New discoveries reveal systematic Production of bone tools 1.5 million years ago

Before this discovery, led by a CSIC team, it was thought that the systematic use of bone tools happened a million years later

Spanish National Research Council (CSIC)

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Bone tool shaped on a 1.5-million-year-old elephant humerus.

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Credit: CSIC

“This discovery leads us to believe that early humans expanded significantly their technological choices, which until this moment was constrained to production of stone artefacts, and now enabled incorporating new raw materials to the repertoire of potential tools”, states Ignacio de la Torre, scientist at the CSIC- Instituto de Historia and co-director of the OGAP project. “Additionally, this enhancement of the technological potential hints at advances in the cognitive capacities and mental templates of these hominins (i.e., hominids with a bipedal locomotion), who understood how to transfer technical innovations from stone flaking to bone tool production”.

Evolutionary keys

Eastern Africa contains the earliest evidences of tool use and production among the first Genus Homo ancestors. The best known is the Oldowan culture, named after the stone artefacts first discovered at Olduvai Gorge. The Oldowan spanned between 2.6 and 1.5 million years ago, and is characterised by the production of stone sharp flakes through striking two rocks against each other. This relatively simple technology led to a new culture emerging 1.7 million years ago, i.e., the Acheulean, that lasted until 150k years ago.

The Acheulean technology is well known by the conspicuous presence of handaxes, which are large, robust, often pointed and almond-shaped stone artefacts, and whose production requires remarkable technical ability. “Prior to our discovery, the technological transition from the Oldowan to the Acheulean was limited to the study of stone tools”, de la Torre points out.

For hundreds of thousand years, early humans had seen the animals they co-existed with at the African savannahs either as a hazard, for there is evidence that often humans were preys to felids and large birds–; as competitors, for our ancestors rivalled with hyenas and vultures to access carcasses hunted by large felids; or as a source of proteins, which our ancestors obtained mostly from bone marrow in prey leftovers abandoned by carnivores.

“Our discovery indicates that, from the Acheulean –period in which the T69 Complex site was formed and where humans already had a primary access to meaty resources–, no longer were animals only dangerous, competitors or just foodstuff, but also a source of raw materials for producing tools”, says de la Torre.

Our results demonstrate that at the transition between the Oldowan and the early Acheulean, East African hominins developed an original cultural innovation that entailed a transfer and adaptation of knapping skills from stone to bone.

“By producing technologically and morphologically standardized bone tools, early Acheulean toolmakers unravelled technological repertoires that were previously thought to have appeared routinely more than 1 million years later”, states de la Torre. “This innovation may have had a significant impact on the complexification of behavioural repertoires among our ancestors, including enhancements in cognition and mental templates, artefact curation and raw material procurement”, he concludes.

The OGAP project

The Olduvai Gorge Archaeology Project (OGAP) is led by Ignacio de la Torre (scientist at the Instituto de Historia, CSIC-Spanish National Research Council and head of the Pleistocene Archaeology Lab) and Jackson Njau (Indiana University, US), and includes collaborators from several institutions in Spain (CENIEH, UAB, ICREA) and abroad (UK, France, Germany, US, Canada and Tanzania, among others).

Fieldwork at Olduvai by OGAP has been primarily funded by two European Research Council grants (ORACEAF (Starting Grants, 2012-2016) and BICAEHFID (Advanced Grants, 2019-2026). Research at Olduvai has been possible thanks to the support of the Tanzanian Authorities (Tanzanian Commission of Science and Technology, the Department of Antiquities, the National Museum of Tanzania, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority) and local collaborators, particularly Maasai communities living around the Olduvai area (which is catalogued by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site).

 

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08652-5 

Article Title

Systematic bone tool production at 1.5 million years ago

The standardized production of bone tools by our ancestors pushed back one million years

CNRS

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Tool shaped out of an elephant’s humerus. It was discovered at site T69 in the Olduvai Gorge.

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Credit: Top: © d’Errico-Doyon, Bottom: © Laboratorio de Arqueología del Pleistoceno-CSIC

Twenty-seven standardised bone tools dating back more than 1.5 million years were recently discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by a team of scientists from the CNRS and l’Université de Bordeaux1, in collaboration with international and Tanzanian researchers. This discovery challenges our understanding of early hominin technological evolution, as the oldest previously known standardised bone tools date back approximately 500,000 years.2

During these excavations, the researchers identified tools shaped on-site from hippopotamus bones within the same geological layer. More surprisingly, they also found elephant bones that had been transported to the site as either tools or raw materials for tool-making. This behaviour suggests an early ability for planning and the transmission of know-how among these ancient populations.

These results were obtained via an approach combining archaeological excavations and experimental archaeology.3 The study will be published on 5 March in the journal Nature.

Notes

1. Working at the From Prehistory to the Present: Culture, Environment, and Anthropology laboratory (CNRS/Ministère de la Culture/Université de Bordeaux). The project received support from the European Research Council (ERC).
2. The study shows indisputable traces of the intentional cutting, shaping, and modification of bone edges, thereby giving them an elongated shape.
3. Experimental archaeology involves reproducing the techniques and gestures of ancient societies to better understand the production and use of their tools, their habitats, and their everyday objects.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08652-5 

Article Title

Systematic bone tool production at 1.5 million years ago

Article Publication Date

5-Mar-2025

 

Satellite image analysis delivers new insight into the functional diversity of tropical forests

University of Oxford

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Satellite images from space are allowing scientists to delve deeper into the individual functions of different tropical forest canopies with new and surprising results.

Understanding tree traits and functional diversity in the tropics is crucial for biodiversity, ecosystem modelling, and conservation.

Now, for the first time, thanks to satellite data from the Sentinel-2 satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA), scientists can show the great functional diversity of tropical forests as never seen before.

In a study led by the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, and involving over 100 scientists from across the world, researchers used data from over 1,800 vegetation plots, along with satellite, terrain, climate, and soil data, to predict variations in 13 tree traits and map the functional diversity of tropical forests.

They found that forests in the Americas, Africa, and Asia each use different parts of the available trait space. American tropical forests show 40% more functional richness than African and Asian forests, while African forests have the highest functional divergence —  32% more than American forests and 7% more than Asian ones.

The study: Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests, published in Nature, also identifies regions needing more data to improve accuracy. This research offers a global view of how and why tropical forest canopy traits vary across regions.

Dr Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez, Associate Professor, said: “Using the state-of-the-art satellite data we can get high resolution information and see what is happening in the forest canopies. We can use this to quantify the differences across continents.”

In their study the team highlight the importance of tropical forest canopies in regulating carbon, water, and energy in the atmosphere. Tropical forests are the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, making up a large part of global diversity, including two-thirds of the 73,000 tree species. Over a billion people depend on them for their livelihoods.

However, the researchers say we still have limited knowledge of how traits that affect forest functions (like shape, growth patterns, and responses to the environment) vary across large areas, especially in tropical forests. While factors like water, temperature, and soil influence plant traits, we don't fully understand how they affect forest function.

Predicting plant trait distributions over large areas usually focuses on a few traits with more available data, such as leaf nitrogen, phosphorus, and specific leaf area. Some progress has been made by combining plant type data with statistical models and satellite remote sensing, but most models still rely on predefined plant types to estimate trait distributions and use low-resolution satellite data. Ground observations in tropical forests are often limited, showing the need for better tools to track plant traits over large areas with high resolution. There is also a need to compare predictions made by different methods. While plant trait databases help model trait distributions, the researchers say we still lack comprehensive data on traits for most tree species in tropical areas like the Amazon, which has about 15,000 species. Understanding trait variation across continents is important for predicting how ecosystems will respond to changes like climate change and land use. Previous studies have shown that plant traits vary across ecosystems and communities, reflecting how plant strategies connect to environmental conditions, allowing species to thrive in specific niches.

While dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) and species distribution models (SDMs) help predict climate change effects, DGVMs often use broad plant categories, and SDMs may ignore trait diversity. Including specific plant traits and functional diversity in these models can improve predictions of carbon cycling, vegetation patterns, and ecosystem resilience, leading to a better understanding of how ecosystems respond to global change.

The team of 119 scientists included ten researchers from the ECI. Working with Dr Aguirre-Gutiérrez were; Dr Eleanor Thomson, Postdoctoral Researcher; Dr Erika Berenguer, Senior Researcher; Dr Imma Oliveras Menor, Senior Researcher; Dr Huanyuan Zhang-Zheng, Postdoctoral Researcher; Xiongjie Deng, Doctoral student; Prof Yadvinder Malhi, Ecosystems Programme Lead; Dr Cecile Girardin, Director Nature-based Solutions; Terhi Riutta, former ECI Researcher and Dr Göran Wallin, Honorary Research Associate abased at the University of Gothenburg.

Dr Aguirre-Gutiérrez said, 'It is thanks to the availability of field plot and trait data from local collaborators including the Mexican MONAFOR network, the Oxford Global Ecosystems Monitoring network (GEM), RAINFOR and the ForestPlots meta network, and also satellite data from the ESA that they have managed to compare the canopy functions in such detail.' He continued: 'Artificial intelligence is rapidly improving our ability to map plant traits using deep-learning models applied to field data and photos. These models, especially convolutional neural networks, can analyse large amounts of remote-sensing data and have been combined with spectral data to map plant traits. New satellites with hyperspectral sensors and high spatial resolution, along with growing tree census data, are expanding possibilities for using AI across time and space.'

But the team warn that AI should support — not replace — traditional ecological methods like field sampling and expert tree identification to ensure accurate biodiversity assessments.

Dr Aguirre-Gutiérrez added: 'There’s a need for tools that can predict biodiversity distributions and its changes over time, and this approach is a step forward. In the future, satellite data could help track plant diversity annually, but this requires extensive field data, advanced models, more computing power, and strong collaborations among researchers and institutions.'

The study maps how the types of trees vary across tropical moist and dry forests, which host most of Earth's tree species. The findings show that tree traits are strongly shaped by long-term climate, helping predict how climate change might affect these forests. The maps the researchers make available highlight key areas for future research, especially in under-studied regions like Africa and Asia. As the accuracy of predictions depends on data quality and coverage, they will improve as more data becomes available. These maps offer a significant step forward in understanding how tropical forests function globally.

Read the study in Nature in full: Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests

Notes to Editors: 

For media inquiries, contact Lizzie Dunthorne, Research & Innovation Communications Manager, on lizzie.dunthorne@admin.ox.ac.uk 

About the Environmental Change Institute  

The Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford was established in 1991. Its aim is to organise and promote interdisciplinary research on the nature, causes and impact of environmental change and to contribute to the development of management strategies for coping with future environmental change. 

Learn more: www.eci.ox.ac.uk 

 

About the University of Oxford 

Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the eighth year running, and ​number 2 in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer. 

Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions. 

Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 200 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past three years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing £15.7 billion to the UK economy in 2018/19, and supports more than 28,000 full time jobs.  

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08663-2 

Article Title

Canopy functional trait variation across Earth’s tropical forests

Article Publication Date

5-Mar-2025

Study: The ozone hole is healing, thanks to global reduction of CFCs

New results show with high statistical confidence that ozone recovery is going strong

 News Release 5-Mar-2025

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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A new MIT-led study confirms that the Antarctic ozone layer is healing, as a direct result of global efforts to reduce ozone-depleting substances. 

Scientists including the MIT team have observed signs of ozone recovery in the past. But the new study is the first to show, with high statistical confidence, that this recovery is due primarily to the reduction of ozone-depleting substances, versus other influences such as natural weather variability or increased greenhouse gas emissions to the stratosphere.  

“There’s been a lot of qualitative evidence showing that the Antarctic ozone hole is getting better. This is really the first study that has quantified confidence in the recovery of the ozone hole,” says study author Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry. “The conclusion is, with 95 percent confidence, it is recovering. Which is awesome. And it shows we can actually solve environmental problems.”

The new study will appear in the journal Nature. Graduate student Peidong Wang from the Solomon group in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) is the lead author. His co-authors include Solomon and EAPS Research Scientist Kane Stone, along with collaborators from multiple other institutions.

Roots of ozone recovery

Within the Earth’s stratosphere, ozone is a naturally occurring gas that acts as a sort of sunscreen, protecting the planet from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation. In 1985, scientists discovered a “hole” in the ozone layer over Antarctica that opened up during the austral spring, between September and December. This seasonal ozone depletion was suddenly allowing UV rays to filter down to the surface, leading to skin cancer and other adverse health effects. 

In 1986, Solomon, who was then working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), led expeditions to the Antarctic, where she and her colleagues gathered evidence that quickly confirmed the ozone hole’s cause: chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs — chemicals that were then used in refrigeration, air conditioning, insulation, and aerosol propellants. When CFCs drift up into the stratosphere, they can break down ozone under certain seasonal conditions. 

The following year, those relevations led to the drafting of the Montreal Protocol — an international treaty that aimed to phase out the production of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances, in hopes of healing the ozone hole. 

In 2016, Solomon led a study reporting key signs of ozone recovery. The ozone hole seemed to be shrinking with each year, especially in September, the time of year when it opens up. Still, these observations were qualitative. The study showed large uncertainties regarding how much of this recovery was due to concerted efforts to reduce ozone-depleting substances, or if the shrinking ozone hole was a result of other “forcings,” such as year-to-year weather variability from El Niño, La Niña, and the polar vortex. 

“While detecting a statistically significant increase in ozone is relatively straightforward, attributing these changes to specific forcings is more challenging,” says Wang.

Anthropogenic healing

In their new study, the MIT team took a quantitative approach to identify the cause of Antarctic ozone recovery. The researchers borrowed a method from the climate change community, known as “fingerprinting,” which was pioneered by Klaus Hasselmann, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2021 for the technique. In the context of climate, fingerprinting refers to a method that isolates the influence of specific climate factors, apart from natural, meteorological noise. Hasselmann applied fingerprinting to identify, confirm, and quantify the anthropogenic fingerprint of climate change. 

Solomon and Wang looked to apply the fingerprinting method to identify another anthropogenic signal: the effect of human reductions in ozone-depleting substances on the recovery of the ozone hole. 

“The atmosphere has really chaotic variability within it,” Solomon says. “What we’re trying to detect is the emerging signal of ozone recovery against that kind of variability, which also occurs in the stratosphere.” 

The researchers started with simulations of the Earth’s atmosphere and generated multiple “parallel worlds,” or simulations of the same global atmosphere, under different starting conditions. For instance, they ran simulations under conditions that assumed no increase in greenhouse gases or ozone-depleting substances. Under these conditions, any changes in ozone should be the result of natural weather variability. They also ran simulations with only increasing greenhouse gases, as well as only decreasing ozone-depleting substances. 

They compared these simulations to observe how ozone in the Antarctic stratosphere changed, both with season, and across different altitudes, in response to different starting conditions. From these simulations, they mapped out the times and altitudes where ozone recovered from month to month, over several decades, and identified a key “fingerprint,” or pattern, of ozone recovery that was specifically due to conditions of declining ozone-depleting substances. 

The team then looked for this fingerprint in actual satellite observations of the Antarctic ozone hole from 2005 to the present day. They found that, over time, the fingerprint that they identified in simulations became clearer and clearer in observations. In 2018, the fingerprint was at its strongest, and the team could say with 95 percent confidence that ozone recovery was due mainly to reductions in ozone-depleting substances. 

“After 15 years of observational records, we see this signal to noise with 95 percent confidence, suggesting there’s only a very small chance that the observed pattern similarity can be explained by variability noise,” Wang says. “This gives us confidence in the fingerprint. It also gives us confidence that we can solve environmental problems. What we can learn from ozone studies is how different countries can swiftly follow these treaties to decrease emissions.”

If the trend continues, and the fingerprint of ozone recovery grows stronger, Solomon anticipates that soon there will be a year, here and there, when the ozone layer stays entirely intact. And eventually, the ozone hole should stay shut for good. 

“By something like 2035, we might see a year when there’s no ozone hole depletion at all in the Antarctic. And that will be very exciting for me,” she says. “And some of you will see the ozone hole go away completely in your lifetimes. And people did that.”

This research was supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and NASA.

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Written by Jennifer Chu, MIT News

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-08640-9 

Article Title

'Fingerprinting the recovery of Antarctic ozone'

 

Concrete evidence: Japanese buildings absorb 14% of cement production's carbon footprint

Nagoya University

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The concrete of this building has been absorbing CO2 for a long time and is now being demolished while retaining the gas. 

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Credit: Hiroki Tanikawa

A team of Japanese researchers has discovered that Japan’s concrete structures—including buildings and infrastructure—absorb and store about 14% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated during cement production.

This research provides vital knowledge to offset CO2 emissions from cement production, a significant contributor to global carbon emissions at approximately 8%. The study was published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

With the growing urgency of climate change, scientists are focusing not only on reducing CO2 emissions but also on effective methods of capturing and storing atmospheric CO2 to mitigate global warming.

Concrete naturally absorbs CO2 throughout its lifetime through a process called carbonation, also known as CO2 uptake. While this process can contribute to the corrosion of reinforcing steel bars in concrete structures, it also enables concrete structures to function as carbon sinks.

Professor Ippei Maruyama of the University of Tokyo, Professor Hiroki Tanikawa of Nagoya University, and their colleagues conducted a comprehensive material stock-flow analysis of Japan's concrete from 1870 (when Japan began producing cement) to 2070. Material stock-flow analysis is an accounting method that tracks how materials enter a system (flows), accumulate within it over time (stocks), and eventually exit through disposal, recycling, or other means, allowing us to understand the complete lifecycle of resources in our economy and environment. Their analysis aimed to estimate the CO₂ uptake of concrete structures on a national scale.

The researchers used statistical data to estimate annual domestic cement production, the lifespan of various concrete structures, and their disposal methods. They quantified the total amount of CO₂ captured and stored based on the surface area of concrete structures throughout Japan.

To accurately calculate the total surface area, the researchers incorporated data on the surface-to-volume ratio of different types of concrete structures that reflect Japanese building design standards. As an earthquake-prone country, Japan has specific earthquake-resistant standards that needed to be factored into these calculations.

The study also accounted for local environmental conditions, finishing materials, and what happens to concrete after demolition. "The main objective of our analysis is to improve CO₂ uptake quantification by considering time-series changes and local-specific factors," Professor Maruyama explained.

The results revealed that the cumulative CO₂ uptake from 1870 to 2020 was estimated at 137.1 million tons, representing 7.5% of the cumulative CO₂ emissions from calcination during cement production. In 2020 alone, annual CO₂ uptake reached 2.6 million tons, accounting for 13.9% of CO₂ emissions from cement calcination that year.

Projections suggest that annual CO₂ uptake will increase slightly during the 2020s before dropping to 2.3-2.4 million tons by 2070. "These results could easily be reversed, depending on waste management methods and other conditions," the researchers noted.

Professor Tanikawa concluded: "Studies on the detailed assessment of the total CO₂ absorbed by concrete structures on the national scale are of great importance. Concrete buildings and infrastructure keep on absorbing CO₂ as long as they are exposed to the air. Concrete structures act as carbon sinks, even though they absorb less CO₂ than forests. With this in mind, we should take good care of buildings and infrastructure around us so that they have a long service life."

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Journal

Journal of Cleaner Production

DOI

10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.144542 

Article Title

CO2 uptake estimation in Japan's cement lifecycle