News Anthropology

Ancient climate shifts may have sparked human ingenuity and networking

Stone tools suggest rise of humanlike behaviors by 320,000 years ago

stone tools

TOOLING DOWN  By around 320,000 years ago in East Africa, Homo sapiens or a close relative had shifted from making large chopping implements (left) to fashioning spearpoints and other small tools (right).

Human Origins Program/Smithsonian

By Bruce Bower

- More than 2 years ago

Dramatic shifts in the East African climate may have driven toolmaking advances and the development of trading networks among Homo sapiens or their close relatives by the Middle Stone Age, roughly 320,000 years ago.