JENA, GERMANY-Courthouse News Service reports that an international team of researchers has discovered stone tools between two and 1.8 million years old in Tanzania’s Ewass Oldupa, the western part of the Oldupai Gorge, a 28-mile canyon known for its hominin fossils. Recovered from layers of stratified sediments, the artifacts are the oldest stone tools found in the canyon so far. The tools include gravel and cobblestone cores, sharp-edged flakes and polyhedral cobbles. Fossils of wild cattle, pigs, hippos, panthers, lions, hyenas, primates, reptiles and birds were also discovered in the strata, along with evidence of changing habitats over the 200,000-year period. The habitats include systems of rivers and lakes, fern meadows, forests, palm groves, dry steppes and signs of natural burning. The repetition of the Oldowan tools in these layers suggests that the hominins moved in and out of the area during periods of volcanic activity and as the environment changed. “We see that we have a lot of flexibility and versatility, even though ecosystems have changed,” said team member Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. “I think part of this is the beginning of our own lineage, and part it’s our legacy.” Read the original scientific article about this research Nature Communications. Go to “The Bone Collector” to read about an 800,000 year old bone point from Olduvai.