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Tools from South Africa’s Robberg caves match styles found in Namibia and Lesotho, suggesting early humans shared methods and maintained widespread connections.

In a cave perched above the ocean on South Africa’s southern coast, archaeologists have uncovered thousands of stone tools crafted by ancient humans around 20,000 years ago. By closely examining the fine details along the chipped edges of the blades and stones, researchers can determine how the tools were made.

Prehistoric stone tool cores. Credit: Sara Watson

In a new study published in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, the team analyzed these artifacts to explore how different manufacturing techniques reflect patterns of prehistoric movement, interaction, and knowledge-sharing among early human communities.

“This is an important insight into how people who lived in this region were living and hunting and responding to their environment,” says Sara Watson, a postdoctoral scientist at the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center and the study’s lead author.

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Tibet, 1930s. Harrison Forman

The 108 braids is a reference to the 108 volumes of the Kangyur, the Tibetan Buddhist canon.

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“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

— C.S. Lewis

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Agate intaglio depicting a warrior contemplating a decapitated head, Greek Southern Italy, 2nd century BC

from The Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

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Tomb relief of Merit, wife of Maya, Chancellor and overseer of the treasury during the reign of Kings Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.

From the tomb of Maya at Saqqara. Read more

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Oldest Known Wooden Structure Predates Homo Sapiens

In 2019, archaeologists working at Kalambo Falls in Zambia, discovered the oldest known wooden structure when it was determined through luminescence dating to be at least 476,000 years old, so predating Homo sapiens.

Found within the Kalambo Falls Prehistoric Sites, the Kalambo Structure is a Lower Palaeolithic wooden structure, of which two pieces have been uncovered along with other wooden tools. Consisting of two interlocking wooden logs, the smaller one has tapered ends as well as a U-shaped notch and overlies the larger one, which passes through the notch. It could have been used as a walkway, to keep food or firewood dry, or perhaps as a base to building a dwelling.

Wooden tools have also been found along with the structure, include a wedge and a digging stick. They have been found in several areas across the BLB site, and are younger than the structure itself, having been dated to between 390,000 and 324,000 years ago.

It's a discovery that could indicate that the hominins who lived at Kalambo Falls had a settled lifestyle, which would challenge the prevailing view that Stone Age hominins had a nomadic lifestyle. Though no hominin remains have been discovered at Kalambo Falls, so no conclusive attribution can be made, a 300,000-year-old Homo heidelbergensis skull has been found at another Zambian site.

Archaeologists such as Larry Barham of the University of Liverpool, the leader of the expedition that uncovered the structure, believe that wooden tools were potentially even more common than stone tools in the Stone Age, although due to rapid decay of wood in soil, archaeologists could not find such tools. Mentioning the likely co-evolution of wooden and stone tools, they link the innovation shown by the Kalambo structure to the later invention of hafting, with several parts linked together in a single tool.

(source)

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Suizan Kurokawa - Untitled photo, Japan, ca. 1906.

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Detail of an Assyrian relief from the Northwest Palace of Ashurnasirpal II in the Assyrian capital city of Nimrud (883-859 BCE). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD.

Photo by Babylon Chronicle

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Native American Indoors Pueblo Weaver Hopi 1890s 1898

Hopi man weaving a kochina sash for a ceremonial kilt, Arizona - Wharton - ca.1898

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Illustration from "Notes of Small Ornamented Stone Balls" from "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland", December 14, 1874.

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Traditional Reed House Settlement in the Iraq Marshes of Al-Chibayish, Dhi Qar

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“Even though we physically moved away, the spirits of my ancestors are still here. If you stop for a minute and listen, you can hear the children laughing and the women talking. You can hear the dogs barking and the turkeys gobbling. You can hear and feel the beat of the drums and the singing. You can smell the cooking fires. You can feel their presence, their warmth, their sense of community.” — TJ Atsye, Laguna Pueblo

The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde are some of the most notable and best preserved in North America. Sometime during the late 1190s, after primarily living on the mesa tops for 600 years, many Ancestral Pueblo people began moving into pueblos they built into natural cliff alcoves.

The structures ranged in size from one-room granaries to villages of more than 150 rooms. While still farming the mesa tops, they lived in cliff dwellings, repairing, remodeling, and constructing new rooms for nearly a century.

In the mid-1200s, the population began migrating to the south, into present-day New Mexico and Arizona. By the end of the 1200s, most everyone had migrated away.