Publication Date:
2015-05-23
Description:
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 spatiotemporal 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.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Harmand, Sonia -- Lewis, Jason E -- Feibel, Craig S -- Lepre, Christopher J -- Prat, Sandrine -- Lenoble, Arnaud -- Boes, Xavier -- Quinn, Rhonda L -- Brenet, Michel -- Arroyo, Adrian -- Taylor, Nicholas -- Clement, Sophie -- Daver, Guillaume -- Brugal, Jean-Philip -- Leakey, Louise -- Mortlock, Richard A -- Wright, James D -- Lokorodi, Sammy -- Kirwa, Christopher -- Kent, Dennis V -- Roche, Helene -- England -- Nature. 2015 May 21;521(7552):310-5. doi: 10.1038/nature14464.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉1] Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-4364, USA [2] CNRS, UMR 7055, Prehistoire et Technologie, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, 21 allee de l'Universite, 92023 Nanterre Cedex, France [3] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya. ; 1] Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-4364, USA [2] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [3] Department of Anthropology and Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] Department of Anthropology and Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA [3] Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA [3] Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964, USA. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] CNRS, UPR 2147, Dynamique de l'Evolution Humaine, 44 rue de l'Amiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] CNRS, UMR 5199 PACEA, Universite de Bordeaux, 33615 Pessac, France. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA [3] Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey 07079, USA. ; 1] CNRS, UMR 5199 PACEA, Universite de Bordeaux, 33615 Pessac, France [2] Inrap, Centre Mixte de Recherche Archeologique, Domaine de Campagne, 24620 Campagne, France. ; CNRS, UMR 7055, Prehistoire et Technologie, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, 21 allee de l'Universite, 92023 Nanterre Cedex, France. ; 1] CNRS, UMR 7055, Prehistoire et Technologie, Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre La Defense, 21 allee de l'Universite, 92023 Nanterre Cedex, France [2] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] Inrap, 34-36 avenue Paul-Vaillant Couturier, 93120 La Courneuve, France. ; IPHEP, Institut de Paleoprimatologie, Paleontologie Humaine: Evolution et Paleoenvironnements, CNRS, UMR 7262, Universite de Poitiers, Bat. B35 - TSA 51106, 6 rue Michel Brunet, 86073 Poitiers Cedex 9, France. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] Aix-Marseille Universite, CNRS, MCC, UMR 7269, LAMPEA, 13094 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 2, France. ; Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-4364, USA. ; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA. ; West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya. ; 1] West Turkana Archaeological Project, P.O. Box 40658-00100, Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya [2] National Museums of Kenya, Department of Earth Sciences, Archaeology Section, P.O. Box 40658-00100 Ngara Rd, Nairobi, Kenya. ; 1] Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA [2] Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25993961" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Animals
;
Archaeology
;
Biological Evolution
;
Environment
;
Fossils
;
History, Ancient
;
*Hominidae
;
Kenya
;
Paleontology
;
Technology/history
;
Time Factors
;
*Tool Use Behavior
Print ISSN:
0028-0836
Electronic ISSN:
1476-4687
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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