ore than 70,000 years ago, people occupied a cave in a high cliff facing the
Indian Ocean at the tip of South Africa. They hunted grysbok, springbok and
other game. They ate fish from the waters below them. In body and brain size,
these cave dwellers were definitely anatomically modern humansArchaeologists
are now finding persuasive evidence that these people were taking another
important step toward modernity. They were turning animal bones into tools
and finely worked weapon points, a skill more advanced in concept and
application than the making of the usual stone tools. They were also
engraving some artifacts with symbolic marks — manifestations of abstract and
creative thought and, presumably, communication through articulate speech.
<A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/science/02BONE.html">Click here: African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human</A>