Neandertals used tools with versatility
By Bruce Bower
Hand axes. Scrapers. Blades. These and other labels archaeologists put on Stone Age implements imply that ancient people used the tools in specific ways. However, a new study indicates that groups in western Asia used stone implements in more flexible ways, which gave them access to a varied diet of plants and meat over a span of nearly 50,000 years.
The area’s prehistoric residents–generally classified by researchers as Neandertals–maintained their versatile stone-tool practices even as major cultural changes rocked the late Stone Age world, according to a team led by Bruce L. Hardy of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich.