article_snippet: Discarded stone tools made by early humans have formed a vast 'carpet' in part of the Sahara desert in what scientists say could be the first man-made landscape.
article_snippet: The Massak Settafet escarpment (above) near Fezzan Libya could be the world's first man-made landscape .
article_snippet: The Messak Settafet is the earliest demonstrated example of the scars of human activity across an entire landscape. '
article_snippet: Dr Robert Foley, from the Leverhulme Centre for Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge who also took part in the study, said: 'The Messak sandstone, now in the middle of the vast sand seas of Libya, would have been a high quality rock for hominins to fracture.
article_snippet: The Messak Settafet runs for 350km (217 miles) and much of The Messak Settafet appears to have been shaped by human hands . '
article_snippet: The landscape is in effect a carpet of stone tools, most probably made in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. '
article_snippet: It is clear from the scale of activity how important stone tools were, and shows that African hominins were strongly technologically dependent. '
article_snippet: Landscapes such as these must have been magnets for hominin populations, either for "stone foraging trips" or residential occupation.'
article_snippet: The researchers say that the intensive stone tool industry in The Messak Settafet also shaped the landscape in a way that helped later human inhabitants.
highlights_snippet: Scientists say it could be the earliest example of a man-made landscape .
  