Contrary to previous theories that toolmaking innovation during the Stone Age started in Africa and spread, new research suggests technological advances arose in other areas of the globe at about the same time.

According to a new paper published in the journal Science, researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, together with an international team from across the United States and Europe report the discovery of an archaeological site in Armenia where they spotted tools of similar sophistication as those identified in Africa -- and which existed between 325,000 and 335,000 years ago, a news release said.

The find, which included thousands of different tools, challenges the belief that a type of technology known as the Levallois technique -- where the stone flakes and blades were used to make useful implements such as hunting weapons -- was invented in Africa and then spread to other continents as the human population expanded.

There were indications the tools at the site in Armenia had emerged out of simpler toolmaking technologies.

"The discovery of thousands of stone artifacts preserved at this unique site provides a major new insight into how Stone Age tools developed during a period of profound human behavioral and biological change," research lead Dr. Simon Blockley, from the Department of Geography at RHUL, said in a statement. "The people who lived there 325,000 years ago were much more innovative than previously thought, using a combination of two different technologies to make tools that were extremely important for the mobile hunter-gatherers of the time.

Blockley and fellow researcher Dr. Alison MacLeod, also from RHUL's geography department, analyzed volcanic material that preserved the archaeological site in the village of Nor Geghi, in the Kotayk Province of Armenia and used state-of-the-art techniques developed at Royal Holloway to extract material they needed to date the Levallois tools.