The Standard is now reporting albeit a month late that stone tools that are 3.3 million years old have been discovered on the shores of lake Turkana.

Big news because scientists have always assumed that only members of the genus homo made stone tools. Remember in form one you were taught that Homo Habilis (handy man) was the first tool maker.

It appears earlier hominind species were making tools. Possibly Australopithecus Garrhi or Kenyanthropus platyops

Link

How does this information help us? Is it necessary information?

When I'm listening to a boring discussion,I usually use the word "interesting" to mislead people that I'm keenly following what they are saying

I had read somewhere that the Rift Valleys lakes were all one huge body of water from Turkana to Naivasha. They slowly started separating while drying up.

I thought the same - When travelling from Naks to Nai or from Nai to Naks I get that feeling when I look at Elementaita I kinda get a feeling that whole place was once underwater

Plausible. Some fellow, I don't quite recall who, once mentioned that Chalbi desert is actually the floor/bed of a long dried out lake.

They have also found whale fossils in the Sahara desert. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Sahara desert was part of the Mediterranean sea. And about 40,000 years ago, the Sahara was a thickly foreasted area. And as recently as 4000 years ago, it was grassland. Amazing what brutal climate change can do.

They have also found Ape fossils on the bottom of Lake Victoria meaning that before the Lake was formed, it was a thickly foreasted area

The Human family tree (genus homo) has branched into several different species over the last 800,000 years. Its amazing that all the branches went extinct with the exception of Homo Sapiens.

They varied from Homo floresiensis which was only three feet tall to Homo Heidelbergensis where some populations averaged seven feet tall !



This pic represents only a fraction of the extant homo species. Missing from this pic: Home Ergaster, Homo Denisova, Homo Antecessor.........

This is true. Some scientists theorize that Homo Floresiensis existed as recently as 300 years ago.

When the Portuguese first arrived on the Island of Flores, the natives regaled them with stories of a human like creature that existed on the island. This creature could supposedly mimic human speech, was ape like in appearance and were only 3 feet tall. Of course the Portuguese were dismissive. Then in 2003, skeletons of such creatures were found. Scientists named them Homo Floriesiensis.
Though the most recent Homo floresiensis skeleton found is 12,000 years old, its plausible that Ebu Gogo were indeed the last remnants of homo floreseiensis

The natives of flores killed the last remnants of Homo floresiensis by throwing firebrands into their caves

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebu_gogo