Hot Rocks Were Technology Revolution


	Hot Rocks Were Technology Revolution

chestnut501

8-17-2009 4:21 PM

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chestnut501 says:

Early humans were fire-treating stone more than 70,000 years ago

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8-19-2009 2:20 AM

katsteevns

And they said that African slaves were something less than human, the man-footed creature.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/fb9f5497-e36b-4d29-9f4b-85b7f7988da7/0C2FBAB7-B814-48EE-9D98-C61F49B3E5DB/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot-rocks-were-technology-revolutio-09-08-14" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot-rocks-were-technology-revolutio-09-08-14" style="font-size: 11px;">www.scientificamerican.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot-rocks-were-technology-revolutio-09-08-14">Early modern humans didn’t just chip away at stones to create their tools. They 
treated stone with fire in a sophisticated fashion</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot-rocks-were-technology-revolutio-09-08-14">About 72,000 years ago, our ancestors along coastal South Africa made tools from 
silcrete, a cement-like layer of soil. The silcrete found at archaeological 
sites was glossy with a fine grain and a reddish color. It didn’t match stones 
in local outcroppings. Researchers from the University of Cape Town couldn’t 
find big enough pieces to learn more, until a couple of years ago. </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=hot-rocks-were-technology-revolutio-09-08-14"> the researchers set up a fire pit and buried a silcrete sample at high 
temperature. The next day, the stone looked like ones used by early humans. It 
flaked easily and provided the basic material for complex tools. Until now, heat 
treatment was thought to have started in Europe 25,000 years ago. This discovery 
pushes it back tens of thousands of years into Africa—and suggests that the 
southern African coast may have been the site of a truly Promethean revolution.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/0C2FBAB7-B814-48EE-9D98-C61F49B3E5DB/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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