Were these hominins? In that case why is it that there are no fossils or skeletons near the site but only tools ? Or were they more advanced than homo erectus or homo habilis ? In that case who were they exactly, if not homo-sapiens? In case they were more advanced than hominins described above, does this throw the` out of africa' theory out of the window? Where are the dead fossils ? Certain urns indicate that they probably burned their dead and dear ones. Quite interesting considering that it is dating back to 1.5 million years and way in to the acheulian era.
Sir,
May be it was a kind of a unit or factory away from the homes and they may have moved from that place due to floods. The article mentions about a 3 meter soil layer above the extracted tools.
Hi Padmanabha,
These Indian tools predate modern humans but are not surprising since we have much older tools dating to 3.3-million-years before present from the Lomekwi 3 site in West Turkana, Kenya (Harmand et al., 2015). These earliest African lithics (intentionally modified stones to be used as tools) are very simple and can be classified within Shea’s (2013) “Mode A” lithic type as simple stone cobbles or rock fragments which have been damaged by repeated percussion.
By contrast, the more developed “handaxe” type lithics at Attirambaakkam would be classified as “Mode E” lithics as they were flaked on two opposing surfaces to fashion nearly symmetrical teardrop-shaped tools. These are among 7,200 artifacts found at the Attirambaakkam site dated to 385,000 years before present (Akhilesh et al., 2018). These tools match those found in Africa and Europe from the same time period and simply show that the mode and tempo of lithic production in India had was similar across the old world.
Which population or species of Middle Pleistocene human manufactured the Attirambaakkam lithics is the million-dollar question, since there were several groups of hominins in the neighborhood at the time, including Homo erectus, and potentially H. heidelbergensis/Denisovans. H. habilis fossils are unrepresented out of Africa and predate this period, although the presence of H. floresiensis (aka, Hobbits) down the road in Indonesia might allow for this possibility as well. We also know of a few "ghost" populations in the area through genetic data that could be considered suspects here (Mondal et al., 2019; Tucci et al., 2018).
Hope that this helps!
Akhilesh, K., et al. (2018). "Early Middle Palaeolithic culture in India around 385–172 ka reframes Out of Africa models." Nature 554: 97.
Mondal, M., et al. (2019). "Approximate Bayesian computation with deep learning supports a third archaic introgression in Asia and Oceania." Nature Communications 10(1): 246.
Harmand, S., et al. (2015). "3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya." Nature 521(7552): 310-315.
Shea, John J. (2013) "Lithic Modes A–I: A New Framework for Describing Global-Scale Variation in Stone Tool Technology Illustrated with Evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant." Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (20)1.
Tucci, S., et al. (2018). "Evolutionary history and adaptation of a human pygmy population of Flores Island, Indonesia." Science 361(6401): 511-516.
Very nice answer. But why are we not getting any hominin fossils in the site? Were they advanced enough to burn their dead bodies due to their beliefs.? Some ash urns were also unearthed in the site. This could be the reason.
Hello all; How confidently is the dating of the site? Perhaps there isn't any incongruity. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
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