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>