Science
Related: About this forum200,000-750,000 Peking Man had hearths, spears, clothing and more
'Peking Man' Was Sophisticated & Meticulous About Clothing, Artifacts Suggest
"Peking Man," a human ancestor who lived in China between roughly 200,000 and 750,000 years ago, was a wood-working, fire-using, spear-hafting hominid who, mysteriously, liked to drill holes into objects for unknown reasons.
And, yes, these hominids, a form of Homo erectus, appear to have been quite meticulous about their clothing, using stone tools to soften and depress animal hides.
The new discoveries paint a picture of a human ancestor who was more sophisticated than previously believed. .Among their archaeological findings is a 300,000-year-old "activity floor" (as the scientists call it) containing what may be a hearth and fireplace, akin to a prehistoric living room. The team also found evidence through the use-wear analysis that Peking Man was working wood (which didn't preserve in the cave) with their stone tools, possibly to turn it into wooden tools.
Perhaps the strangest finding was evidence for "drilling." Shen explained they don't know what the hominids were drilling into, or why, but they were certainly engaging in it with their stone tools.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/peking-man-clothing_n_2390026.html#slide=more202948
Then mankind did nothing new for hundreds of thousands of years until Göbekli Tepe.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)knitter4democracy
(14,350 posts)Holes for awls, trying a hole to see if that holds a spear point on better, you name it--holes in wood or stone can make a better tool. *sighs* These people have no imagination if they can't figure out what he was drilling holes for.
pscot
(21,024 posts)Viva_La_Revolution
(28,791 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)It seems be quite a bit earlier that previously thought for this kind of activity.