# CVs maintained over a span of 5000 generations

**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/cvs-maintained-over-a-span-of-5000-generations/16227
**Category:** Culture phenomena
**Created:** [April 20, 2026, 1:45pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/cvs-maintained-over-a-span-of-5000-generations/16227 "2026-04-20T13:45:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![bnhpct](http://discourse.iapct.org/user_avatar/discourse.iapct.org/bnhpct/32/34_2.png) [@bnhpct](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/bnhpct)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2026, 1:45pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/cvs-maintained-over-a-span-of-5000-generations/16227/1 "2026-04-20T13:45:31Z")

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Will, M., Sommer, C., Möller, G.H.D. _et al._[Specialised and persistent raw material procurement by humans in the Middle Pleistocene](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70783-8?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email). _Nat Commun_ **17** , 2702 (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-70783-8

“Imagine a small group of people walking across a grassland in what is now KwaZulu-Natal. The year is 220,000 BCE. They are not hunting. They are not gathering food. They are heading, with intent, to a particular outcrop of dark grey rock above the Jojosi River. They have walked this route before. So did their parents, and their parents’ parents, probably for 5000 generations or more. The stone they want is hornfels – a hard, fine-grained rock baked by ancient magma into something that flakes beautifully. They will arrive, knock large blocks into long blades, and carry the blades away to use somewhere else. And then, over the next hundred thousand years, others will keep coming back to do the same thing.”

Johan Fourie, “[The oldest tool in the book](https://www.ourlongwalk.com/p/the-oldest-tool-in-the-book?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1000230&post_id=193651250&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=d0v&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email&__readwiseLocation=)”, [OurLongWalk.com](http://OurLongWalk.com)

Brad DeLong “[Origins of a ‘human’ economy](https://braddelong.substack.com/p/draft-origins-of-a-human-economy?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=47874&post_id=194720960&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=2gsb&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email)”.