Antarctic rocks can help sort stone tools from natural lookalikes

Antarctica is somewhere archaeologists might be thought to have little business. After all, human beings did not reach it until 1821. Yet a study published in by Metin Eren of Kent State University, in Ohio, argues it is worth their attention for precisely that reason.A challenge faced by those archaeologists who study the Stone Age, particularly the Palaeolithic (which is the bulk of hominid history, including species such as and ), is discerning whether things which might be , are, indeed, such. There are many cases when a rock identified as having been worked deliberately by hominid hand has subsequently been reclassified as a naturally produced object.