Dubai, Feb 19: Artefacts, including an axe and tools to crack open animal bones, dating back to more than 150,000 years have been discovered in Abu Dhabi. The team from the Department of Historic Environment found the Levallois, a type of tool whose one of the many functions was to split animal bones to extract the marrow, which was a nutritious food resource.

Dr Ganim Wahida, a specialist in Stone Age archaeology, invited by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) to study and evaluate the artefacts said, ''The discovered assemblage belongs to the techno-typologically Middle Stone Age Period, well over 150,000 years ago.'' Dr Walid Yassin, Manager of the Archaeology Division at ADACH, who discovered the sites and had previously discovered other artefacts, said the Levallois technique was first discovered in the nineteenth century at the archaeological site of Levallios, near Paris.

''The significance of this discovery lies in the fact that it alters our understanding of the beginning of the first human activities in Abu Dhabi Emirate, which seem to have gone back well into the Old Stone Age,'' he said. "The discovery does contradict an earlier claim made by archaeologists during the late twentieth century that the earliest occupation of the Arabian Gulf was during the New Stone Age, some 7,500 years ago. This discovery complements earlier findings made last year at the same area," Mr Yassin was quoted by the Gulf News as saying.

UNI