Oldest MAN MADE thing found

What is the single oldest man-made object ever discovered?

Ground rules: by man-made I mean an object deliberately manufactured or altered by humans / neandertals/ cro-magnons or whatever. The remnants of an animal bone gnawed by ancient man would not count. An amimal horn that was used as a primitive pick wouldn’t count, but one thathad been deliberately shaped to make a more efficient tool would count. A rock worn down by being used to crack nuts wouldn’t count, but a rock decorated for artistic purposes would count.

2.5 to 2.6 million years old.

Stone tools from Gona, Ethopia. Work was published in Nature in 1997.

Define “man”.

Hrmmph. You read the OP?

I think he already defined it.

“Whatever” is hardly a good working definition. Since he includes Neanderthals, which are not in the direct line of descent of modern humans, then there would be no reason not to include every species that ever lived unless he means the oldest thing made by a member of the Genus Homo. In that case, we don’t know for sure that the 2.5M year old stone tools were “man made”. They could have been made by Australopithicines.

I meant it to be as general as possible so it wouldn’t exclude anything. If those tools were made by australopithecines, then I would still consider them to be man-made.

How about this for a definition for the purposes of this particular question : Man is any creature capable of deliberately manufacturing or altering tools for a specific purpose.

As for the rest of the animal kingdom, if you can show me 5-million year old cow tools I’d be interested in that too.
BTW, rather than identify a class of objects, I’m really hoping you can identify a specific object, and say something like “this particular arrowhead is the single oldest artifact ever discovered” Is that possible?

Gas station vending machine sandwiches. Probably the cheese ones.

So do chimpanzees who break twigs off and strip them of leaves to fashion a device for “fishing” for termites count as “human”?

I knew someone was going to say this (I was thinking of it myself). I imagine the answer would be “yes, now please identify a 3000+ year old twig that can be shown to have been used as a tool by chimps”.

An important point of clarificantion, since not many people who know about this sort of thing would think that Australopithicine = man.

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That’s a terrible definition of “man”, even if it ends up giving you the answer you seem to be looking for. It would only be by luck, or simply not looking that we’ve never found any such objects made by an organism that couldn’t be considered “man” by any stretch of the imagination.

:rolleyes:

I think you know exactly what I mean, even though I lack the detailed knowledge of human evolution to use the correct technical terms.

Actually, I suspect you don’t either, given that the dictionary disagrees with your spelling of australopithecines.

Perhaps the question should be “what is the oldest artifact made by an intelligent ape-descended life form” Happy?

Actually, that’s not bad!

I’m sure I couldn’t identify one if I fell over it - I was just wondering about the constraints.

I didn’t notice this before:

No, I don’t think we can. The Olduvai stone tools referenced in post #2 are the oldest hominid-made tools, but I can’t believe anyone would point to just one of them and say: This particular one is the oldest. Our dating methodolgy doesn’t work that way.

The server at the Straight Dope Message Board. :smiley:

I would wonder if the evolution of tools from haphazard flint chips (or the like) into something more utilitarian and, therefore, recognizable can fit your question. I mean I completely understand the spirit from which you’re asking, but I’m not sure a delineation exists with which to provide an answer.

Maybe the one thing I could argue is that a tool existed before an object de art but at what point did a knapped remnant qualify as a tool?

I can see the answer to your question being approached and claimed by seperate archaeologists, each based on their potentially personal (and selfish) definitions.

Hehe. :wink:

Why discriminate against all the other animals, or other kingdoms for that matter, what if a dolphin made a fishing net way back then? Or a Martian made a transwarp drive?

How about the oldest manufactured artifact?

No, that was made by pre-human proto-hampsters. Minature giant space hampsters, to be precise.