3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya

Abstract

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.

Knowing, Learning and Teaching—How Homo Became Docens

“…the knapping actions were poorly controlled (Harmand et al 2015). To learn to produce this kind of lithic assemblage, helping and correcting is enough.…”

“…The oldest known knapped stones are from the unique 3.3-million-year-old site of Lomekwi 3 in West Turkana, Kenya (Harmand et al 2015). Here Pliocene hominins pre-dating early Homo combined core reduction with battering activities using local raw materials.…”

Wild monkeys flake stone tools

“…Suggested hallmarks of the earliest stone tool technology include (i) controlled, conchoidal flaking 5 , (ii) production of sharp cutting edges 6 , (iii) repeated removal of multiple flakes from a single core, (iv) clear targeting of core edges, and (v) adoption of specific flaking patterns 7 . These characteristics underlie the identification of intentional stone flaking at all early archaeological sites 3,5,[7][8][9][10][11][12] , as they do not co-occur under natural geological conditions. To date, comparisons between hominin intentional stone flaking and wild primate stone tool use have focused on West African chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) [13][14][15][16] .…”

“…They should also assist in distinguishing human tools from capuchin artefacts where the range of these primates overlap 12 . Of interest beyond Sapajus behavioural evolution, SCNP capuchins produce stone debris through a similar technique (passive hammer) inferred from some of the earliest hominin archaeological assemblages 3,5,11 . The passive hammer knapping technique involves striking a hammerstone onto a passive anvil, with the desired flakes detached from the handheld stone 11 (Extended Data 1).…”

“…The passive hammer knapping technique involves striking a hammerstone onto a passive anvil, with the desired flakes detached from the handheld stone 11 (Extended Data 1). Both active and passive hominin hammers often have repeated impact marks away from the tool's edge, interpreted as evidence of poorly controlled strikes or mutli-purpose tool use 3 . SCNP capuchin behaviour demonstrates that these marks, and recurrent conchoidally fractured, sharp-edged flakes, can be produced entirely unintentionally.…”