Detail of the marks on a fossilized rib bone, one of the two controversial bones. Source: PastHorizons. Image credit: Zeresenay Alemseged |
Here's something for creationists to try to fit into their notion of a young Earth and a special one-day creation by magic; a team of palaeoanthropologists led by Jessica Thompson, an assistant professor of anthropology at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, believe they have shown that the marks on two 3.4 million year-old fossilised bones found at Dikika, Ethiopia, were made by stone tools, probably when butchering the animals.
Sadly, once again the paper sits behind a paywall and the publishers, this time Elsevier Ltd., want to charge for permission even to reproduce the abstract, which can be read here.