Apes used tools millions of years ago

Ape-like humans were cutting up meat with stone blades more than three million years ago, long before the earliest previous evidence of tool use, scientists revealed today.

The discovery of fossil animal bones bearing butchery marks pushes back the known history of tools by almost a million years.

The creatures who wielded the implements pre-date the evolution of the homo primate family to which modern humans belong.

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Until now it was believed intelligent tool use only started with the Homo genus – but a much more primitive ancestor, Australopithecus, which looked like an upright walking ape, used blade-like stones to strip meat off bones.