SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
Scientists once believed that stone toolmaking began with members of the genus Homo, the group that includes modern humans. Discoveries at Lomekwi, a site in northwestern Kenya, have challenged that view. There, archaeologists found stone flakes, and the cores from which they were struck, dating to about 3.3 million years ago. That is roughly 700,000 years earlier than the oldest stone tools previously known, and older than the earliest known fossils of Homo.
Based on the text, why are the tools found at Lomekwi significant?
They are the first tools of any kind ever found in Kenya.
They suggest that stone toolmaking may have begun before the genus Homo appeared.
They prove that modern humans lived 3.3 million years ago.
They show that the earliest tools were made of wood rather than stone.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
The tools are older than the earliest known Homo fossils, which challenges the belief that toolmaking began with Homo. So they suggest that stone tools came before Homo, choice B.
Choice C overreaches; the tools predate even the earliest Homo fossils, so they cannot show that modern humans lived then.
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