Ancient humans used hand axes earlier than thought

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A new study suggests ancient humans made hand axes and other stone tools much earlier than believed, but didn’t take them along when they left Africa.

The evidence comes from a site along Kenya’s Lake Turkana where large cutting tools were previously discovered.

Researchers used a sophisticated technique to date the dirt and calculated that the tools were 1.76 million years old. That’s older than similar stone-age artifacts previously found.

The new findings are in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.