Ancient stone tools suggest early hominins dined on hippo

Archæologists in Kenya have unearthed dozens of stone tools scattered around the butchered bones of ancient hippopotamus-like creatures. The site dates to between 2.6 and 3 million years ago, and pushes back the known start of large-animal butchering by early human relatives by at least 600,000 years. The tools are the earliest known example — by around 700,000 years — of Oldowan tools, which became widespread across Africa and Asia. The tools were found alongside the teeth of an ancient human relative from the genus Paranthropus, raising the possibility that Paranthropus, rather than a member of the modern-human genus Homo, used the tools.