Earlier stone age artifacts found in South Africa

Scientists have discovered tens of thousands of Earlier Stone Age artifacts, including hand axes and other tools, in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.
The research on the Kathu Townlands site, one of the richest early prehistoric archaeological sites in South Africa estimates that the site is between 700,000 and one million years old.
"The site is amazing and it is threatened. We've been working well with developers as well as the South African Heritage Resources Agency to preserve it, but the town of Kathu is rapidly expanding around the site. It might get cut off on all sides by development and this would be regrettable," Steven James Walker from the Department of Archaeology at University of Cape Town (UCT), lead author of the paper, said.

Today, Kathu is a major iron mining centre. Walker added the fact that such an extensive prehistoric site is located in the middle of a zone of intensive development poses a unique challenge for archaeologists and developers to find strategies to work cooperatively.
The Kathu Townlands site is one component of a grouping of prehistoric sites known as the Kathu Complex. Other sites in the complex include Kathu Pan 1 which has produced fossils of animals such as elephants and hippos, as well as the earliest known evidence of tools used as spears from a level dated to half a million years ago.

Michael Chazan, Director of the Archaeology Centre at University of Toronto, emphasised the scientific challenge posed by the density of the traces of early human activity in this area.
"We need to imagine a landscape around Kathu that supported large populations of human ancestors, as well as large animals like hippos," said Chazan.
The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.