8,000-year-old stone tools found in Arabia were made using the same technique first created by Native Americans 13,000 years ago

• Evidence of 'fluting' found in Yemen and Oman which date back 8,000 years  
• This had previously never been seen from Stone Age outside of America 
• It is thought the two societies came up with the same method independently 
• Native Americans used the method to create tips for weapons whereas Arabians used it to show off their knapping prowess   

Stone tools have been found in Arabia which were used 8,000 years and are unlike anything else found from the region at this time. 

The tools were created via a method called fluting and closely resemble instruments first invented up to 13,000 years ago in the Americas. 

However, experts believe the tools are not evidence of Native American technologies drifting halfway around the Neolithic world.

Instead, a scientific study concludes that the two groups of people cultivated the same technology independently.   

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Pictured, atone fluted points dating back 8,000 years ago which were discovered on archaeological sites in Manayzah, Yemen and Ad-Dahariz, Oman. Until now, the prehistoric technique of fluting had been uncovered only on 13,000 year-old Native American sites

Fluting required significant expertise and was used by Native Americans to create a sharp point on a stone which can be attached to a shaft to form a weapon. 

This would be used either in conflict with other people or to hunt.  

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The sites of Manayzah (Yemen) and Ad-Dahariz (Oman) yielded dozens of fluted points. The Arabian examples date to the Neolithic period, about 8,000 to 7,000 years ago, up to 5,000 years later than the American examples

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Detailed technological analysis, backed up by stone tool experiments and replication by an expert modern flintknapper, illustrate the similarities between the American and Arabian fluting procedures

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Fluting is a specific technique that involves the extraction of an elongated flake along the length of a projectile point, leaving a distinctive groove or depression at the base of the spearhead or arrowhead (pictured)

However, it is thought the inhabitants of Stone Age Arabia did not use it for this purpose, they used the technique simply to show off how good they were at forging tools. 

Professor Joy McCorriston, co-author of the study, says: 'Fluting in Arabia was used as a display of skill, rather than serving a purely functional purpose such as hafting, as is more widely accepted in the Americas.' 

Fluting involves chipping away chunks of a stone to form a point and a specific shape. 

Dozens of the tools were found at the sites of Manayzah and Ad-Dahariz in Yemen and Oman, respectively. 

'Given their age and the fact that the fluted points from America and Arabia are separated by thousands of kilometers, there is no possible cultural connection between them,' Professor Felice Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute says.

'This is then a clear and excellent example of cultural convergence, or independent invention in human history.' 

The research was published in the journal PLOS One.