Caveman was not thick-skulled: Study

PARIS (AFP) - Paleontologists said on Wednesday they have found small blades in a South African cave proving that Man was an advanced thinker making stone tools 71,000 years ago - millennia earlier than thought.

The find suggests early humans from Africa had a capacity for complex thought and weapons production that gave them a distinct evolutionary advantage over Neanderthals, say the authors of a study published in Nature.

Scientists agree that our lineage appeared in Africa more than 100,000 years ago, but there is much debate about when Homo sapiens' cultural and cognitive character began resembling that of modern humans.

Small, manufactured blades such as those found in hunting arrows were first thought to have appeared in South Africa between 65,000 and 60,000 years ago.