...innovation transformed India. The advent of stone microblades set the stage for the subcontinent's explosive population growth, new research suggests.
The easy-to-manufacture tools – also known as microliths – were a vast improvement over larger stone flake tools used previously, says Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the study. Because microblades could be cut from stone more quickly and in higher volumes than flakes, hunting probably became a vastly more efficient endeavour.
The easy-to-manufacture tools – also known as microliths – were a vast improvement over larger stone flake tools used previously, says Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the study. Because microblades could be cut from stone more quickly and in higher volumes than flakes, hunting probably became a vastly more efficient endeavour.
After all that time, the stone microblades are the only artifacts we can discover archeologically. There's no written or voice records of the period, so we automatically assume that a specific tool caused the population explosion. The reality was probably a lot more complex. New hunting tools and strategies had to develop to take advantage of the new weapon. New tribe organizational structures had to emerge to manage relationships between diverging groups of specialists. New manufacturing techniques had to be taught and deployed at scale to make a difference in the life of the whole continent. Unfortunately, we don't have access to any information about that.
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