The First Butcher

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Most intriguing of all is the likelihood that the prehistoric butchers were able to plan far enough ahead to bring their tools with them. Says White: "Since we can't find any tools in the same geological layer as the animal bones, this technological equipment was probably carried in and then carried out." The case for this is made even stronger, he says, by the fact that there is no local source of raw materials for toolmaking.

Alas, there is no way to know at this point whether the three discoveries indicate a single transitional species or two or even three that lived at about the same time. Nor can the researchers tell what precise relationship any of these ancients might have to us. Hoping for some answers, White and his colleagues will head back to Ethiopia next fall.