近來的一項研究可能過早地得出結(jié)論認為古代人類屠夫在埃塞俄比亞Dikika出土的340萬年前的動物骨頭上進行了切割,。
由Dikika研究項目（DRP）報告的最初發(fā)現(xiàn)提示南方古猿阿法種（Australopithecus afarensis）——因為“露西”的骨骼而變得著名的早期人類祖先——在石器被認為出現(xiàn)之前的將近100萬年屠宰了動物的肉。然而， Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo及其同事發(fā)現(xiàn)所謂的工具痕跡很可能是動物踏過骨頭造成的擦痕,，這些骨頭在某一時間被埋在了淺的沙質(zhì)土壤中,。這組科學家比較了Dikika研究項目（DRP）的發(fā)現(xiàn)和此前檢查了自然過程——如踩踏,，這常常在化石表面留下痕跡,，可能被誤認為是工具的痕跡——的研究。
這組作者說,，在Dikika骨頭上的大多數(shù)所謂的工具痕跡可以被踩踏和地質(zhì)磨損加以解釋,，而且并不能成為修訂公認的人類行為進化時間線的依據(jù)。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推薦英文摘要：
PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1013711107
Configurational approach to identifying the earliest hominin butchers
Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigoa,b,1, Travis Rayne Pickeringc,d, and Henry T. Bunnc
aDepartment of Prehistory, Complutense University of Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria, 28040 Madrid, Spain;
bInstituto de Evolución en áfrica, Museo de los Orígenes, 28005 Madrid, Spain;
cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706; and
dInstitute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa
The announcement of two approximately 3.4-million-y-old purportedly butchered fossil bones from the Dikika paleoanthropological research area (Lower Awash Valley, Ethiopia) could profoundly alter our understanding of human evolution. Butchering damage on the Dikika bones would imply that tool-assisted meat-eating began approximately 800,000 y before previously thought, based on butchered bones from 2.6- to 2.5-million-y-old sites at the Ethiopian Gona and Bouri localities. Further, the only hominin currently known from Dikika at approximately 3.4 Ma is Australopithecus afarensis, a temporally and geographically widespread species unassociated previously with any archaeological evidence of butchering. Our taphonomic configurational approach to assess the claims of A. afarensis butchery at Dikika suggests the claims of unexpectedly early butchering at the site are not warranted. The Dikika research group focused its analysis on the morphology of the marks in question but failed to demonstrate, through recovery of similarly marked in situ fossils, the exact provenience of the published fossils, and failed to note occurrences of random striae on the cortices of the published fossils (incurred through incidental movement of the defleshed specimens across and/or within their abrasive encasing sediments). The occurrence of such random striae (sometimes called collectively “trampling” damage) on the two fossils provide the configurational context for rejection of the claimed butchery marks. The earliest best evidence for hominin butchery thus remains at 2.6 to 2.5 Ma, presumably associated with more derived species than A. afarensis.
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