Jeanne Calment

While the theory was in vogue, however, and as long as the European archaeological evidence was looked at in one short-sighted way, the archaeological materials seemed to fit the parallel phyla theory.

It was simply necessary to believe that the flake tools were made only by the paleoanthropic Neanderthaler line, and that the more handsome chlor biphase tools were the product of the neanthropic modern man line remember that almost all of the early prehistoric european tools came only from the redeposited gravel beds this means that the tools were not normally found in the remains of campsites or workshops where they had actually been dropped by the men who made and used them the tools came rather from the secondary hodge-podge of the glacial gravels i tried to give you a picture of the bulldozing action of glaciers page forty and of the erosion and weathering that were side effects of a glacially conditioned climate on the earth's surface as we said above if one simply plucks tools out of the redeposited gravels his natural tendency is to type the tools by groups and to think that the groups stand for something on their own in nineteen o six m victor comment actually made a rare find of what seems to have been a kind of workshop site on a terrace above the somme river in france here comment realized flake tools appeared clearly in direct association with core biphase tools few prehistorians paid attention to caumont or his site however it was easier to believe that flake tools represented a distinct culture and that this culture was that of the neanderthaler or paleoanthropic line and that the core bifaces stood for another culture which was that of the supposed early modern or neanthropic line of course i am obviously skipping many details here some later sites with neanderthal fossils do seem to have only flake tools but other such sites have both types of tools the flake tools which appeared with the corbi faces in the swan's comb gravels were never made much of although it was embarrassing for the parallel phyla people that fonteschevad ran heavily to flake tools all in all the parallel phyla theory flourished because it seemed so neat and easy to understand traditions are tool making habits not cultures in case you think i simply enjoy beating a dead horse look in any standard book on prehistory written twenty or even ten years ago or in most encyclopedias you'll find that each of the individual tool types of the west at least was supposed to represent a culture the cultures were believed to correspond to parallel lines of human evolution in nineteen thirty seven mister harper kelly strongly re-emphasized the importance of commons workshop site and the presence of flake tools with core biphases next followed dr movius's clear delineation of the chopper chopping tool tradition of the far east this spoiled the nice symmetry of the flake tool paleoanthropic core biface neanthropic equations then came increasing understanding of the importance of the pebble tools in africa and the location of several more workshop sites there especially at olorgesali in kenya finally came the liquidation of piltdown and the deflation of galley hill state so it is at least possible to picture an individual prehistoric man making a flake tool to do one job and a core biphase tool to do another Calment showed us this picture in 1906, but few believed him.

There are certainly a few cases in which flake tools did appear with few or no core bifaces.

The flake tool group called Clactonian in England is such a case.

Exactly.

You have outliers like Jean Calment, who reached 122.

But generally, that is the upper ceiling of human hardware.

OK, let's unpack this, because, I mean, the biohacking influencers out there are claiming we're going to live to 150 or 200.