资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

East Africa has provided the earliest known evidence for Oldowan stone artifacts and hominin-induced stone tool cutmarks dated to similar to 2.6 million years (Ma) ago. The similar to 1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Here we report older stone artifacts and cutmarked bones excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit estimated to similar to 1.9 Ma ago, and the older to similar to 2.4 Ma ago. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa.