The standardized production of bone tools by our ancestors pushed back one million years
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 3-Sep-2025 04:11 ET (3-Sep-2025 08:11 GMT/UTC)
Twenty-seven standardised bone tools dating back more than 1.5 million years were recently discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by a team of scientists from the CNRS and l’Université de Bordeaux1, in collaboration with international and Tanzanian researchers. This discovery challenges our understanding of early hominin technological evolution, as the oldest previously known standardised bone tools date back approximately 500,000 years.2
The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new study involving researchers at UCL and CSIC- Spanish National Research Council.
From war-torn Beirut and Ukraine to countries including Russia, Armenia and Brazil, women across the world are developing sacred art to bring messages of peace and solidarity, as well as preserving their cultural heritage.
And now, the first ever digital archive of women's iconography will be launched officially on March 10 as part of a series of events at Lancaster University Library to mark International Women’s Day (March 8).
Iconography is the oldest sacred art practice in the Christian tradition and was the only artform in use across the global Christian church until the Great Schism, the split between the East and West and the Catholic and Orthodox churches in 1054.