The study by the Weizmann Institute of Science revealed that ancient humans might have been not just familiar with fire, but also with the ways to use it in making tools and blades from the stone.
A team of researchers from Tel Aviv University excavated sections of the Qesem Cave in Central Israel to discover “tens of thousands” of stone tools that sparked assumptions that ancient people who lived in the cave may have used high temperatures to create them.
Moreover, the Weizmann Institute’s study said that different temperatures could have been intentionally used to create different tools.
The tools collected from Qesem Cave are made of flint – and, in order to find out whether it was fired or not, researchers heated some at different temperatures and allowed them to cool. The team then examined them with tools in a spectroscopy lab, which reveals the chemical and molecular structure of the tools.
The data was later analyzed with a special method suggested by an archaeologist Prof. Avi Gopher of Tel Aviv University, that allowed to draw out three different types of flint artifacts with three unique temperature ranges for each.
The researchers expressed confidence that the consistency of heating the stone to make the tools is simple technology – however, acknowledging, that not everything about the ancient experience of using high temperatures for tool-making is yet known.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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