New Technology Out Of Africa In Early Ice Age Using geological clues from an ancient shift in the Earth's magnetic field, scientists working in Israel have significantly pushed back the date of an "out of Africa" migration of early humans that brought new technologies to Eurasia in the midst of the early Ice Age. Their findings also indicate that our ancestors' tool-making skills were more sophisticated for that time than previously believed. In an article in today's issue of Science, a team working at the archaeologically rich site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) in the Dead Sea Rift of northern Israel reports that early humans belonging to the species Homo erectus traversed the corridor between Africa and Eurasia 780,000 years ago, bringing with them new technologies. According to co-author Craig Feibel, a geologist and assistant professor of anthropology and geology at Rutgers, the findings indicate this migration occurred some 250,000 years earlier than had been suspected. They also confirm that the site's abundant trove of stone tools, including handaxes and cleavers, reflects a higher level of skill and sophistication than scientists thought existed at that time. Feibel, who was one of two geologists on the team, reconstructed the geological sequence from sediments at GBY. The sediments showed clear evidence dating them to the most recent reversal in the Earth's magnetic field 780,000 years ago, says Feibel. "Until this recent work, we didn't have a clear age estimate. Scientists had estimated the technology and associated flora and fauna at a half million years, but that was conservative," Feibel said. "This time, we were fortunate to find in the sediments a record of the shift in the Earth's magnetic field, which is a well-dated phenomenon." Feibel noted the discovery was a serendipitous one that the team had not been seeking, but one that solved a long-standing mystery regarding the site's true age. Thousands of extremely well-preserved artifacts along with fossils have been found at GBY, which is a "wet" site. Organic matter is well preserved at GBY, in contrast to sites in Africa where much evidence of hominin occupation and flora and fauna has disintegrated over time. GBY was discovered in the 1930s and has been the site of many excavations. The article's authors note that the "archaeological data from the site portray strong affinities with African stone tool traditions. It also reflects adroit technical skills and in-depth planning abilities." Early Pleistocene hominins were bringing with them their lithic technologies that would eventually be found throughout Eurasia. "What we see at GBY is a whole new technology that also was found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. All of the technological breakthroughs seem to have been made in Africa, and they came out of Africa," Feibel said. The migration through GBY was occurring during the Pleistocene Epoch, when the climate would have concentrated movement near the equator. The article notes that more than a dozen "archaeological occurrences" are identified in the geological sequence, showing repeated occupations of the same area over a prolonged period. The interdisciplinary team included two archaeologists, two geologists, one paleontologist and two paleobotanists. The project began at GBY in 1989. In addition to Feibel, the article's authors are Naama Goren-Inbar and Idit Saragusti of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; Kenneth L. Verosub of the department of geology at the University of California at Davis; Yoel Melamed and Mordechai E. Kislev of the department of life sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel; and Eitan Tchernov of the department of evolution, systematics and ecology at Hebrew University. Goren-Inbar is the lead author and project leader. 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