The oldest evidence of human cultural remains, in the form of stone tools, is 2.6–2.5 million years at Gona in Ethiopia. These stone tools are attributed to the Oldowan stone tool industry (named after Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where they were first found).
The Oldowan is a very simple stone tool industry consisting of cobbles that have had small flakes removed from them to make a type of tool known as choppers. Both the flakes themselves and the choppers were then used as tools, but what were the tools used for?
Residues left on stone tools from about 2.0–1.4 million years in Kenya suggests that the tools were used for a range of activities including processing wood, plant remains and also processing meat. It is unlikely, given the simplistic technology, that the makers of the stone tools were hunting animals with them.
The closest relatives of human tapeworms are tapeworms that affect African hyenas. This suggests that our early ancestors shared saliva with hyenas, most likely from scavenging from carcasses.
Studies of younger Oldowan stone tools and associated animal bones suggests that in many cases humans were accessing the carcasses of dead animals after carnivores had already eaten much of the meat. Humans were seemingly scavenging any remaining meat from the carcasses as well as accessing a source of protein that was not accessible...
