rival habitual tools users such as chimpanzees and New Caledonian crows when tested in captivity," said Chris Bird of Cambridge University, co-author of the study.

May 26th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Rooks, a member of the crow family, are no bird-brained, infact they're as good with their beaks as chimps are with their hands.esearchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Queen Mary, University of London have found that rooks have the capacity to use and make tools, modifying them to make them work and using two tools in a sequence. The surprising study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

May 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Stone Age humans who lived about 70,000 years ago were such good chemists that they made a sophisticated kind of natural glue by tweaking the chemical and physical properties of an iron-containing pigment, known as red ochre, with the gum of acacia trees for their shafted tools, according to a study. While it has long been believed that the blood-red pigment served a decorative or symbolic purpose, scientists also suspected that the pigment might have been purposely added to improve glue that held the peoples' tools together.

April 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at the Derry and Donegal Archaeological Society have found an 8000 year-old axe head on Inch Island in Ireland. According to a report in the Derry Journal, the discovery was made in the Baylet area of Inch Island and is believed to date from the Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age, which in Ireland commenced about 7000 BC and continued until 4000 BC.