"Nomorotukunan's layers of stone tools span the transition from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene, during which Earth's climate turned gradually cooler and drier after a 2 to 3 million-year warm spell. Pollen and other microscopic traces of plants in the sediment at Nomorotukunan tell the tale: the lakeshore marsh gradually dried up, giving way to arid grassland dotted with shrubs."
"Making sharp stone tools may have helped generations of hominins survive their changing, drying world. In the warm, humid Pliocene, finding food would have been relatively easy, but as conditions got tougher, hominins probably had to scavenge or dig for their meals. At least one animal bone at Nomorotukunan bears cut marks where long-ago hominins carved up the carcass for meat-something our lineage isn't really equipped to do with its bare hands and teeth."
Nomorotukunan preserves layers of stone tools across the transition from the Pliocene to the Pleistocene as Earth's climate gradually cooled and dried. Pollen and plant microfossils indicate a lakeshore marsh that gradually transitioned to arid grassland with shrubs. Sediments record microcharcoal, droughts, and shifting or drying rivers. Stone toolmaking remained steady through these environmental stresses. Cut marks on at least one animal bone show carcass processing for meat, and tools would have enabled digging or cutting of tubers and roots. Wood implements may have been used but do not preserve. Stone tools and cut bones indicate technological resilience aiding hominin survival.
Read at Ars Technica
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