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These Tools Upend Our View of Stone-Age Humans in Asia
Long ago in what's now southern India, early humans showed a knack for disruption that would've made Silicon Valley tech wizards envious. Over time, the ancient innovators rejected bulky hand-axes and cleavers, instead opting for sleek flakes of stone meant for cutting and tipping spears.
Similar disruptions occurred in Africa among the forebears of modern humans around the same time. But the timing of the Indian transition, spotted in the soil layers of a site called Attirampakkam, is eye-popping. At 250,000 years old—and possibly up to 385,000 years old—this tool transition occurred far earlier than it did at other sites in India.
The discovery, described in Nature on Wednesday [DOI: 10.1038/nature25444] [DX], pushes back the start of what's called the Middle Paleolithic culture in the region by more than a hundred thousand years. That, in turn, could reshape how scientists view the global spread of hominins—humans and their ancient relatives—before modern humans migrated out of Africa some 60,000 years ago.
Also at The Verge.
Related: Earliest Human Remains Outside of Africa Discovered
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday February 03 2018, @07:18PM (4 children)
Why all these DOI and DX links in articles which point to the same paywalled articles as the main citation?
I'd rather see the link to the Russian sources for non-paywalled articles.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 03 2018, @08:57PM
In Russia, the source codes YOU. Or something like that. :^)
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 03 2018, @11:03PM
Maybe some of the editors want to avoid DMCA notices?
IIUC, you could use those DOIs in a certain way to do certain things...
Just sayin'.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Saturday February 03 2018, @11:42PM
The DOI is always useful. You can put it in a search engine, and even use it to look up and pirate the paper cough cough.
I put (DOI: 10....) when the article is paywalled, and (open, DOI: 10....) when it is freely available.
As for the DX link, someone complained about me linking to the current direct URL of the paper, which could be subject to change. The DX link links to dx.doi.org/10.blahblah or doi.org/10.blahblah which should redirect to the correct location no matter what (in theory).
If there is an arXiv link for a paywalled paper, and I notice it, I will throw that in beside all that other stuff. There isn't an automatic way to find this out since arXiv isn't linked to the final form of the paper in any database I know of.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Saturday February 03 2018, @11:44PM
I don't link the (DOI: 10....) text because my extension can detect it and link it to the search engine of your choice. No matter how Russian that search engine may be. If you don't want to run my entire extension, the portion of code that deals with the DOI can be ripped out of it and put in your own userscript.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]