Early Africans living inland collected unusual objects

Key sites associated with modern human fossils in Africa were re-dated, and at some early sites, innovative technologies were found. Current appraisals of archaeological, fossil and genetic data confirm these ideas5, and also support the pre-eminent part that Africa played during the later stages of human evolution. The authors report a long archaeological sequence of finds, interspersed with layers of a type of limestone called tufa, which were dated by uranium-thorium analysis. [...]the tufa enabled the authors to reconstruct past environments. The MSA inhabitants there manufactured ostrich and land-snail shell beads, used red ochre as a pigment and collected forest resources in an environment strikingly different from the grasslands presumed to be the norm for the MSA.