To start, the trio butchered a sheep carcass with sharp stone flakes and found that the cutmarks indeed resembled those found on two different Australopithecine fossil arm bones — one dating to 4.2 million years ago and the other to 3.4 million years ago — as well as 2.5 - million - year - old animal bones discovered near the known stone tools in the Olduvai Gorge. (sciencemag.org)
A flint - knapper makes sharp stone flakes by striking a flint «core» with a hammerstone. (npr.org)
The idea comes from Kyle Brown, an experimental archaeologist at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, whose team found sharp stone blades dating from 47,000 to 164,000 years ago around Still Bay, east of Cape Town. (newscientist.com)