Lots of ink: Old, scratched bones bring Lucy back into the news with a rock in her hand. Maybe.
An amazing flow of news today follows publication in a certain journal that starts with N and sort-of-alliterates with “Whatch’er talkin’ ’bout?” and says a few fossilized bones of edible hoofed creatures from Ethiopia bear linear scratches. And there’s a picture of two of them on the journal’s cover.
Like somebody hacked them with a stone tool long before there were supposed to have been stone tools. And at the time the only somebodies known in the region are most familiar under the nickname Lucy. Big story.
Or maybe an elephant stepped on ‘em or a crocodile gnawed them. That’s a big story with a big hole in it. It is tantalizing, but that’s about it.
I’m feeling a bit on the lowbrow yahoo side of H. sapiens about these news accounts. Usually I’m all for reporting paleontologists divining the most amazing insights from things that look to me like something that fell off the t
ruck from the rock quarry. But really, those scratches to this uneducated brain don’t look like much, and they are on just four ungulate bones, and neither tools nor hominid fossils are at the site. So, this is a curiosity that ought to be in the literature, one thinks, thus certainly merit publication along with the hypothesis that A. afarensis could have left its mark. But front page news?
Maybe it’s just me. Nature’s reviewers were impressed, and the paper’s authors are pretty emphatic about their hypothesis. But it you read through news accounts, one finds plenty of reporters who found plenty of qualified scholars who are similarly skeptical. Had this report gotten more routine treatment at a less-stellar journal, and not so many press releases trumpeting the chorus, it probably would not have gotten such extraordinary coverage.
Stories :
- Time Magazine: Michael Lemonick: Study: Were Lucy’s Relatives the Oldest Butchers? ; At the time they were not old, so “first butchers” fits better. Despite the question-mark hed, Lemonick reports nobody with strong doubts.
- Wall St. Journal – Robert Lee Hotz : Find Suggests Tool Use Began Before Humans / ..Push back beginning of technology by nearly one million years ; Well, “before humans” is ambiguous, as H. habilis, h. erectus, H. ergaster, H, neanderthalensis and others used tools and some call’em pre-human but not human. That aside, Hotz in his second graf raises some flags. He quotes doubts from skeptics deeper.
- NY Times – John Noble Wilford: Lucy’s Kin Carved Up a Meaty Meal, Scientists Say ; He foreshadows the skeptics in his third graf, and has two doubters flaying the report’s certain tone later.
- AP – Malcolm Ritter: ‘Lucy’ species used stone tools, fossil study says. And some, Ritter says, don’t buy it.
- Reuters – Julie Steenhuysen: Butchered bones give proof of earlier meat eating ; no doubts.
- SF Chronicle – David Perlman : Scientists report finding earliest use of tools; The lead author and a leading skeptic to this find are locals, so this story is right in Perlman’s back yard. He, as do all accounts, gives the implications of the marks, if hominids left them, their due. But cites a “rash of skeptical comments” and provides a good sampling of them.
- CBS/Discover – Ed Yong : Humans Carved Meat Far Earlier Than Thought ; No doubts.
- Voice of America – Jessica Berman: Stone Tools Discovery Suggests Earlier Meat-Eating by Human Ancestors ; Pretty much a one-source story (aside from the paper, press releases..). And no doubts.
- AFP – Marlowe Hood: First use of tools pushed back a million years ; No doubts.
- USA Today – Dan Vergano: Tool usage came before big brains? Cuts on bone found ; No doubts.
- BBC – Jason Palmer: Tool-making and meat-eating began 3.5 million years ago; One mildly skeptical voice cited.
- Wired News – Jess McNally: New Find Pushes Age of Stone Tools Back A Million Years ; No doubts.
- Science News – Bruce Bower: Lucy’s kind used stone tools to butcher animals ; Gentle doubts quoted, and Bower pushes caution with such lines as “if the new analysis holds up.”
- Financial Times – Clive Cookson: History of tools pushed back 1M years ; No doubts.
- Nature.com – Richard Lovett: Butchering dinner 3.4 million years ago ; No doubts. Alas. Would’ve been good if Nature’s in house journalist contributor had dug up a few alternate interpretations.
- AAAS ScienceNOW – Ann Gibbons: The First Butchers? ; Some doubt, but clear, at the very end of the piece.
- Guardian (UK) Ian Sample: Bone discovery pushes date for first use of stone tools back 1M years; No doubts.
- Telegraph – Richard Alleyne: Hail Lucy! – the new Queen of the Stone Age ; No doubts. But clever for recognizing that older tools would mean an earlier start for the stone age.
- New Scientist – Nic Fleming: Early humans were butchers 3.4 million years ago ; No doubts.
- Scientific American – Steve Mirsky: Almost a Million Years Added for Earliest Human Ancestor Stone Tool Use and Meat-Eating ; No doubt.
- Cosmos (Australia) Kate Heness: Pre-humans used tools 3.4 milion years ago ; No doubt.
- Calcutta Telegraph – G.S. Mudur: Older, tools & taste for meat ; No doubt ;
Grist for the Mill:
Nature journal abstract ; Max Planck Soc’y Press Release ; California Acad. of Sciences Press Release ; Arizona State Univ. Press Release ; Natural History Museum Press Release ;
