The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 14, 2010

Official News page 7


REAL LIFE NEWS: STONE AGE AXE INVENTED IN OZ

by Hazed

While on the subject of ancient technology, Australia has now laid claim to being the country that invented the stone age axe.

An archaeologist from Oz, Dr Bruno David, says, "This new evidence for the earliest securely dated ground-edge implement in the world indicates that Australia was an important locale of technology innovation 35,000 years ago."

Humanity's primitive ancestors were using stone tools as long as 3.4 million years ago, but it wasn't until homo sapiens that somebody came up with the idea of grinding the edge to make a sharper tool that was much better at cutting.

Previously, the earliest known stone ground-edge tools were dated from about 22,000 to 30,000 years ago. But in 2006 a large rock shelter was spotted from the air in an aboriginal territory in northern Australia, and when it was explored by archaeologists they found the record-breaking ancient chopper. In dating it to 35,000 years ago, it pre-dates the previous examples.

So the Australian aborigines were the ones that started us on the technology trail which has led to spaceships, nuclear power, and the computer you are reading this news on!

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