Inventing the wheel is so passé. Researchers studying our ancient ancestors have determined that it was, in fact, the invention of the projectile missile that really made humans what we are today, National Geographic reports.
Predating even the use of spears, which are a mere 400,000 years old, early humans likely chucked stones at carnivores such as saber-tooth tigers, wolves, and hyenas, according to researchers studying cobbles dating back 1.8 million years. This prehistoric stone-throwing, researcher Reid Ferring believes, taught small groups of people how to socialize — essentially, how to collaborate in an attack against a lion. Additionally, throwing rocks strengthened a neurological bridge that led to evolutionary breakthroughs like language and speech.
While the timeline from Homo erectus to King David to Randy Johnson isn't entirely sketched out — and may never be — deploying stones to chase carnivores away from their kills was very likely the first instance in human history of weapon usage, Ferring believes.
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It all goes to show that those childhood games of tossing pebbles at cans were just a way of getting in touch with our more Pleistocenic side.
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