* Astronomy

Asian stone tools hint humans left Africa earlier than thought

The first early humans to leave Africa did so half a million years earlier than we thought, according to an analysis of simple stone tools and three cow bones with cut marks found in Asia. But not everyone is convinced yet.
A joint Indian-French team found the artefacts on the Siwalik hills about 300 kilometres north of New Delhi, India, where tectonic activity has exposed an outcrop of bedrock dating back at least 2.6 million years.
The bones and tools were found lying on the surface, which made their dating tricky. But given that artefacts are rare in the younger rocks surrounding the outcrop, and the latest finds were preserved in the same way as those previously uncovered in the ancient bedrock, they probably eroded out of the bedrock on which they sit, the team says.
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