We learned a while back that dogs have been around for quite a bit longer than was originally thought. So it should come as no surprise to learn that we may have also been around longer than was originally estimated.

Using argon-argon dating—a technique that compares different isotopes of the element argon—researchers determined that the volcanic ash layers entombing the tools at Gademotta date back at least 276,000 years.

Many of the tools found are small blades, made using a technique that is thought to require complex cognitive abilities and nimble fingers, according to study co-author and Berkeley Geochronology Center director Paul Renne.

Some archaeologists believe that these tools and similar ones found elsewhere are associated with the emergence of the modern human species, Homo sapiens.

Bottom line: either that was us 275,000 years ago -- 80,000 years earlier than the supposed emergence of homo sapiens --or there was another species of human during that period capable of doing then what we would be doing a few dozen millennia later.

Way back then it could have been neanderthals (our possibly their ancestors, homo heidelbergensis, assuming either of these species were ever present in Africa, which I'm not sure about.) Or it could have been homo erectus, which would indicate that these early humans were more sophisticated than we've given them credit for. Or it could have been some dead-end offshoot from homo ergaster -- Africa would be the right place to look for that. Or, again, it could have been us.

The problem is that there are no human bones, just artifacts suggesting human beings more sophisticated than any humans that were supposed to be around at that early date.

Very interesting.