Monkeys ‘actually entered the Stone Age 3,000 years ago’

Monkeys in South America entered the Stone Age 3,000 years ago, using carefully chosen stone tools to hammer and dig, researchers have found.

The capuchin monkeys’ chosen implements highlight how their use of technology has evolved, selecting pounding tools of varying sizes and weights.

Stone implements found at a site in Brazil show signs of a shift over the last three millennia, between dealing with relatively small, soft foods or larger, hard-shelled foods.

At least four groups of primates are thought to have entered the Stone Age.

‘It’s likely that local vegetation changes after 3,000 years ago led to changes in capuchin stone tools,’ says archaeologist Tomos Proffitt of University College London.

Read more from Yahoo News UK:

Man who shot dead his best friend cleared of murder

Boris Johnson fumbles answers as he’s quizzed on Brexit

Bill Gates reveals Microsoft’s biggest ever mistake

It is the first evidence of changing patterns of stone-tool use in a nonhuman primate.

Relatively small, heavily damaged pounding implements from between around 3,000 and 2,500 years ago were likely used to smash open tiny foods such as seeds or fruits with soft rinds, the researchers say.

Similar tools uncovered at the site date to around 600 years ago. Larger pounding stones from overlying sediment appeared about 300 years ago.

The appearance of bigger capuchin tools by around that time denoted a shift to eating hard-shelled fruits and nuts that required high-impact pounding to open, the team says.

Then starting roughly 100 years ago, capuchins downsized pounding stones slightly to crack cashews efficiently, the researchers suspect. Capuchins living near the site today like to eat cashews that the animals crack with similar pounding stones.

Hominids began making and using stone tools at least 2.6 million years ago.