Find the oldest stone ax in the world

Australian archaeologists have discovered a stone ax, identified as 44,000 to 49,000 years old. Currently this stone ax is considered the oldest in the world.

In the 1990s, Sue O'Connor (now an archaeologist at the Australian National University) and colleagues excavated the Carpenter's Gap area, one of the large caves on the Napier Mountains in the Western Australian region of Kimberley. . It is also one of the first human settlements in Australia. She discovered thousands of artifacts, bones, and the oldest evidence of painting . While collecting artifacts, they did not pay attention to a small polished specimen.

In 2014, Sue O'Connor and her graduate student, Tim Maloney, re-researched the collection of archaeological evidence collected and discovered a small polished specimen. The piece of the specimen was analyzed to date. By analyzing the carbon age of coal fossils believed to be the same age as the stone ax, scientists determined the age of the ax was from 44,000 to 49,000 years old.

"This is the latest evidence of the original stone ax ever discovered around the world, " said the scientists, who published the results in the Australian Archaeological Review.

The 11mm long bazal ax is said to be fragments of the oldest hand-made ax.(Photo: Australian Archaeological Institute).

Previously, the oldest ax ever found with polished blades dates back to about 35,000 years. This is considered a more sophisticated weapon than a crude stone ax.

Sue O'Connor said: "It is difficult to find a stone ax with such a date anywhere else in the world". In Japan, archaeologists also found an ax about 35,000 years old but most of the other stone axes were found after ancient agriculture was born about 10,000 years ago.

The oldest tool known as stone cutting tool found in East Africa appeared before the modern era. But these tools were even smaller than the broken pieces of stone that broke from the big stones, and were sharpened by our Homo habilis ancestors more than a million years ago. Such " Australian-style " axes are very durable and do not have too many.

"People use axes for many years without being chipped, they can sharpen them again for use. The axes are therefore very rare at the same time broken, the batch rarely happens" - split shared by archaeologist Peter Hiscock of the University of Australia and author of the study.

Researchers believe that the ax breaks from a polished ax with a sharp edge - this point has been tested by a microscope. To create a sharp edge, prehistoric people need to sharpen up to about 5 hours and hundreds of beats. Sue O'Connor and colleagues tried to create a similar ax by grinding bazal stones with sandstone. It takes about 600 to 800 scratches to imitate the shape of the ax found in Carpenter's Gap.

"The ax is not only sharpened but also grinded with other stones to create a smooth surface." In Hiscock's view, this finding demonstrates the wisdom of the first primitive people to arrive in Australia first, after crossing the ocean from Asia, moving to a new land, the Australians. This has known how to be creative to survive.