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The stone tool styles that took
Homo Sapiens out of Africa and across much of the world were gradually replaced with new implements, and were thought to have been abandoned entirely by 30,000 years ago. New discoveries reveal that in West Africa this transition was not made until long after the rest of the world, with replacements only appearing around 11,000 years ago.
Long before
H. Sapiens arrival on the scene other early human species had refined stone tool use to a fine art. The first bones of our own species are associated with the appearance of a distinctive style of flaking tools, scrapers, and grinding stones anthropologists refer to as the Middle Stone Age. As the name suggests, there was also a Later Stone Age, marked by much smaller tools and ostrich eggshell beads. These first appeared around 67,000 years ago, and by 30,000 years ago were thought to have replaced the larger tools that served humanity for almost 300,000 years everywhere in Africa.