Our ancient relatives were far busier than we usually give them credit for. Yes, they used to build things & carve shells long before modern humans had even appeared. You can still see some of their handiwork today. Here are seven fascinating facts about Earth’s earliest humans. Which of these discoveries interests you the most?
A 476,000-year-old wooden structure used interlocking logs
Archeologists once discovered two ancient logs notched together at Kalambo Falls in Zambia. What made these logs so interesting is that they worked like a simple joint. They’d been there for approximately 476,000 years.
Clearly, whoever made them knew what they were doing with wood and may have used them to create a platform or walkway of sorts.
Homo erectus engraved a zigzag on a freshwater shell
Not every human wrote on cave walls. In fact, long before we wrote on caves, someone picked up a huge shell in Java & scratched a zigzag pattern onto it. Who did it?
Apparently, it was Homo erecuts, an early human species that lived half a million years ago. You can see the markings under a microscope. They’re that sharp.
DNA from lice points to clothing beginning roughly 170,000 years ago
Body lice can’t live without clothes. That’s good news for scientists because they can work out where they split from head lice to see when we started wearing clothes.
We supposedly began covering ourselves up around 170,000 years ago. People likely wore hides or woven fibers as protection in those days.
Early humans butchered a giant ground sloth the size of a car
Early humans had to deal with a lot of dangerous animals. One of those was a ground sloth species called Mylodon.
In southern Chile, archeologists found evidence that humans took down the animal 17,000 years ago. They carved it with stone blades & the animal’s bones still show clean slices. Our ancestors simply stripped the meat away.
Early humans had lead exposure long before industrialisation
Bizarrely, pollution existed even in the time of early humans. Fossil teeth records prove that ancient hominins (early humans) had lead traces in their bodies over a million years ago. Where did it come from?
It’s likely just contaminated soil or volcanic ash, maybe from water. Either way, their natural world wasn’t as clean as you might believe.
Neanderthals stored seashells full of pigment
Discoveries near the coast of Italy showed that Neanderthals had some interesting collections. They used to gather seashells & turn them into small containers. Why?
So they could store red & yellow pigment, possibly to paint their skin or for tools. Some of them even reused the shells multiple times.
Ancient humans used eagle talons as jewelry 130,000 years ago
Neanderthals also collected eagle talons. Archeologists discovered a handful of eagle claws in a Croatian cave that have tiny cut marks where early humans shaped & strung them together. They’re approximately 130,000 years old.
The fact that their edges are smoothed proves that early humans wore them instead of using the talons only as trophies.
The following sources were consulted in the preparation of this article:
- Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago
- Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving
- Origin of Clothing Lice Indicates Early Clothing Use by Anatomically Modern Humans in Africa
- Our Human Ancestors Were Exposed to Lead, and New Research Suggests It May Have Shaped Human Evolution
- Neanderthals combed beaches and went diving for shells to use as tools, study says
- Neanderthals wore eagle talons as jewellery
- Early humans dined on giant sloths and other Ice Age giants, archaeologists find
