Earliest known Oldowan artifacts at >2.58 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, highlight early technological diversity
- PMID: 31160451
- PMCID: PMC6575601
- DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1820177116
Earliest known Oldowan artifacts at >2.58 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, highlight early technological diversity
Abstract
The manufacture of flaked stone artifacts represents a major milestone in the technology of the human lineage. Although the earliest production of primitive stone tools, predating the genus Homo and emphasizing percussive activities, has been reported at 3.3 million years ago (Ma) from Lomekwi, Kenya, the systematic production of sharp-edged stone tools is unknown before the 2.58-2.55 Ma Oldowan assemblages from Gona, Ethiopia. The organized production of Oldowan stone artifacts is part of a suite of characteristics that is often associated with the adaptive grade shift linked to the genus Homo Recent discoveries from Ledi-Geraru (LG), Ethiopia, place the first occurrence of Homo ∼250 thousand years earlier than the Oldowan at Gona. Here, we describe a substantial assemblage of systematically flaked stone tools excavated in situ from a stratigraphically constrained context [Bokol Dora 1, (BD 1) hereafter] at LG bracketed between 2.61 and 2.58 Ma. Although perhaps more primitive in some respects, quantitative analysis suggests the BD 1 assemblage fits more closely with the variability previously described for the Oldowan than with the earlier Lomekwian or with stone tools produced by modern nonhuman primates. These differences suggest that hominin technology is distinctly different from generalized tool use that may be a shared feature of much of the primate lineage. The BD 1 assemblage, near the origin of our genus, provides a link between behavioral adaptations-in the form of flaked stone artifacts-and the biological evolution of our ancestors.
Keywords: Homo; Oldowan; cultural evolution; paleoanthropology; stone tools.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Comment in
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Searching for the emergence of stone tool making in eastern Africa.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Jun 11;116(24):11567-11569. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1906926116. Epub 2019 Jun 4. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019. PMID: 31164417 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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Reply to Sahle and Gossa: Technology and geochronology at the earliest known Oldowan site at Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Oct 8;116(41):20261-20262. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1911952116. Epub 2019 Sep 17. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019. PMID: 31530722 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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More data needed for claims about the earliest Oldowan artifacts.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Oct 8;116(41):20259-20260. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1911658116. Epub 2019 Sep 17. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019. PMID: 31530728 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
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