Some anthropologists argue that in east Africa and Ethiopia the toolkit was showing signs of change as early as 285,000 years ago. Certainly, by at least 160,000 years ago a new, small-faced ‘sapiens’ skull was being worn on the top of the spine in Ethiopia. Around the same time at Pinnacle Point in South Africa, people – yes, I shall call them people for the first time – were cooking mussels and other shellfish in a cave close to the sea as well as making primitive ‘bladelets’, small flakes of sharp stone, probably for hafting on to spears. They were also using red ochre, perhaps for
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