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   From: alt.fan.jai-maharaj@googlegroups.com   
      
   Ancient tools found in India undermine the "out of   
   Africa" hypothesis   
      
   385,000-year-old evidence for much earlier meetings   
   between African and Indian hominins.   
      
   By Annalee Newitz   
   Ars Technica, arstechnica.com   
   January 31, 2018   
      
   The red star marks the location of Attirampakkam on this   
   map. It was once located next to the shady floodplain of   
   a stream. Early humans started coming here almost 400,000   
   years ago to make tools from quartzite rocks borne by the   
   stream to the area.  Nature   
      
   The scientists carefully dated the layers of the site,   
   created by sediments from regular flooding.  Nature   
      
   Some of the thousands of tools and tool parts found at   
   Attirampakkam. Note that there is a mix of older biface   
   hand axe tools and sophisticated, Middle Paleolithic   
   (Levallois) tools. That's a typical mix, and it does not   
   represent two different groups.  Nature   
      
   These are from a later period. Middle Paleolithic tools   
   are often smaller and require more steps to make than   
   biface handaxes. Based on this new evidence, we can see   
   that Middle Paleolithic (Levallois) tools become popular   
   in Africa and India at roughly the same time, between   
   300-200,000 years ago.  Nature   
      
   Scientists have unveiled an extraordinary new analysis of   
   thousands of stone tools found at a site called   
   Attirampakkam in India, northwest of Chennai in Tamil   
   Nadu. Thanks to new dating techniques, a team led by   
   archaeologist Shanti Pappu determined that most of the   
   tools are between 385,000 and 172,000 years old. What   
   makes these dates noteworthy is that they upend the idea   
   that tool-making was transformed in India after an influx   
   of modern Homo sapiens came from Africa starting about   
   130,000 years ago.   
      
   According to these findings, hominins in India were   
   making tools that looked an awful lot like what people   
   were making in Africa almost 250,000 years before they   
   encountered modern humans. This is yet another piece of   
   evidence that the "out of Africa" process was a lot   
   messier and more complex than previously thought.   
      
   Pappu worked out of the Sharma Centre for Heritage   
   Education in Chennai with a team of geoscientists and   
   physicists to date the tools. They used a technique   
   called "post-infrared infrared-stimulated luminescence,"   
   which measures how long ago minerals were exposed to   
   light or heat. In essence, it allows scientists to   
   determine how long ago a tool was buried and hidden from   
   the Sun's heat, and it uses that information as a proxy   
   for the tool's age.   
      
   Writing in Nature, the group explains that the   
   Attirampakkam site is ideal for this kind of dating,   
   because it was regularly flooded by a nearby stream,   
   meaning that discarded tools were quickly covered up by   
   sediments in the water. Those regular floods left behind   
   a relatively tidy stack of debris layers, each of which   
   could be dated.   
      
   To their surprise, Pappu and her colleagues found that   
   this region--once a tree-shaded shoreline, ideal for long-   
   term camping--had been occupied by early humans for   
   hundreds of thousands of years. Partly that's because the   
   river carried great heaps of quartzite rocks and pebbles   
   to the area. Quartz was the preferred stone for tools,   
   and it's obvious that this place was a tool workshop.   
   Alongside axes, knives, projectile points, and scrapers,   
   the team found half-finished tools and discarded flakes   
   created by chipping away at a rock to make a blade.   
      
   Continues at:   
      
   https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/new-discoveries-raise-cr   
   tical-questions-for-out-of-africa-hypothesis/   
      
   Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi   
   Om Shanti   
      
   http://bit.do/jaimaharaj   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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