Olduvai's oldest Oldowan

Stollhofen, Harald; Stanistreet, Ian G.; Toth, Nicholas; Schick, Kathy; Rodríguez-Cintas, Àgata; Albert, Rosa M.; Farrugia, Paul; Njau, Jackson K.; Pante, Michael C.; Herrmann, Edward W.; Ruck, Lana; Bamford, Marion K.; Blumenschine, Robert J.; Masao, Fidelis T.

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102910

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 99 publications

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“…The lithic record from Ewass Oldupa shares many commonalities with other Oldowan assemblages (Leakey, 1971;Toth, 1985;Isaac, 1997;Semaw et al, 1997;Semaw, 2000;de la Torre, 2004;Delagnes and Roche, 2005;Schick and Toth, 2006;Barsky et al, 2011;Braun et al, 2019;Reeves et al, 2021;Stollhofen et al, 2021). Overall, there is a preference for unmodified flakes, along with unifacial, bifacial, and multifacial cores exploited unidirectionally, bidirectionally, and multidirectionally.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…The stone tool assemblages from the western Pleistocene basin at Oldupai Gorge (Habermann et al, 2016;Mercader et al, 2021;Stollhofen et al, 2021) constitute the earliest record in the outcrop of hominin presence in the area. Ewass Oldupa is one of a few multi-stratified, high-resolution records of the Early Oldowan and the Early Pleistocene, underscoring ecological pioneering behavior, that is, the first occupation of a territory after a catastrophic event, and displaying a stable technological record amid changing environments.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Retouched flakes are scarce. Classic heavy-duty/chopping tools, such as those from the eastern basin (Leakey, 1971), are uncommon in the west (Habermann et al, 2016;Stollhofen et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most of the information about hominin activity at Oldupai comes from the eastern side of the basin, where the Oldowan record is younger (Leakey, 1971) than the early Oldowan from Kenya and Ethiopia. Recent work (Mercader et al, 2021;Stollhofen et al, 2021), however, has shown that the earliest Oldowan yet known at Oldupai occurs in outcrops from the western side of the gorge (Figure 1B), sometimes comprising multi-stratified, high-resolution sites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oldowan Technology Amid Shifting Environments ∼2.03–1.83 Million Years Ago

et al. 2022

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The Oldowan represents the earliest recurrent evidence of human material culture and one of the longest-lasting forms of technology. Its appearance across the African continent amid the Plio-Pleistocene profound ecological transformations, and posterior dispersal throughout the Old World is at the foundation of hominin technological dependence. However, uncertainties exist concerning the degree to which the Oldowan constitutes an environment-driven behavioral adaptation. Moreover, it is necessary to understand how Oldowan technology varied through time in response to hominin ecological demands. In this study, we present the stone tool assemblage from Ewass Oldupa, a recently discovered archeological site that signals the earliest hominin occupation of Oldupai Gorge (formerly Olduvai) ∼2.03 Ma. At Ewass Oldupa, hominins underwent marked environmental shifts over the course of a ∼200 kyr period. In this article, we deployed an analysis that combines technological and typological descriptions with an innovative quantitative approach, the Volumetric Reconstruction Method. Our results indicate that hominins overcame major ecological challenges while relying on technological strategies that remained essentially unchanged. This highlights the Oldowan efficiency, as its basic set of technological traits was able to sustain hominins throughout multiple environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Oldowan Technology Amid Shifting Environments ∼2.03–1.83 Million Years Ago

et al. 2022

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“…Although we have longterm records that demonstrate changes in plant landscape composition (Feakins et al, 2005;Feakins et al, 2007;Feakins et al, 2013;Uno K. T. et al, 2016), they do not necessarily show the ecological subtleties and complexity that on-site (i.e., proximal) records can provide. Increasingly, however, phytolith and pollen records (Bonnefille, 1995;Barboni et al, 1999;Albert et al, 2006;Bamford et al, 2006;Bamford et al, 2008;Albert et al, 2009;Barboni et al, 2010;Rossouw and Scott, 2011;Albert and Bamford, 2012;Barboni, 2014;Albert et al, 2018;Itambu, 2019;Mercader et al, 2021;Stollhofen et al, 2021), as well as paleontological and stable isotope analyses (WoldeGabriel et al, 1994;Cerling et al, 1997;Pickford and Senut, 2001;Wynn, 2001;White et al, 2009b;WoldeGabriel et al, 2009;Prassack, 2010;Cerling et al, 2011;Kovarovic et al, 2013;Magill et al, 2013a;Quinn et al, 2013;Bibi and Kiessling, 2015;Bibi et al, 2018;Colcord et al, 2018;Pante and de la Torre, 2018;Prassack et al, 2018;Faith et al, 2019;Roberts et al, 2020;Sanders, 2020), have sought to track changes in landscapes occupied by Pleistocene hominins. The pursuit of more detailed data relating to hominin population resourc...…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microhabitat Variability in Human Evolution

et al. 2021

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Climate variability and hominin evolution are inextricably linked. Yet, hypotheses examining the impact of large-scale climate shifts on hominin landscape ecology are often constrained by proxy data coming from off-site lake and ocean cores and temporal offsets between paleoenvironmental and archaeological records. Additionally, landscape response data (most commonly, records of vegetation change), are often used as a climate proxy. This is problematic as it assumes that vegetation change signifies global or regional climate shifts without accounting for the known non-linear behavior of ecological systems and the often-significant spatial heterogeneity in habitat structure and response. The exploitation of diverse, rapidly changing habitats by Homo by at least two million years ago highlights that the ability to adapt to landscapes in flux had emerged by the time of our genus’ African origin. To understand ecosystem response to climate variability, and hominin adaptations to environmental complexity and ecological diversity, we need cross-disciplinary datasets in direct association with stratified archaeological and fossil assemblages at a variety of temporal and spatial scales. In this article, we propose a microhabitat variability framework for understanding Homo’s adaptability to fluctuating climates, environments, and resource bases. We argue that the exploitation of microhabitats, or unique ecologically and geographically defined areas within larger habitats and ecoregions, was a key skill that allowed Homo to adapt to multiple climates zones and ecoregions within and beyond Africa throughout the Pleistocene.

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