Archaeologists identify Europe's oldest known elephant bone tool, a nearly 500,000-year-old hammer found in England
Researchers from UCL and the Natural History Museum, London identified a nearly 500,000-year-old elephant bone hammer from Boxgrove, England, the oldest elephant bone tool ever found in Europe. The artifact sat unrecognized in storage for over thirty years before new 3D scanning
Archaeologists from UCL and the Natural History Museum, London have identified a nearly 500,000-year-old hammer carved from elephant or mammoth bone, the oldest known elephant bone tool ever found in Europe. The fragment was recovered from the Boxgrove archaeological site near Chichester, England in the early 1990s but sat unrecognized in storage for over thirty years. New analysis using 3D scanning and electron microscopy revealed impact marks and tiny flint fragments still lodged in the bone, showing it was used repeatedly as a 'retoucher' to sharpen and repair stone handaxes. The tool measures about 11 centimeters long, 6 centimeters wide and 3 centimeters thick, and predates the previous oldest known European elephant bone tool by roughly 50,000 years. Elephant and mammoth bone was an especially rare material in prehistoric southern England, suggesting early humans deliberately sought it out for its durability. Source: Science Advances, study by Simon Parfitt (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Dr Silvia Bello (Natural History Museum, London).