Stone-Age Tools Found In Brazil Were ‘Made By Monkeys,’ Not Humans

Tools found in the Pedra Furada cave were once thought to have been manufactured at the hands of men 50,000 years ago. However, new analysis has discovered that capuchin monkeys made these tools instead.

The research team, led by archaeologist Agustín Agnolín and paleontologist Federico Angolín from CONICET, compared the objects against the tools used by capuchin monkeys today and found that there was no distinction between either.
 
According to the study, the tools found in the cave served as the basis for an argument that humans arrived on the American continent between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. In a rebuttal to this, many other major scholars cite this as inaccurate.

Instead, the actual timing of humans first arrived on the continent was between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago after they crossed the Berin Straight, which connected Asia with North America. 
 
The specimens found consisted of rounded-out rocks used to open nuts and bigger flattened stones used as an anvil. Other types of hardware include items used for digging and gathering food.

This discovery not only places humans on the continent in recent times, but the study also claims that it was not indigenous people that built prehistoric sites in Brazil but rather it was also the work of monkeys, bringing up further questions about an ancient settlement in South America.

 
 
[via TechTimes and CONICET, Photo 261619760 © Sandra Polo | Dreamstime.com]