Reanalysis of Northern Australian Stone Tools Pushes Back Heat Treatments by 20,000 Years - Archaeology Magazine

Reanalysis of Northern Australian Stone Tools Pushes Back Heat Treatments by 20,000 Years - Archaeology Magazine

ARNHEM LAND, AUSTRALIA—According to a Phys.org report, Patrick Schmidt of the University of Tübingen and Peter Hiscock of the University of Queensland reanalyzed stone tools from two archaeological sites in Australia’s Northern Territory. It had been previously thought that heating rocks as part of the knapping process began in Australia about 40,000 years ago. Heat-treating the minerals helps the process along, Schmidt said, by forming new atom…