In a cave in South Africa, one of the earliest human activities was discovered. In the Wonderwerk Cave in the nation's Kalahari Desert, a group of geologists and archaeologists discovered proof that our predecessors were manufacturing tools and fire 1.8 million years ago.
Wonderwerk, which translates to "miracle" in Afrikaans, may contain the earliest proof of human activity ever found, according to a recent study from academics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Toronto.
Professor Ron Shaar of Hebrew University, the study's principal author, said, "We can now declare with confidence that our human ancestors were creating rudimentary Oldowan stone tools within the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago.
The earliest tools, dating back to 2.6 million years ago, are Oldowan stone tools. Making a chopping tool for the Oldowan people involved chipping flakes off of one stone with another stone.
Wonderwerk is distinct from other ancient sites where tool shards have been discovered, according to Professor Shaar, because it is a cave as opposed to the open air, where sample origins are more difficult to identify and contamination is conceivable.
The researchers used the cave to date the transition from Oldowan tools to the earliest handaxes, which occurred more than a million years ago. The scientists discovered when exploring further into the cave that a purposeful usage of fire could be traced back one million years.
This is relevant because instances of early fire use frequently occur at outdoor locations where wildfires may have contributed to them. Burned bones, ash, and equipment left behind by previous fires in a cave give obvious hints as to their use.
The researchers used burial dating and paleomagnetism to assess magnetic signals from the remains buried beneath a sedimentary rock layer that was 2.5 meters thick in order to correctly date their discovery. The magnetic properties of prehistoric clay particles that accumulated on the cave floor can be used to determine the direction of the old earth's magnetic field. The scientists were able to reduce the dating range of the cave layers by using the dates of magnetic field reversals.
Another dating technique, developed by Professor Ari Matmon of Hebrew University, focused on quartz sand isotopes that "had a built-in geological clock that starts ticking when they enter a cave" and helped to support their findings. He explained that by measuring the concentrations of particular isotopes in those particles in their lab, the researchers were "able to assess the concentrations of those particles and extrapolate how long it had been since those grains of sand entered the cave."
A deeper knowledge of human evolution in Africa and the mode of life of our earliest ancestors may result from discovering the precise dates of human activity in the Wonderwerk Cave.
