At https://phys.org/news/2026-01-prehistoric-tool-elephant-bone-oldest.html … discovered at the Boxgrove site in the 1990s. It is around 500,000 years of age going by the date of Boxgrove. The elephant bone had been worked into a hammer tool but because bone is soft, it could hardly be compared with a sledge hammer – or even a claw hammer. It is thought it would have been used to sharpen stone tools, such as the cutting edge of hand axes or stones used for butchering purposes. Boxgrove is located near Chichester in Sussex. It has been thoroughly excavated and discussed in articles over the years in Current Archaeology.
At https://phys.org/news/2026-01-neanderthals-reusable-toolkits-high-altitude.html … Neanderthals living in Italy were crossing the Alps. This is suggested by finds in high altitude caves such as Caverna Generaza. Such caves were used by bears also, according to finds in the same caves. It is thought Neanderthals used them in summer months when bears were busy fattening up for their winter hibernations. Crossing the Alps involved taking their toolkits with them, in order to hunt animals, and butcher them.
There is another interesting bit of archaeology at https://phys.org/news/2026-01-world-oldest-art-clues-early.html … a hand stencil on the wall of a cave in Sulawesi may have been on the migration route of Australian Aborigines, it is theorised. This comes on the heel of an article claiming to map two routes to Australia by the Aborigines, one of which is via Sulawesi. In this latest article it is reputed they passed through that large island around 67,800 years ago. The cave, conveniently, is located on a small island off SE Sulawesi, within reasonable distance of New Guinea by island hopping, or when sea levels were lower. The cave in question has a lot of cave art. We are told it was produced over a period of 35,000 years – but by who?