Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ibexx who wrote (1506)	3/2/2000 12:28:00 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 12255

Ibexx...<Tough old bird>.....Have a look....takes a min to load....Was a Real Babe zyworld.com

To: Ibexx who wrote (1506)	3/2/2000 4:53:00 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12255

Tools of the East Artifacts Show Stone Technology in Asia Equal to Africa V By Paul Recer The Associated Press March 2 ? Eight-hundred-thousand-year-old stone tools that rival the work of ancient African artisans have been found in east Asia, suggesting the widely separated groups of early humans had equal tool-making skills. The crafted stone tools, found in southern China near the border with Vietnam, are more refined and older than cutting tools previously found in the East Asian region. In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, researchers said the discovery disproves a long-held belief that early humans in Asia lagged behind those in Africa and the Middle East in tool-making skills. Out of Africa, But When and Where? Most researchers agree that the first humans to make tools lived in Africa. Simple stone tools have been found there dated to about 2.5 million years. About a million years later, more sophisticated tools, with teardrop shaped with double sharp edges, appeared. Such tools, dated at about 500,000 years ago, have been found in Europe, also, but have never before been found and reliably dated in east Asia. For decades, this absence has caused anthropologists to speculate that early humans in Asia were less sophisticated and inventive than those elsewhere. Supposed Technological Divide A Harvard University anthropologist, Hallam Movius, designated Stone Age Asia as backward and 50 years ago divided the ancient world into halves based on Stone Age tool-making skill. What became known as the Movius line divided Africa, the Middle East and Europe from India, China and Southeast Asia. But the new find proves the tool-making skills of the East Asian ancients, Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington said in Science. He is a co-author of the study. The stone tools found in East Asia, he said, required ?the same behavioral and technical competence? as those found in Africa and elsewhere. Richard Klein of Stanford University said in Science that the discovery ?demonstrates that people 800,000 years ago in China were flaking tools that are as sophisticated as anything made in Africa.? A meteor that slammed to Earth near the Chinese site provided the exact dating of the tools and the raw materials for their manufacture. Rocks for the Taking Researchers said the meteor scorched the ground and revealed to early humans beds of cobblestones that were ideal for shaping the sharp points and edges of stone tools. The early humans apparently recognized and acted on this opportunity by making tools that closely resemble those made in Africa. Precise dating of the stone tools is possible because the intense heat from the collision of the meteor also created a spray of glass pebbles, called tektites, found in the same place as the cobblestones. By testing the decay of chemical isotopes, researchers could age-date the tektites at 803,000 years, plus or minus 3,000 years. Because the tektites and the stone tools were in the same geologic formation, researchers said this gives a precise age for the tools.