DOCSLIB.ORG

LETTER Doi:10.1038/Nature10372

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
LETTER Doi:10.1038/Nature10372 LETTER doi:10.1038/nature10372 An earlier origin for the Acheulian Christopher J. Lepre1,2,He´le`ne Roche3, Dennis V. Kent1,2, Sonia Harmand3, Rhonda L. Quinn2,4, Jean-Philippe Brugal5, Pierre-Jean Texier6, Arnaud Lenoble6 & Craig S. Feibel2 The Acheulian is one of the first defined prehistoric techno- the nearly 170-m-thick Kaitio member. Six of those sites have been complexes and is characterized by shaped bifacial stone tools1–3. tested or largely excavated but many other potential sites have been It probably originated in Africa, spreading to Europe and Asia pinpointed. Most of these Kokiselei sites contain typical core/flake perhaps as early as 1 million years (Myr) ago4–6. The origin of Oldowan assemblages12. Kokiselei 4 (KS4), however, holds an excep- the Acheulian is thought to have closely coincided with major tional lithic assemblage that confirms the co-occurrence of the changes in human brain evolution, allowing for further technolo- Oldowan and Acheulian at this site complex, indicating that the beha- gical developments7,8. Nonetheless, the emergence of the Acheulian vioural repertoire of early hominins in the area incorporated both remains unclear because well-dated sites older than 1.4 Myr ago are technologies. scarce. Here we report on the lithic assemblage and geological con- The KS4 assemblage (Supplementary Fig. 2) is characterized by the text for the Kokiselei 4 archaeological site from the Nachukui forma- presence of pick-like tools with a trihedral or quadrangular section, tion (West Turkana, Kenya) that bears characteristic early Acheulian unifacially or bifacially shaped crude hand-axes, and a few cores and tools and pushes the first appearance datum for this stone-age tech- flakes, all derived from the same mudstone bed. A single subsurface, in nology back to 1.76 Myr ago. Moreover, co-occurrence of Oldowan situ origin for KS4 is ensured by excavations at the main test trench that and Acheulian artefacts at the Kokiselei site complex indicates that recovered several spectacular sets of refitted lithic artefacts (Sup- the two technologies are not mutually exclusive time-successive com- plementary Fig. 3). To the exception of a few cores made on basalt, ponents of an evolving cultural lineage, and suggests that the the rest of the assemblage has been knapped from large cobbles or Acheulian was either imported from another location yet to be iden- tabular clasts of locally available aphiric phonolite13. No vertebrate tified or originated from Oldowan hominins at this vicinity. In remains have been found within the test trenches, but the mudstone either case, the Acheulian did not accompany the first human dis- bed has yielded numerous non-human vertebrate fossils. The most persal from Africa9,10 despite being available at the time. This may frequent taxon is the large-sized hippopotamus Hippopotamus gorgops indicate that multiple groups of hominins distinguished by separate (adult and juvenile), but suids (Kolpochoerus, Metridiochoerus, stone-tool-making behaviours and dispersal strategies coexisted in Notochoerus?), rhinoceros (Ceratotherium sp.), equids (Equus and Africa at 1.76 Myr ago. Hipparion) and a few carnivores (Panthera, Hyaenidae aff. Crocuta) Sediments of the Nachukui formation exposed along the northwest are also present.Some isolated teeth and post-cranial elements represent shoreline of modern Lake Turkana in Kenya11 (Fig. 1 and Supplemen- bovids, and it is possible to identify Bovini (aff. Syncerus), Reduncini tary Fig. 1) preserve several rich archaeological site complexes, among (Kobus sp.) and medium-sized Tragelaphini and Alcelaphini. which is Kokiselei. Thus far, this complex is defined by ten sites, eight Broadly speaking, the Acheulian tools of KS4 come from a 15–20-m- of which are found within a discrete 5-m interval of the middle part of thick interbedded series of gravels, sands and mudstones colloquially ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ SEC. 7400 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Study site/section ~ ~ ~ 4° 0' 55" N ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ and coordinates ~ ~ ~ ~ 35° 46' 20" E ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Town of ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Nachukui ′ ′′ Outcrop traces ~~ ~ SEC. 7000 top 4° 3 50 N ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ′ ′′ and contacts ~ ~ ~ 4° 4 39 N ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ′ ′′ ~~ ~ 35° 49 2 E Ephemeral ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ SEC. 7000 base ~ ~ stream ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ′ ′′ ~ 4° 4 9 N ~ ~ ~ ~ Unpaved ~~ ~ 35° 49′ 32′′ E ~ ~ ~ road ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ a ~ ~ ETHIOPIA ~ ~ ~ ~ n ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Kokiselei Stratigraphic units ~ ~ ~ a ~ Age (Myr) ~ ~ SEC. 7400 k ~ ~ ~ ~ ′ ′′ N { ~ 4° 0 55 N Lake r ~ ~ ~ ~ Alluvium, collvium ′ ′′ N 3º N 5º <0.8 ~ ~ ~ 35° 46 20 E SOMALIA u ~ Turkana and other sediments ~ ~ ~ ~ T Mogadishu ~ ~ ~ { ~ ~ ~ e ~ Natoo to ~ N 1º ~ ~ KENYA 1.6–0.8 ~ k ~ ~ Nariokotome mbrs ~ 0º ~ { ~ a SEC. 7100 ~ ~ ′ ′′ Kalochoro to 4° 0 20 N L 2.3–1.6 ~ ~ Nairobi S 1º Kaitio mbrs ~ 35° 46′ 33′′ E ~ ~ 0 km 2.5 { ~~ N Lomekwi to Nachukui Fm. 3.4–2.3 Lokalalei mbrs ~ S 3º (excepting basal mbrs) TANZANIA 500 km { Rift-related volcanics >4.0 35° 52′ 50′′ E and other rocks E 35º E 37º E 39º E 41º E 43º E 45º E 47º E 49º S 5º Figure 1 | Geological11 and location map. Note the latitude and longitude base and top are given. The other two—SEC. 7100 and SEC. 7400 (the latter of coordinates provided for each place of investigation. Section 7000 (SEC. 7000) which is where the Acheulian site KS4 was excavated)—derive from sheer was surveyed ,200 m along the ephemeral stream; hence the indications of the outcrops, and the coordinates for only the top of the sections are given. 1Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, New York 10964, USA. 2Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA. 3UMR CNRS 7055, Universite´ Paris Ouest Nanterre, 92023 Nanterre Cedex, France. 4Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey 07079, USA. 5UMR CNRS 6636, Maison Me´diterrane´enne des Sciences de l’Homme, BP 647-F-13094, Aix-en-Provence Cedex 2, France. 6UMR CNRS 5199-PACEA, Universite´ de Bordeaux1, 33405 Talence, France. 82|NATURE|VOL477|1SEPTEMBER2011 ©2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved LETTER RESEARCH referred to as the bird cliff beach complex (BCBC). Outcrops of the as the siltstone, can be very poorly sorted in places and include volcanic BCBC are part of a nearly continuous band of sediments belonging to granules/pebbles. Such lithostratigraphic and sedimentary patterns the Kalochoro and Kaitio members that extends for over 7 km from suggest a dynamic environment along a palaeo-lakeshore. northeast to southwest along the modern northwest shoreline of Lake In the Kokiselei region the erosive base of the BCBC occurs varyingly Turkana, Kenya (Fig. 1). These members of the Nachukui formation at 1–15 m above the Kaitio member’s lowermost stratigraphic level, record a transition from predominantly fluvial to lacustrine sedi- which is the KBS tuff11 dated by 40Ar/39Ar to 1.869 6 0.021 Myr ago15. mentation in the Pleistocene Turkana basin during which the rest The KBS tuff lies 78 m above the Kalochoro tuff, dated by 40Ar/39Ar to of East Africa is thought to have undergone ecosystem turnover in 2.331 6 0.015 Myr ago16, which defines the base of the Kalochoro response to global climate forcing14. A first indication of lacustrine member11. No direct numerical age constraints have been determined deposits occurs ,35 m above the base of the Kalochoro member, for the BCBC; however, regional geological mapping and tephrostrati- marked by the appearance of silty/clayey, often thinly bedded and graphic studies indicate that it is ,150 m below the base of the Lower finely laminated, ostracod-rich lacustrine mudstones, which coarsen Koobi Fora tuff11 dated by 40Ar/39Ar to 1.476 6 0.013 Myr ago15. upwardly into poorly sorted massive mudstones (Supplementary Figs Linear extrapolation from the Kalochoro and KBS tuffs and linear 8–11). Thin lenticular units of gravel and sand become apparent near interpolation from the KBS and Lower Koobi Fora tuffs broadly con- the top of the Kalochoro member, which heralds the appearance of the strain the KS4 Acheulian assemblage to between 1.72 and 1.81 Myr BCBC in the Kaitio member. Lithological units of the BCBC form ago. Other dated tuffaceous beds between the KBS and Lower Koobi metre-thick, coarsening-upward cycles of claystone, siltstone and sand Fora tuffs in the Turkana basin that would further refine stratigraphic and/or gravel. At KS4, the coarsest layers of the BCBC consist of position have not been found in the Kokiselei region. To place the KS4 gravelly sands that preserve abundant rhizoconcretions at their tops artefacts within a more constrained age context, we collected 148 (Supplementary Figs 10 and 11). Claystones of the cycles contain thin orientated samples for palaeomagnetic analysis (see Supplementary lenses of mollusc shells and are dissected by slickensided fractures that Methods and Supplementary Figs 4–7) from sections of outcrop define wedge-shaped aggregates of palaeosols. These claystones, as well exposed at this archaeological site and adjacent locations (Fig. 1). Stratigraphy Lithology VGP lat. (°) Polarity KS4 Acheulian GPTS Site Significance Age (Myr ago) Front Back negative negative Konso, Early 1.4 0–04 45 900–90–45 110 Ethiopia Acheulian (m) artefacts 20 cm 1.5 105 cortex cortex 100 1.6 Matuyama Oldest-known 95 Koobi Fora, SEC. 7400 cranium of African 1.7 Kenya Homo erectus 90 Kokiselei, World’s oldest- Kenya known Acheulian 1.8 Kaitio member Vrica 85 Earliest out-of-Africa ‘envelope’ (e.g., Dmanisi, Java) 1.9 SEC. 7100 KBS tuff 80 Olduvai 1.87 Myr ago 75 2.0 70 2.1 Matuyama 65 Reunion 2.2 60 Oldest-known stone tools in Lokalalei, Nachukui formation 2.3 55 Kenya Multiple, World’s oldest-known including fossils of early Homo 50 2.4 Lokalalei Matuyama 45 Gona, World’s oldest- 2.5 SEC. 7000 Nachukui formation Ethiopia known stone tools 40 2.6 35 2.7 30 Kalochoro member Kalochoro Gauss 25 2.8 20 2.9 15 3.0 10 5 Kalochoro tuff 0 2.33 Myr ago Figure 2 | Summary diagram.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PDF Generated By
    The Evolution of Language: Towards Gestural Hypotheses DIS/CONTINUITIES TORUŃ STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE Edited by Mirosława Buchholtz Advisory Board Leszek Berezowski (Wrocław University) Annick Duperray (University of Provence) Dorota Guttfeld (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Grzegorz Koneczniak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Piotr Skrzypczak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Jordan Zlatev (Lund University) Vol. 20 DIS/CONTINUITIES Przemysław ywiczy ski / Sławomir Wacewicz TORUŃ STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND CULTURE Ż ń Edited by Mirosława Buchholtz Advisory Board Leszek Berezowski (Wrocław University) Annick Duperray (University of Provence) Dorota Guttfeld (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Grzegorz Koneczniak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) The Evolution of Language: Piotr Skrzypczak (Nicolaus Copernicus University) Jordan Zlatev (Lund University) Towards Gestural Hypotheses Vol. 20 Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. The translation, publication and editing of this book was financed by a grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Poland within the programme Uniwersalia 2.1 (ID: 347247, Reg. no. 21H 16 0049 84) as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Ministry cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Translators: Marek Placi ski, Monika Boruta Supervision and proofreading: John Kearns Cover illustration: © ńMateusz Pawlik Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck ISSN 2193-4207 ISBN 978-3-631-79022-9 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79393-0 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79394-7 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-79395-4 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/b15805 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 unported license.
    [Show full text]
  • How Homo Became Docens
    Knowing, Learning and Teaching— How Homo Became Docens Anders Hogberg,¨ Peter Gardenfors¨ & Lars Larsson This article discusses the relation between knowing, learning and teaching in relation to early Palaeolithic technologies. We begin by distinguishing between three kinds of knowl- edge: knowing how, knowing what and knowing that. We discuss the relation between these types of knowledge and different forms of learning and long-term memory systems. On the basis of this analysis, we present three types of teaching: (1) helping and correcting; (2) showing; and (3) explaining. We then use this theoretical framework to suggest what kinds of teaching are required for the pre-Oldowan, the Oldowan, the early Acheulean and the late Acheulean stone-knapping technologies. As a general introductory overview to this special section, the text concludes with a brief presentation of the papers included. Introduction Homo special and underlined the importance of study- ing why and how the sapient minds learned to learn Homo sapiens is the only extant species that systemat- more extensively than in any other species. Others ically educates conspecifics. In so doing, we help and have focused on related areas like learning and en- encourage our children to gain extraordinary knowl- vironmental adaptation (Shennan & Steel 1999), hu- edge and skills. This enables them to do remark- man ecology, information storage and cultural learn- able things like perceiving complicated patterns that ing (Bentley & O´Brien 2013; Henrich 2004), evolution help them categorize things in the world and learn- of modern thinking and increased working memory ing connections between events that help them per- (Coolidge & Wynn 2009), the emergence of the social ceive causal structures.
    [Show full text]
  • Lieberman 2001E.Pdf
    news and views Another face in our family tree Daniel E. Lieberman The evolutionary history of humans is complex and unresolved. It now looks set to be thrown into further confusion by the discovery of another species and genus, dated to 3.5 million years ago. ntil a few years ago, the evolutionary history of our species was thought to be Ureasonably straightforward. Only three diverse groups of hominins — species more closely related to humans than to chim- panzees — were known, namely Australo- pithecus, Paranthropus and Homo, the genus to which humans belong. Of these, Paran- MUSEUMS OF KENYA NATIONAL thropus and Homo were presumed to have evolved between two and three million years ago1,2 from an early species in the genus Australopithecus, most likely A. afarensis, made famous by the fossil Lucy. But lately, confusion has been sown in the human evolutionary tree. The discovery of three new australopithecine species — A. anamensis3, A. garhi 4 and A. bahrelghazali5, in Kenya, Ethiopia and Chad, respectively — showed that genus to be more diverse and Figure 1 Two fossil skulls from early hominin species. Left, KNM-WT 40000. This newly discovered widespread than had been thought. Then fossil is described by Leakey et al.8. It is judged to represent a new species, Kenyanthropus platyops. there was the finding of another, as yet poorly Right, KNM-ER 1470. This skull was formerly attributed to Homo rudolfensis1, but might best be understood, genus of early hominin, Ardi- reassigned to the genus Kenyanthropus — the two skulls share many similarities, such as the flatness pithecus, which is dated to 4.4 million years of the face and the shape of the brow.
    [Show full text]
  • Edward Sapir and the Origin of Language
    EDWARD SAPIR AND THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE ALBERT F. H. NACCACHE Archaeology Department, Lebanese University, (ret.) Beirut, Lebanon [email protected] The field of Language Evolution is at a stage where its speed of growth and diversification is blurring the image of the origin of language, the “prime problem” at its heart. To help focus on this central issue, we take a step back in time and look at the logical analysis of it that Edward Sapir presented nearly a century ago. Starting with Sapir’s early involvement with the problem of language origin, we establish that his analysis of language is still congruent with today’s thinking, and then show that his insights into the origin of language still carry diagnostic and heuristic value today. 1. Introduction The origin of language is a challenging problem to focus upon. Language, like mind and intelligence, is a phenomenon that “we find intuitive but hard to define” (Floridi, 2013, p. 601), and a century of progress in Linguistics has only heightened our awareness of the protean nature of language while exacerbating the fuzziness of its definition. Meanwhile, research in the field of Language Evolution is blooming and the sheer variety of available approaches, though highly promising, has blurred, momentarily at least, our perception of the issue at the core of the field: the origin of language. We do not propose a solution to this problem, just an attempt to put it in perspective by looking at it through the writings of a researcher who had nearly no data with which to tackle the issue and could only rely on his analytical abilities.
    [Show full text]
  • 27Mykolas Imbrasas Masters Thesis Final.Pdf
    Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Imbrasas, Mykolas Dovydas (2018) Performance of 2D geometric morphometric analysis in hominin taxonomy and its application to the mandibular molar sample from Lomekwi, Kenya. Master of Research (MRes) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR https://kar.kent.ac.uk/76756/ Document Version UNSPECIFIED Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html Performance of 2D geometric morphometric analysis in hominin taxonomy and its application to the mandibular molar sample from Lomekwi, Kenya Mykolas Dovydas Imbrasas Student No. 17905401 School of Anthropology and Conservation University of Kent Project supervisor – Dr. Matthew Skinner Submitted November 2018 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Matthew Skinner for introducing me to the world of hominin dentition, and for providing detailed instruction regarding the current techniques (geometric morphometrics, micro-CT scanning, and software used for visualizing 3D data) used in studies of hominin tooth morphology.
    [Show full text]
  • Language Evolution to Revolution
    Research Ideas and Outcomes 5: e38546 doi: 10.3897/rio.5.e38546 Research Article Language evolution to revolution: the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children – the Romulus and Remus hypothesis Andrey Vyshedskiy ‡ ‡ Boston University, Boston, United States of America Corresponding author: Andrey Vyshedskiy ([email protected]) Reviewable v1 Received: 25 Jul 2019 | Published: 29 Jul 2019 Citation: Vyshedskiy A (2019) Language evolution to revolution: the leap from rich-vocabulary non-recursive communication system to recursive language 70,000 years ago was associated with acquisition of a novel component of imagination, called Prefrontal Synthesis, enabled by a mutation that slowed down the prefrontal cortex maturation simultaneously in two or more children – the Romulus and Remus hypothesis. Research Ideas and Outcomes 5: e38546. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.5.e38546 Abstract There is an overwhelming archeological and genetic evidence that modern speech apparatus was acquired by hominins by 600,000 years ago. On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as (1) composite figurative arts, (2) bone needles with an eye, (3) construction of dwellings, and (4) elaborate burials arose not earlier than © Vyshedskiy A. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
    [Show full text]
  • Form and Function in the Lower Palaeolithic: History, Progress, and Continued Relevance
    doi 10.4436/jass.95017 JASs Invited Reviews Journal of Anthropological Sciences Vol. 95 (2017), pp. 67-108 Form and function in the Lower Palaeolithic: history, progress, and continued relevance Alastair J. M. Key1 & Stephen J. Lycett2 1) School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7NR, United Kingdom e-mail: [email protected] 2) Department of Anthropology (Evolutionary Anthropology Laboratory), University at Buffalo, SUNY, Amherst, NY 14261, U.S.A. Summary - Percussively flaked stone artefacts constitute a major source of evidence relating to hominin behavioural strategies and are, essentially, a product or byproduct of a past individual’s decision to create a tool with respect to some broader goal. Moreover, it has long been noted that both differences and recurrent regularities exist within and between Palaeolithic stone artefact forms. Accordingly, archaeologists have frequently drawn links between form and functionality, with functional objectives and performance often being regarded consequential to a stone tool’s morphological properties. Despite these factors, extensive reviews of the related concepts of form and function with respect to the Lower Palaeolithic remain surprisingly sparse. We attempt to redress this issue. First we stress the historical place of form–function concepts, and their role in establishing basic ideas that echo to this day. We then highlight methodological and conceptual progress in determining artefactual function in more recent years. Thereafter, we evaluate four specific issues that are of direct consequence for evaluating the ongoing relevance of form–function concepts, especially with respect to their relevance for understanding human evolution more generally.
    [Show full text]
  • Semiotics and the Origin of Language in the Lower Palaeolithic
    1 Semiotics and the origin of language in the Lower Palaeolithic 2 Lawrence Barham* and Daniel Everett 3 University of Liverpool and Bentley University 4 *Corresponding author: [email protected] 5 Abstract 6 This paper argues that the origins of language can be detected one million years ago, if not 7 earlier, in the archaeological record of Homo erectus. This controversial claim is based on a 8 broad theoretical and evidential foundation with language defined as communication based on 9 symbols rather than grammar. Peirce’s theory of signs (semiotics) underpins our analysis with 10 its progression of signs (icon, index and symbol) used to identify artefact forms operating at the 11 level of symbols. We draw on generalisations about the multiple social roles of technology in 12 pre-industrial societies and on the contexts tool-use among non-human primates to argue for a 13 deep evolutionary foundation for hominin symbol use. We conclude that symbol based language 14 is expressed materially in arbitrary social conventions that permeate the technologies of Homo 15 erectus and its descendants, and in the extended planning involved in the caching of tools and in 16 the early settlement of island Southeast Asia. 17 18 Introduction 19 Language is biocultural behaviour (Darwin 1871; Sapir 1927; White 1940; Deacon 1997; 20 Tomasello 2005; Christiansen et al. 2009; Fitch 2010; Arbib 2018), thus research into its origins 21 is necessarily an interdisciplinary exercise. Models of language origins typically integrate social, 22 cognitive, anatomical and genetic data as well as broad comparative perspectives drawn from 23 ethology (Tallerman and Gibson 2012).
    [Show full text]
  • 3.3-Million-Year-Old Stone Tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya
    ARTICLE doi:10.1038/nature14464 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya Sonia Harmand1,2,3, Jason E. Lewis1,3,4, Craig S. Feibel3,4,5, Christopher J. Lepre3,5,6, Sandrine Prat3,7, Arnaud Lenoble3,8, Xavier Boe¨s3,7, Rhonda L. Quinn3,5,9, Michel Brenet8,10, Adrian Arroyo2, Nicholas Taylor2,3, Sophie Cle´ment3,11, Guillaume Daver12, Jean-Philip Brugal3,13, Louise Leakey1, Richard A. Mortlock5, James D. Wright5, Sammy Lokorodi3, Christopher Kirwa3,14, Dennis V. Kent5,6 &He´le`ne Roche2,3 Human evolutionary scholars have long supposed that the earliest stone tools were made by the genus Homo and that this technological development was directly linked to climate change and the spread of savannah grasslands. New fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has identified evidence of much earlier hominin technological behaviour. We report the discovery of Lomekwi 3, a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site where in situ stone artefacts occur in spatio- temporal association with Pliocene hominin fossils in a wooded palaeoenvironment. The Lomekwi 3 knappers, with a developing understanding of stone’s fracture properties, combined core reduction with battering activities. Given the implications of the Lomekwi 3 assemblage for models aiming to converge environmental change, hominin evolution and technological origins, we propose for it the name ‘Lomekwian’, which predates the Oldowan by 700,000 years and marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record. Conventional wisdom in human evolutionary studies has assumed (3.44–2.53 Ma) of the Nachukui Formation (west of Lake Turkana, that the origins of hominin sharp-edged stone tool production were northern Kenya; Fig.
    [Show full text]
  • Palaeolithic Toolmaking and the Evolution of Cognition and Language”, in Cognitive Science, Eds T
    PLEASE CITE AS: Gabrić, P., Banda, M., & Karavanić, I. (2018). “Palaeolithic toolmaking and the evolution of cognition and language”, in Cognitive Science, eds T. Strle, & O. Markič (Ljubljana: Institut “Jožef Stefan”), pp. 12–16. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4674332 Palaeolithic toolmaking and the evolution of cognition and language Marko Banda Ivor Karavanić Petar Gabrić Department of Archaeology Department of Archaeology Department of Linguistics Faculty of Humanities and Social Faculty of Humanities and Social Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Sciences Sciences University of Zagreb University of Zagreb University of Zagreb [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Research in this area has been in large part focused on inferring This paper reviews in short the current research on the hypothesis “modern” and “symbolic behavior” from archaeological data, of coevolution between Palaeolithic stone tool manufacture on such as ochre and ornament use, figurative art production, one side, and cognition and specifically language on the other. Of subsistence strategies etc. (e.g. d’Errico et al. 2003). The research particular interest are behavioral and neuroimaging studies. was led by the premise that such behaviors indicate the existence of a package of “higher” cognitive abilities. However, these Keywords discussions have been heavily criticized from a methodological language evolution, cognitive evolution, Palaeolithic, stone tools, point of view (e.g. Botha 2009, 2012), and they currently struggle Oldowan, Acheulean, Levallois, cultural transmission to find support in cognitive science (e.g. Garofoli 2014). 1. INTRODUCTION1 2. PALAEOLITHIC STONE TOOLS In the past two decades great interest has emerged for Recently, vast literature has appeared supporting the coevolution interdisciplinary discussion on the evolution of cognition and of cognition and language on one side, and the manufacture of specifically language (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Material Culture As Proxy for Language: the Himalayan Evidence*
    Material culture as proxy for language: the Himalayan evidence* Maheshwar P. Joshi (Doon Library and Research Centre, Dehradun,Uttarakhand, India)** Words in a language are of course symbols, but material things also serve in symbolic roles. Humans, it is said, live in a forest of symbols, and to un- derstand what makes humans tick, it is necessary to consider how those symbols work. That leads us on to a relatively new field in the study of prehistory — cognitive archaeology — that is still in early development (Renfrew 2008: 67). 1. Introduction tudying material culture as proxy for language involves cog- nitive archaeology a relatively young discipline. There are S several competing theories of language cognition, among which the modular and non-modular ones have gained wide curren- cy. The modular theory posits language as a genetically endowed, biological system, i.e., the faculty of language is innate (see, Chomsky 2006). According to the non-modular theory it is behavioural there- fore learned (see, Lieberman 2013: in passim; 2016; Bickerton 2009). There is no doubt that language is a very complex behaviour that involves the interweaving of many components. Since archaeological evidence is behavioural in nature, it can be invoked in studying lan- guage origin and evolution (see, Leroi-Gourhan 1993 [1964]; Isaac 1976). Stone tools fashioned by our remote ancestors are the earliest sur- viving components of material culture; therefore, our enquiry begins with the Lower Palaeolithic. The evolutionary typology in archaeo- logical record is defined in simplistic terms as Mode system of lithic technology (Clark 1977: 23-38, in passim, table 5).
    [Show full text]
  • Lomekwi Strata
    Turkana Boy KNM WT - 15000 Lower Koobi Fora Tu Brown, F., et al., 1985 al., et F., Brown, Lower Nachukui strata, West Turkana Basin 500 Thickness is from HBL, 1988 (except Lonyumun). Sections measured by Nutz et al., 2017, 2020 and others show variations as expected in a fault-controlled lake margin setting. 450 Kaitio Lacustrine Lorenyang Lake KS4 Acheulian Near shore Nutz et al., 2017, gs 3A, 4A,B, 5H; 2020, g 12A 400 Fig 9 of HBL 1988 Fig ooding surface 1.76my per Nutz et al., 2017 Fluvial Nutz et al., 2020 section 13 2020 al., et Nutz Volcanics KBS = H-2, 1.87my Nutz et al., 2017, g 4D Tu 350 Nutz et al., 2020, g 11 F stromatolites Nutz et al., 2017 g 3B; 2020, sect. 12 2020, 3B; g 2017 al., et Nutz ooding surface 2.04my from Shungura D diatomite LA1, LA2c archeological sites Nutz et al., 2020 section 10 2020 al., et Nutz Kalochoro 300 Nutz et al., 2020, g 11 E Lepre et al., 2011, g 2 g 2011, al., et Lepre Fig 8 of HBL 1988 HBL of 8 Fig Ekalalei = F-1 Kalochoro = F Strata thatStrata occur in Lomekwi drainage Kokiselei = E, DSDP core 231 Lokalalei Tiercelin et al., 2010, g 13 g 2010, al., et Tiercelin 250 Lokalalei = D, 2.53my notebook p. 16-21 Black skull KNM WT 17000 (Walker et al., 1986) paleocurrents to east Emekwi = C-9 200 Nutz et al., 2020, g 11 D Nutz et al., 2020, g 11 C 150 Fig 7 of HBLFig 1988 Lomekwi LOM-3 (Harmand et al., 2015) beach notebook p.
    [Show full text]