Plio-Pleistocene terrestrial mammal assemblage from Konso, southern Ethiopia

Suwa, Gen; Nakaya, Hideo; Asfaw, Berhane; Saegusa, Haruo; Amzaye, Awoke; Kono, Reiko T.; Beyene, Yonas; Katoh, Shigehiro

doi:10.1671/2469-15

Cited by 40 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Basinwide reconstructions for the following period in Konso (i.e. Interval 5, Karat Member; table 1) report a return to wetter conditions and expansion of woodlands [75], and it is inferred here that such would be the general setting for the ca 1.4 Myr assemblages of KGA7-A1, A2 and A3.…”

Section: (B) Palaeoecological Settingsmentioning

confidence: 56%

“…based on data not only from KS4 but also from other sites, mostly Oldowan) and report the presence of small rivers, lagoonal and beach settings by the shore of palaeolake Lorenyang, where bovids indicate both wooded and grassy elements, the abundance of hippopotamus signals a perennial water source nearby, and paleosol carbonates point to a wooded grassland [74]. All sites in Konso are located in lake-margin floodplain or alluvial fans flowing into the lake [75]. Bovid tribe composition indicates that KGA6-A1 in Konso was located in a wet and relatively closed setting [76].…”

Section: (B) Palaeoecological Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution

Torre¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The emergence of the Acheulean from the earlier Oldowan constitutes a major transition in human evolution, the theme of this special issue. This paper discusses the evidence for the origins of the Acheulean, a cornerstone in the history of human technology, from two perspectives; firstly, a review of the history of investigations on Acheulean research is presented. This approach introduces the evolution of theories throughout the development of the discipline, and reviews the way in which cumulative knowledge led to the prevalent explanatory framework for the emergence of the Acheulean. The second part presents the current state of the art in Acheulean origins research, and reviews the hard evidence for the appearance of this technology in Africa around 1.7 Ma, and its significance for the evolutionary history of Homo erectus.This article is part of the themed issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.

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Section: (B) Palaeoecological Settingsmentioning

confidence: 56%

Section: (B) Palaeoecological Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution

Torre¹

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…iv) Revised 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages of the Nariokotome Tuff series were reported (1.24 ± 0.02, 1.31 ± 0.03, and 1.30 ± 0.03 Ma, respectively, for the Upper, Middle, and Lower Nariokotome Tuffs) (30), which we previously considered correlative to some of the upper Konso Formation tuffs (BOT, PST1, and PST2) (22). According to these dates, some of the major fossiliferous and archeological horizons of the upper part of the Konso Formation are slightly younger (1.2-1.35 Ma) than formerly thought (25). v) We formerly noted that the Turkana Basin Orange Tuff was chemically similar to the Konso Kayle Tuff-1 (KYT1) (22).…”

mentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Field research and laboratory analysis thereafter established that the formation spans the time period >1.9 to ∼0.8 Ma (20)(21)(22). Abundant lithic assemblages and vertebrate fossils have been recovered (23)(24)(25), including fossil remains of Australopithecus boisei (∼1.43 Ma) and H. erectus (∼1.45 to ∼1.25 Ma) (19,26,27).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia

Beyene

Katoh

WoldeGabriel

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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340

218

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The Acheulean technological tradition, characterized by a large (>10 cm) flake-based component, represents a significant technological advance over the Oldowan. Although stone tool assemblages attributed to the Acheulean have been reported from as early as circa 1.6-1.75 Ma, the characteristics of these earliest occurrences and comparisons with later assemblages have not been reported in detail. Here, we provide a newly established chronometric calibration for the Acheulean assemblages of the Konso Formation, southern Ethiopia, which span the time period ∼1.75 to <1.0 Ma. The earliest Konso Acheulean is chronologically indistinguishable from the assemblage recently published as the world's earliest with an age of ∼1.75 Ma at Kokiselei, west of Lake Turkana, Kenya. This Konso assemblage is characterized by a combination of large picks and crude bifaces/unifaces made predominantly on large flake blanks. An increase in the number of flake scars was observed within the Konso Formation handaxe assemblages through time, but this was less so with picks. The Konso evidence suggests that both picks and handaxes were essential components of the Acheulean from its initial stages and that the two probably differed in function. The temporal refinement seen, especially in the handaxe forms at Konso, implies enhanced function through time, perhaps in processing carcasses with long and stable cutting edges. The documentation of the earliest Acheulean at ∼1.75 Ma in both northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia suggests that behavioral novelties were being established in a regional scale at that time, paralleling the emergence of Homo erectus-like hominid morphology. chronostratigraphy | Early Pleistocene | lithic technology development

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“…and G.S.). This work has yielded a mammalian fauna abundantly represented between ~1.9 and 1.3 Ma (Suwa et al, 2003;White and Suwa, 2004) and early Acheulean archeological assemblages extending back in time tõ 1.6 Ma Beyene, 2003). Hominid remains of both Australopithecus boisei and H. erectus were recovered Suwa et al, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Pleistocene Homo erectus fossils from Konso, southern Ethiopia

Suwa

Asfaw

Haile‐Selassie

et al. 2007

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Homo erectus has been broadly defined to include fossils from Africa, Asia, and possibly Europe, or restricted to a supposedly confined Asian clade. Recently discovered fossils of H. erectus are allowing new insights into aspects of its evolution, such as the timing and mode of the species' emergence in Africa and its relationship to Asian populations. However, the currently available African record predating 1.0 Ma is poor, consisting of the Turkana basin, Olduvai and the more limited South African materials. Here, we describe and compare eight craniodental fossils of ~1.4 Ma recovered from Konso, Ethiopia, that we attribute to H. erectus. These include KGA10-1, one of the better-preserved H. erectus mandibular specimens known from eastern Africa, and other fragmentary dental and cranial remains. The Konso H. erectus fossils show a mosaic of primitive and derived features. These include a large and thick mandibular corpus, a moderately developed lateral prominence, a reduced premolar morphology, and a tendency for smaller relative sizes of the posterior molars compared with earlier Homo. In some dentognathic details, such as the lack of a buccolingually narrow M1 and the presence of double mental foramina, the Konso fossils differ from eastern African H. erectus of ≥1.5 Ma. The fragmentary cranial remains exhibit weak angular and occipital tori, and an apparently weak occipital flexion, as with the eastern African H. erectus examples known from ~1.65 to 1.2 Ma. The available evidence is consistent with the interpretation that African early H. erectus shows morphological continuity within the ~1.65 to 1.0 Ma time period, with relatively little morphological evolution prior to 1.4 Ma and advanced dentognathic gracility occurring sometime thereafter. The Konso evidence corroborates the hypothesis that the African H. erectus populations represent a variable but continuous evolutionary succession that was a likely source of multiple events of gene flow to the Eurasian continent.

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Plio-Pleistocene terrestrial mammal assemblage from Konso, southern Ethiopia

Cited by 40 publications

References 37 publications

The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution

The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution

The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia

Early Pleistocene Homo erectus fossils from Konso, southern Ethiopia

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