This photograph shows a modern human holding a prehistoric stone tool. This tool weighs almost 2kg and takes thow hands to use it. It is roughly leaf-shaped and has a sharp cutting edge for use as adze, hoe or even a sort of axe or scraper.
The design identifies it as dating from the Old Stone Age (anything up to a million years ago). The tool was found in a valley behind Farm 215 off the Baardscheerder's Bosch road. The people who handled these tools were stocky, muscular Homo robustus, whose direct ancestors had migrated from Central Africa when the changing climate forced them out to new pastures.
Our Homo sapiens ancestors gradually evolved from these early proto-humans between 20 000 and 70 000 years ago.
JHF
