Learning English

Were early humans more intelligent than we thought?

Scientists have discovered stone tools that are 700,000 years older than any found before. It's been described as "the most important discovery of the last 50 years."

In this reading activity, you'll have a chance to learn about the incredible find and also test what you've studied in this unit about modals of deduction.

Before you read the article, look at these two summaries. Then read the article once, quite quickly, and decide which summary is correct.

1. Scientists have found some tools which prove that early man was more intelligent than they previously thought.

2. Scientists have found some tools which mean it's possible that early man was more intelligent than they previously thought.

Read the text and complete the activity

The world's oldest stone tools

Part 1
The world's oldest stone tools have been discovered. And they are more than 700,000 years older than any stone tools found before. It means that species which lived even before the earliest humans from the Homo group may have been more intelligent than scientists previously thought.

Part 2
The tools were discovered almost by mistake. In 2011, researchers working on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya took a wrong turn and spotted sharp flakes of stone removed from larger rocks. Scientists think these could have been used for cutting. They had almost 150 of these tools by the end of 2012.

Part 3
After dating the volcanic ash and minerals around the tools, experts have estimated that the tools are 3.3 million years old.

"It's really quite astonishing to think what separates the previous oldest site and this site is 700,000 years of time. It's monumental," said Dr Nick Taylor, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Part 4
Until this discovery, the oldest examples of this technology were the Oldowan tools from Tanzania, which date from about 2.6 million years ago.

Scientists don't know exactly who made the tools from this latest find. But they think that it might have been a species called Australopithecus afarensis or another, Kenyanthropus platyops. This surprised the researchers because they didn't think that these ape-like species were particularly smart.

Part 5
Dr Ignacio de la Torre, from University College London's Institute of Archaeology, described this as "a game-changing" find.

"It's the most important discovery of the last 50 years," he told BBC News.

This article was based on a BBC News story.

Which was the correct summary?

The correct summary was:

2. Scientists have found some tools which mean it's possible that early man was more intelligent than they previously thought. The key phrase is "It means that species which lived even before the earliest humans may have been more intelligent than scientists previously thought."

To do

Now it's time to look at the article in detail. Read it again and then answer the questions. Good luck!

End of Session 3

Well done: you've reached the end of Session 3. We hope you now know more about early humans and also modals of deduction. In Session 4, we'll give you some useful tips for pronouncing multiple contractions.