Oldowan

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Oldowan
Age : Stone Age - Old Paleolithic
Absolutely : approx. 2.6–1.5 million years ago

expansion
Africa, Europe, Eurasia, Middle East
Leitforms

Chopper, chopping tools, light and heavy duty tools, proto- bifaces

2.6 million year old stone artifact from Bokol Dora ( Afar triangle , Ethiopia ) in the site where it was found. Right: photo and three-dimensional model of the same artifact.

As Oldowan (also: Olduwan, Olduway) or Oldowan culture is the archaeological culture with the world's oldest stone tools called. It dates from around 2.6 to 1.5 million years ago. The name refers to the Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania , part of the Great African Rift Valley . The name was coined by Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey , who from 1931 had recovered numerous, only slightly worked stone tools on the edge of this gorge. Oldowan stone tools are characteristic of the Early Stone Age of Africa. The Oldowan is therefore also known as the Archaeolithic (from the Greek ἀρχαῖος / archaĩos , "ancient" and lithikos / "concerning the stones"), as it is the oldest, demonstrable culture that emerged towards the end of the Pliocene and the beginning of the Pleistocene in Africa established.

Stone tools and cuttings from the Lomekwi 3 site in Kenya were even dated to an age of 3.3 million years and identified as evidence of a “Lomekwian culture”.

Historical

Hans Reck made the first hominine find in the Olduvai Gorge in 1913 (Olduvai Hominid 1, abbreviated: OH 1); Today it is kept in the State Collection for Anthropology and Paleoanatomy in Munich. OH 1 is the remnant of the skull of an anatomically modern human ( Homo sapiens ), who in 1974 was assigned an age of 17,550 ± 1000 years, and Reck had published in 1925 as editor of "Scientific Results of the Oldoway Expedition 1913" in detail .

In their search for fossils from early ancestors of anatomically modern humans, Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey recognized the Olduvai Gorge in the north of what was then Tanganyika as particularly promising. From the early 1930s onwards, they repeatedly searched the sites they knew of primitive stone tools for surface finds, that is, for fossils that - for example after rainfall - had been exposed to the weather from the steep slopes of the gorge. On July 17, 1959, Mary Leakey struck gold in such a collection of stone utensils: She discovered the relatively well-preserved skull with very large teeth, known as Olduvai Hominid 5 (OH 5), which was already known as the holotype of the new species Zinjanthropus in August 1959 boisei (today: Paranthropus boisei ) was expelled. Since this fossil was discovered in the same layer of soil as the stone tools and in their immediate vicinity, Zinji was initially assigned the authorship of the stone tools .

In June 1959, a small lower jaw fragment was discovered in the same layer, a little later at a neighboring site - somewhat deeper - several hominine foot and hand bones, a small skull fragment and a partially dentate lower jaw fragment; However, its relatively small teeth did not match those of Zinji , from which it was concluded that a second fossil species could also be the originator of the stone tools. In fact, in the fall of 1960 , Jonathan Leakey discovered a well-preserved and toothed lower jaw of a child (OH 7), which, together with the earlier findings , was ascribed as a holotype of the new species Homo habilis ("skillful person"). Already in the naming it was emphasized that Homo habilis was interpreted as the bearer of the Oldowan culture.

Features of the Oldowan

Oldowan Chopper
(1.7 million years old, Melka Kunture )
Oldowan Proto-Biface

Tools

General

The British archaeologist Grahame Clark defined the technological status of the Oldowan as Mode 1 , i.e. the lowest level on a fictional technology list on which humans had risen in the course of their further development. Typical of the Oldowan is the use of rubble ( English : pebbles ), which with a few, usually one-sided cuts, a sharp edge has been created, so-called rubble devices . These early forms can hardly be distinguished from natural rubble. An identification criterion for Oldowan sites in this context would be, for example, the non-existence of naturally transported or eroded stones as well as the existence of clear, in the best case multiple traces of processing.

Later, in "Developed Oldowan" (Engl .: Developed Oldowan ) easy come flake tools added and the previously dominant share of choppers going back. In addition, the first appearance of small scratches as well as proto- two-ladders can be observed, which is why the developed Oldowan is sometimes seen as a preliminary stage or part of the subsequent Acheuléen . Also, the developed Oldowan was based on the findings from the Olduvai Gorge ( engl. : Olduvai Gorge ) defined.

The early humans Homo rudolfensis , Homo habilis and Homo ergaster / Homo erectus are considered to be the producers of the simple stone tools . The Oldowan is associated in particular with Homo habilis because in 1960 in the Olduvai Gorge remains of this early human form were discovered in association with simple Oldowan tools. Australopithecins are also increasingly being considered as manufacturers.

The most widely used tool of the (early and classic) Oldowan is the chopper. This is a stone that has been modified in a simple manner, the processing of which was probably created by simply hitting another stone. In the Oldowan, this artifact production is still done using the so-called hard impact technique, i.e. without any additional material that is placed between the hammer stone and the stone to be worked. The Oldowan's choppers are usually further subdivided; this breakdown is based on the relationship of the machined edge to the original shape of the stone. Due to the simplicity of processing, this can be reconstructed in many cases. In addition to the chopper, there is also the further developed chopping tool , which is processed on two sides.

Another characteristic of the Oldowan is the presence of so-called Utilized Material , by which one understands stones which, although not modified, have nevertheless been used as tools; this includes rounded stones that were used as hammers. In connection with the utilized material , the term so-called manuports is also important: This means stones, which are usually also rubble, that have been imported by humans, i.e. brought to a certain place to be there as Tools to find use. As with the Utilized Material , they are hardly or not at all processed. Above all, the sharp-edged waste that arose during the cutting process was also used.

materials

use

The tools were used to separate meat from bones and to open hard-shelled, plant-based foods. Impact and cut marks on animal bones prove the utilization of meat, although it has not yet been clearly proven whether it is hunting prey or so-called "scavenging" (for example: "carrion utilization"). In the case of “scavenging” - a term brought into the debate by Robert Blumenshine - Homo habilis or Homo ergaster / Homo erectus would have taken what was left of the meals of the great predators , the so-called “ predators ”.

Storage bins

Another characteristic of the Oldowan culture is the existence of the first residential structures (storage areas). They date from 2 to 1.5 million years ago; They are stone circles that are interpreted as the stone base of huts or generally as a camp of early hominids (e.g. Homo habilis ). They were only inhabited for a period of time but then abandoned, probably due to the need to find new sources of food. In Olduvai, for example, an approximately circular area of ​​around 16 m² was discovered in 1971; this area was surrounded by one of the low stone walls mentioned above, which formed the foundation of a hut. Numerous dissected or machined bones from which the bone marrow had been removed were discovered within this enclosure. Choppers were also found. Most likely, it was used to remove the marrow. A similarly structured and equipped settlement remainder was located in Melka Kunturé in Ethiopia ; also other plants of this type in various other locations in East Africa. In general it can be said that the remains of these huts are mostly located near rivers and lakes.

Chronological order

In recent research, the Oldowan is increasingly subdivided into several levels. Publications on this are mainly from the pen of Helene Roche.

  • The Early Oldowan (also: Frühes Oldowan; approx. 2.6–2 million years before today):
    Begins in Africa, these include: Kada Gona , Omo ; and continues outside Africa: Yiron near Tiberias (Israel), Šandalja I on the Istrian peninsula and Chilhac III in France (although the latter is not clearly part of the Oldowan), there is also a site (Ain Boucherit) in Algeria . The Early Oldowan is primarily characterized by the fact that the raw volume is tracked when stone artifacts are being made.
  • The Oldowan (also: Classic Oldowan; about 2–1.7 million years ago):
    These include: Olduvai , Koobi Fora , Ubeidya and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, Dmanisi in Georgia and Orco near Granada (Spain). This epoch is characterized by the fact that impact accidents are increasingly avoided and the manufacture of simple stone tools is increasingly being perfected.
  • The Developed Oldowan (also: Developed Oldowan; around 1.7 million to 600,000 years ago):
    More complex devices are now being manufactured; the dominant share of choppers in the previous stages is decreasing. The forerunners of the two-piper (proto-bifaces, also cleaver ) appear.

The Oldowan partially overlaps with the Acheuléen (1.7 million - 150,000 years ago). Many of the Oldowan's tools were still used in later times.

Oldowan sites

Find places in Africa

The oldest sites are in Ethiopia : Gona (2.6 million years old) and Hadar (2.3 million years old). Other sites of the Oldowan in Africa would be Swartkrans and Sterkfontein in South Africa, Koobi Fora , Omo Shungura and Gadeb in East Africa and Ain Hanech and El-Kherba in North West Africa.

According to the original definition of the term “Oldowan”, this culture or stone industry is particularly widespread in the eastern part of Africa, although similar industries have also been proven in other places on the continent.

Kada Gona (Ethiopia)

The archaeological site of Kada Gona is located on the Awash River . The site was excavated between 1992 and 1994, among other things, and provided new knowledge, particularly with regard to the stone artifacts found there. Kada Gona is therefore the location of the oldest stone artifacts in the world; these were dated to about 2.6 million years using the potassium-argon dating . So they definitely represent the oldest intentionally modified tools - so far -. They were published by the African archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw.

These are core devices characteristic of the Oldowan; discounts were also discovered. In his essay on the devices, Semaw speaks about the manufacturers' knowledge of striking techniques and production methods, which is why the artifacts technologically date more in the developed Oldowan than in this time determined by scientific methods. The most likely manufacturer of the artifacts so far could be the Australopithecus garhi found in Bouri .

Kada Hadar (Ethiopia)

Kada Hadar is located on the Awash River in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia . Hadar became known worldwide when Donald Johanson found the almost completely preserved skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis there in November 1974 together with Yves Coppens , which later became known as Lucy (after the Beatles ' song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ). The relevant layers date back around three million years ago. In the vicinity of Hadar numerous other hominid fossils have been found (including the fossil Ardi , a female Ardipithecus ramidus ) and very old stone tools .

Bokol Dora

The excavation site Bokol Dora 1 (BD 1) is also located in the Afar region in north-eastern Ethiopia. The LD 350-1 jawbone, which is no more than 2.78 million years old , was recovered in 2013 in the Ledi-Geraru research area from a layer in which stone artifacts had been known since 2012. In 2013 and 2015, a total of around 300 artifacts were discovered and recovered on an excavation area of ​​37 square meters - at a depth of 1.8 meters. Should the dating of the find layer (2.61 to 2.58 million years) and the temporal association of fossils and stone utensils, which was interpreted as safe in 2019, endure (the location BD 1 is 5 kilometers north of the location of LD 350-1) , it would be the oldest stone tools discovered so far. The dating is, however, controversial.

Dikika (Ethiopia)

In the vicinity of Kada Hadar there is Dikika, another paleoanthropological site on the Awash River , where Zeresenay Alemseged found the particularly well-preserved DIK 1-1 fossil there in 2000 . This fossil is considered to be the most complete specimen of the species Australopithecus afarensis to date . It is also called Selam ("peace") by its discoverer . The oldest stone tools known to date, around 2.5 million years old, were also recovered in this area .

In the summer of 2010, a research team led by Zeresenay Alemseged and Shannon McPherron reported in the journal Nature on the discovery of 3.3 million year old scratches and cuts on fossil animal bones, which, according to the researchers, prove that Australopithecus afarensis was already scratching flesh from bones; but possibly the notches are also scratch marks from crocodile teeth.

The Pliocene sediments near Dikika have been researched for several years by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology , among others .

Melka Kunturé (Ethiopia)

Melka Konturé (Ethiopia)
Melka Konturé
Melka Konturé
Position of milking Kunture inEthiopia

Melka Kunturé is about 50 kilometers south of Addis Ababa on the road, across the Awash River near the village of Melka Awash. Three waterfalls lie across the bridge over the Awash, which gives access to Butajira to the south. French archaeologists from the Mission Archéologique Française de Éthiopie have carried out excavations in the area of ​​Melka Kunturé since 1960 and discovered over 30 sites. The finds were dated analogously to the volcanic deposits of Mount Zuqualla , which lies southeast of Melka Kunturé.

A museum has been built on the site by the Oromia Culture and Tourism Commission , with financial support from the European Community . In four buildings exhibits from prehistoric Africa, geology and volcanology, palaeoanthropology and the early history of Melka Kunturé are shown. The “Open Air Museum” shows finds from the Acheuléen that have been dated to around 800,000 years ago.

Omo Shungura (Ethiopia)

The Lower Valley of the Omo belongs since 1980 to the World Heritage of UNESCO . Stone artifacts are dated to be over two million years old.

Ain Hanech (Algeria)

Ain Hanech (Algeria)
Ain Hanech
Ain Hanech
Location of Ain Hanech inAlgeria

Ain Hanech (actually: 'Ain el-Hanech) is located on the plateau in northeast Algeria , about ten kilometers north of the city of El-Eulma. This site offers important evidence of the spread of hominids from East Africa after the advent of stone tool making ( out-of-Africa theory ). Ain Hanech was discovered in 1947 by the French paleontologist Camille Arambourg, among others, during his research in the region around the city of Sétif .

The Sahnouni-Heinzelin excavation

The excavations on site continued in 1992 under Mohamed Sahnouni and Jean de Heinzelin. The palaeomagnetic analysis of the stratigraphy showed the normal polarity for the Oldowan, which correlates with the display of the Olduvai subchron regarding the "vertebrate faunal biozonation".

Animal fossils

During recent excavations, a large number of Oldowan's artifacts have been brought to light, including animal fossils that had been superbly preserved in fine-grained mud. Broken bones and stone artifacts were recovered from two archaeological sites in a muddy deposit mixed with sand and boulders. The faunal remains come from horses, bovids , elephants and rhinos, but mainly from the Equus tabeti . Taphonomic patterns show that the bones were buried over a period of years from the time the site was inhabited.

Hominid fossils

The earliest known artifacts of hominids that had spread to North Africa were also found here. The finds have been dated to around 1.75 million years.

Denticulate tool
Stone artifacts

The stone artifacts are well preserved and form a uniform overall picture, including minor debits. The artifacts were made from limestone and flint and include thin stones (cobbles), whole splinters (flakes), various fragments and retouched workpieces. An examination of the micro-wear marks on the flint indicates the use of two simple flakes and a "Denticulate tool" for meat processing.

The stone artifacts are classified as belonging to a North African variant of the Oldowan. Research and excavations are still ongoing here.

Ain Boucherit (Algeria)

Ain Boucherit (also: Oued Boucherit) is another site; it is located south of Ain Hanech and has well-preserved artifacts from the Pliocene . The oldest have been dated to about 2.4 million years BP . This site also offers important evidence of the spread of the hominini from East Africa after the advent of stone tool making.

Oued Laatach (Algeria)

Oued Laatach is a site near Ain Hanech.

El-Kherba (Algeria)

El-Kherba is another site south of Ain Hanech.

Koobi Fora (Kenya)

Koobi Fora (Kenya)
Koobi Fora
Koobi Fora
Position of Koobi Fora inKenya
Landscape on the shore of Lake Turkana

Koobi Fora is located on the northeast coast of Lake Turkana and was discovered by Richard Leakey and his wife Meave Leakey . The archaeological development of the place was carried out in collaboration with Glynn Isaac , Jakob Harris, the geologist Frank Brown and others. The site is one of the most important sites in East Africa. In addition to stone artifacts from the Oldowan era , more than 200 remains of hominids of the Australopithecus and Homo species were found in stratigraphic layers, which were initially compared with Olduvai bed 1 and Olduvai bed 2. The finds are therefore traditionally based on an age of around 2.5 estimated to be 1.5 million years old. Animal remains, especially of hippos , but also elephants and wild boars, have also been found in these layers . The bone remnants often show cutting marks.

Since many of the bone fragments and stone artefacts found show only minor processing characteristics, it cannot be ruled out that the effects on the material are accidental and not changes caused by primitive man.

Today the Koobi Fora archaeological site is located in the Sibiloi National Park .

Karari (Kenya)

Karari is also located on the shores of Lake Turkana. Here it was found that stone tool production was more intensive than in Koobi Fora. The tools found here were made from volcanic rocks, which are abundant in this area. B. made of quartzite . Something similar can be demonstrated, among other things, in finds from the Olduvai Gorge. Most of the artifacts are simple in design and small in size. Some show definite signs of wear. However, only a few fit into the classic typology of stone tools according to Mary Leakey. Remnants of bones have also been discovered in Karari, apparently deliberately broken open - in all likelihood to get to the marrow. Other bones show cuts. The finds were dated to an age of 1.6 to 1.2 million years.

Kanjera (Kenya)

The Kanjera site is located on a peninsula on the northeastern shore of Lake Victoria . Excavations took place under Thomas Plummer . With around 4500 stone artifacts and more than 3000 identified animal species, the remains of which have been discovered, Kanjera is one of the most important finds of the Oldowan culture in Africa. He is to be equated with Olduvai and Sterkfontein, although the characteristics of the artifacts found there are very different from the objects found here.

Lokalalei (Kenya)

The Lokalalei site is located on Lake Turkana and is dated around 2.35 million years ago.

Lomekwi 3 (Kenya)

In the immediate vicinity of the Kenyanthropus site in northern Kenya on Lake Turkana, stone tools of the Oldowan type and remains from the manufacture of such tools were found at the Lomekwi  3 site from 2011. While most of the tools were discovered on the surface, 19 objects with an artefact character that can not be unequivocally clarified come from deeper sediment layers and can therefore be geologically dated. Their age is 3.3 million years , according to a study published in Nature . If this dating is correct, it would be the oldest stone tools known to date and come from an era from which no fossils of the genus Homo are known; The oldest evidence of the genus Homo is the fossil LD 350-1 , which was dated to an age of 2.80 to 2.75 million years. Sonia Harmand of Stony Brook University , under whose direction the artifacts were recovered and dated, suggested the site as an eponym for the archaeological culture of Lomekwian .

Karonga (Malawi)

Karonga (Malawi)
Karonga
Karonga
Location of Karonga inMalawi

On the northwest shore of Lake Malawi in the village Uraha in Karonga the site where the second oldest of lies genus Homo asked Fossils , the date of paleoanthropologists was discovered. The 2.4 million year old, dentate lower jaw was recovered as part of the hominid corridor project and received the archive number UR 501 (“UR” stands for Uraha); the fossil was assigned by its discoverers Timothy Bromage and Friedemann Schrenk Homo rudolfensis . In Karonga, on the basis of an initiative by Schrenk, with the support of the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the Uraha Foundation, a culture and museum center was set up which, among other things, is to house finds from pre-human beings.

Douar Doum (Morocco)

Canto tallado 1-Guelmim-Es Semara.jpg

Douar Doum is a site near Rabat where some of the earliest stone tools in Africa were found. The tools are made of hardly worked stone. A variety of rubble tools were found, but no hand axes. The tools are typical of the Oldowan culture in North Africa and are dated around two million years ago.

Sterkfontein (South Africa)

Sterkfontein (South Africa)
Sterkfontein
Sterkfontein
Sterkfontein's position inSouth Africa
Entrance to the cave
"Mrs. Ples ”was discovered on the opposite side

Sterkfontein ( Afrikaans : "Strong Spring") is the name of a series of karst caves near the city of Krugersdorp, northwest of Johannesburg in South Africa .

A number of fossils of early hominids have been found here. Excavations in the caves began in the late 1890s by limestone- exploring geologists; they noticed the fossils and made scientists aware of them. But it was not until 1936 that students of Raymond Dart and Robert Broom of the Witwatersrand University began systematic excavations. These excavations revealed the remains of many early hominids. In 1936 the caves released a full-grown Australopithecus . This supported Raymond Dart's interpretation that the Australopithecus africanus found near Taung and known as the " child of Taung " was an early ancestor of ( humans ). During the Second World War the excavations were suspended, after which they were continued by Robert Broom. In 1947 he found the almost complete skull of an adult Australopithecus africanus estimated to be 2.6 to 2.8 million years old. This skull became known under the name " Mrs. Ples ".

The excavations are continuing and have so far produced more than 500 hominid finds. This makes Sterkfontein the richest local area in the world for early hominids. The cave has also been known since 1995 for “ Little Foot ”, a skeleton that was initially dated to around three million years, later to around four million years and finally to two million years.

Sterkfontein is one of a number of sites, which in 1999 together for UNESCO - World Heritage Site and the Cradle of Humankind declared ( "cradle of humanity").

Today the cave is partially open to visitors. A newly built visitor center shows an exhibition about the development of the earth and mankind. Then a path leads to the cave entrance. There are steps up to 60 meters deep. Skeletons cannot be seen, however. Since 2005 there has been another visitor center ten kilometers northwest called Maropeng ( Setswana for "return to our place of origin").

Swartkrans (South Africa)

Swartkrans (South Africa)
Swart crane
Swart crane
Swartkrans' position inSouth Africa

Swartkrans is an archaeological site on a farm about 30 km from Johannesburg . The place is known for its wealth of archaeological finds, especially due to the fossils of early ancestors of the genus Homo ( Hominini ). The farm including the sites was bought in 1968 by the University of Witwatersrand . The paleontologist Robert Broom dug here regularly from 1948.

Fossils of Homo erectus and Paranthropus have been found in the limestone of Swartkrans . The use of fire in Swartkrans was dated to a million years ago and is considered the second oldest known record of the use of fire in the world. Member 3 has 59,488 remains of bones, 270 of which are burned. C. K. Brain assumes that the fire was not intentionally started, but that burning pieces of wood were collected from bush fires. From the lower layer of Member 1 come three burned bones (among 153,781 bone finds in total), here Brain assumes that there were grass fires that also reached the cave.

A number of bone tools (members 1-3) also come from Swartkrans.

Swartkrans is one of a number of sites in 1999 jointly to UNESCO - World Heritage Site was declared and as the " Cradle of Humankind (" humanity cradle ) are known.

Kromdraai (South Africa)

Krugersdorp (South Africa)
Krugersdorp
Krugersdorp
Krugersdorp's position inSouth Africa
Kromdraai

Kromdraai is located in western Gauteng , not far from the city of Krugersdorp . The name is derived from Afrikaans "crooked bend" after a bend in the meandering Crocodile River . The type specimen of Paranthropus robustus was discovered in Kromdraai in 1938 . In the nearby Coopers Cave , fossils of Paranthropus robustus and early representatives of the genus Homo as well as stone tools were found. Kromdraai part of the Cradle of Humankind ( Cradle of Humankind ) and since 1999 the UNESCO - World Heritage Site .

Makapansgat (South Africa)

Mokopane (South Africa)
Mokopane
Mokopane
Mokopane's position inSouth Africa

Makapansgat is one of the most important sites in all of Africa. It is located around 20 km north of Mokopane ; the name goes back to the name of a farm on the site of which limestone was also quarried.

The Makapansgat complex consists of more than twelve caves. The oldest artifacts found are limestone tools of Australopithecus , which were dated to 3–2.6 million years ago. The youngest come from the Iron Age .

However, only in the Makapansgat Limestone Cave ("Makapansgat Limeworks Cave") were artifacts of the Oldowan found. This is the oldest cave in the Makapansgat Valley, dating from more than 4.0 million to around 1,600,000 years. Thousands of fossil bones were found here, including the remains of Australopithecus africanus , which Andy Hernes of the University of New South Wales (Australia) assigned to the period of 2.85-2.58 million years on the basis of paleomagnetic dating . The excavation site was last examined by a team from Witwatersrand University and Arizona State University .

The Makapansgat Pebble

The Makapansgat pebble is a jasper stone weighing around 260 grams with anthropomorphic features and natural wear patterns. The pebble is interesting in that it was recovered some distance from the Australopithecus africanus found places . This find could be the earliest example of symbolic or aesthetic thinking among early humans. This Manuport has been dated 2.9–2.5 million years ago. This object was found by Wilfried I. Eizman in a dolerite cave in the Makapan Valley north of Mokopane in 1925. It was described for the first time almost 50 years later by Raymond Dart in 1974.

Malapa Cave (South Africa)

Johannesburg (South Africa)
Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Location of the Malapa Cave inSouth Africa

The Malapa Cave is 40 kilometers west of Johannesburg and 15 km north-northeast of the well-known fossil sites of Sterkfontein , Swartkrans and Kromdraai at an altitude of 1,442 m.

The cave was only discovered in 2008 by the South Africans Lee Berger ( paleoanthropologist ) and Paul Dirks ( geologist ). Both found partial skeletons of two Australopithecus sediba there , as well as fossil remains of animal carcasses . The finds have been dated to around 1.9 million years. The researchers suspect that the fossil animal carcasses discovered in the Malapa cave were washed down in the cave by masses of water that penetrated later, piled up there and buried under washed-up and falling rock.

The Malapa Cave is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Cradle of Humankind .

Olduvai (Tanzania)

Olduvai (Tanzania)
Olduvai
Olduvai
Olduvai's position inTanzania
Olduvai Gorge, January 2011

The Olduvai Gorge (English: Olduvai Gorge ) is a valley in the Serengeti Plains in the East African Rift in northern Tanzania . The site consists of two areas: the northern, larger ("Main Gorge") and the southern, smaller ("Side Gorge"). The stratigraphy of the terrain is usually divided into five layers (counting from the bottom): Bed I to Bed V, whereby only the two lowest layers, which mainly consist of volcanic tuffs, are associated with the Oldowan culture. The dating was carried out using the potassium-argon method, which was still relatively new in the 1960s and 1970s. Bed I therefore dates from around 1.80–1.75 million years ago.

The tools that led to the definition of “Oldowan” were found in the upper area of ​​Bed I (“Upper Bed I”). There, as well as in the lower Bed II, there are early camp sites of hominins, in which the artifact accumulations were found.

The raw materials that make up the artifacts in the Olduvai Gorge are mainly volcanic rocks ("non-vesicular lava "). Lava rock was often used, characterized by a medium to dark gray color and generally relatively fine-grained. Greenish-gray phonolite was also occasionally used. The origin of the lava is explained by the proximity of the site to the highlands in the south and east, which are characterized by volcanic activity; there is, for example, the Ngorongoro - or the Sadiman crater.

Peninj (Tanzania)

The Peninj site is a complex of eleven sites located close together, located on Lake Natron in northern Tanzania (near the Kenyan border, a few kilometers northeast of the Olduvai Gorge). In 1964 Richard Leakey discovered the lower jaw of a Paranthropus robustus there . Later, an international group of specialists, led by the Spanish team that had already dug in Atapuerca, dug here. The finds consist of remains of fauna, typical Oldowan tool ensembles and hominid mandibles. The complex is dated (not without controversy) after the potassium-argon dating of the microfauna of the volcanic layer, estimated to be 1.6 to 1.4 million years old, which overlays the Oldowan layer. This volcanic layer is known in Spanish as "Toba 1 de Arcillas Arenosas Superiores" (literally: "Tufa 1 from upper sandy loam") and belongs to the geological formation "Humbu". The production of stone tools in Peninj was very advanced, more developed than z. B. Koobi Fora. The tendency towards the typological standardization of tools by the hominids and the ability to carve out the splinters with concrete shapes and sizes are some of the most remarkable findings from the finds. It is even assumed that the hominids of these sites were able to make standard tools, comparable to the Levallois technique of the Middle Paleolithic , which is actually considered typical of the much younger Acheuleans .

Find places in Europe and Asia

In other parts of the world outside of Africa, the simplest human stone tool industries were not subsumed under the term “Oldowan” in the past. Whenever Oldowan is spoken of outside of Africa nowadays, the finds usually date much younger than the corresponding African ones.

The Asian cultures on this technological level are often referred to as "Lower Paleolithic Cultures of Asia"; Find places for this include Kota Tampan in the early Pleistocene terraces of Sungai Perak in northern Malaya and the excavations in the Cagayan Valley , Luzon Island . The most famous archaeologist who conducted research in this area was Hallam Movius , who published his results in the Transactions of The American Philosophical society from 1949, among others .

A revision of European sites of the Old Paleolithic at the beginning of the 1990s came to the conclusion that there was no plausible rubble equipment culture in northern Europe. All reliable find sites in Europe originate therefore the time horizon of the Acheuléens . The perspective changed with the discovery of the oldest Oldowan tools in Eurasia , which have been found since the mid-1990s and are around 1.8 million years old.

Atapuerca (Spain)

Also in the 1990s , stone tools were found in the Sierra de Atapuerca , around 15 km east of Burgos (northern Spain), which are around 800,000 years old and come from a primitive culture without hand axes. This proved that early tool cultures need not be limited to Africa and that they also existed in Europe.

Dmanisi (Georgia)

Dmanisi (Georgia)
Dmanisi
Dmanisi
Position of Dmanisi inGeorgia
Oldowan tool from Dmanisi (right) next to it for comparison, a hand ax the Acheulean
A 1.8 million year old chopper from Dmanisi

The oldest tools of the Oldowan in Europe come from the Georgian Dmanisi . They were discovered in connection with the oldest known hominine fossils outside Africa.

The site is located in the Kveno Karti volcanic region in southeast Georgia, 65 kilometers southwest of Tbilisi , on a high plateau. The plateau is formed from basalt currents ; these form an elongated, triangular rock spur on which the medieval village of Dmanisi is located. The first archaeological investigations took place in 1963 under Vachtang V. Dzaparidze, from 1984 the first simple stone artifacts were discovered. Beginning in 1991, the plateau was finally examined by the Archaeological Center of the Georgian Academy of Sciences and the Paleolithic Research Department of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz . In 1996 the lower jaw D 211 was found, which belongs to a species of the genus Homo that has not yet been finally clarified . The ages of the strate sequences were determined using paleomagnetic and radiometric dating methods and resulted in a dating from 1.942 to 1.785 million years ago.

The sequence of layers forms a continuous sequence from Oldowan and developed Oldowan to Acheuléen. Due to their old age and the very simple striking technique, it was concluded that the inventories of stone artifacts from Dmanisi belonged to the core and cutting industries of the Oldowan Techno Complex. So far, sites with a similarly old age were only known from Africa, which is why Dmanisi occupies an outstanding position in the list of European sites of the Early Paleolithic. The artifacts were dealt with with direct, hard blows; There are also striking stones, core shapes, tees and the resulting tee devices - an indication that in the course of the Oldowan not only the classic core devices but also artifacts made from tees were established.

More sites

  • Chilhac III (France)
  • Orco (Spain)
  • Šandalja I (Croatia)
  • Ubeidya (Israel)
  • Yiron (Israel)
  • Socotra ( Yemen )

Well-known scientists

The following is a short list of the most important scientists who were (or are active) in research on the subject of the Oldowan:

literature

Oldowan in general

  • Stanley H. Ambrose: Paleolithic Technology and Human Evolution . In: Science , vol. 291, 2001, pp. 1748-1753.
  • J. Desmond Clark : The Prehistory of southern Africa . Penguin Books, Harmondsworth 1959.
  • Eric Delson , John G. Fleagle, et al. (Ed.): Out of Africa I. The first Hominin Colonization of Eurasia . Springer Science + Business Media, Dordrecht 2010, ISBN 978-90-481-9036-2 .
  • Fiorenzo Facchini : The Origins of Humanity . Konrad Theiss Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-8062-1991-5 .
  • Chester F. Gorman: Hoabinhian: A pebble-tool complex with early plant associations in Southeast Asia . In: Science , Vol. 163, 1969, pp. 671-673.
  • Lawrence H. Keeley, Nicolas Toth: Microwear polishes on early stone tools from Koobi Fora, Kenya . In: Nature , Volume 293, 1981, pp. 464-465, doi : 10.1038 / 293464a0
  • Mary Leakey : Primitive Artefacts from Kanapoi Valley . In: Nature , Volume 212, 1966, pp. 579-581, doi : 10.1038 / 212579a0
  • Hallam Movius jr .: The Lower Paleolithic cultures of Southern and Eastern Asia . In: Transactions of the American Philosophical society . Philadelphia 1949, pp. 329-421.
  • Friedemann Schrenk : The early days of man. The way to Homo sapiens . Munich 1997.
  • NM Whalen: Variability in developed Oldowan and Acheuleen bifaces of Saudi Arabia . In: Atlal, The Journal of Saudi Arabian Archeology . Volume 13, 1990, pp. 43-48.

Olduvai site

  • GH Curtis: Notes on some Miocene to Pleistocene potassium-argon results . In: WW Bishop, JD Clark: Background to evolution in Africa . Chicago University Press, pp. 365-369.
  • RL Hay: Stratigraphy of Bed I – IV, Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika . In: Science , Volume 139, No. 3557, pp. 829-833, doi: 10.1126 / science.139.3557.829
  • RL Hay: Revised stratigraphy of Olduvai Gorge . In: WW Bishop, JD Clark: Background to Evolution in Africa . Chicago University Press, pp. 221-228.
  • Alastair Key, Tomos Proffitt and Ignacio de la Torre: Raw material optimization and stone tool engineering in the Early Stone Age of Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). In: Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Volume 17, No. 162, 2010, doi: 10.1098 / rsif.2019.0377 .
  • Louis SB Leakey: Olduvai Gorge, a report on the evolution of the hand-ax culture in beds I – IV . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1951.
  • Louis SB Leakey: Olduvai Gorge. Volume 1: 1951-1961 Fauna and background . Cambridge University Press, 1967.
  • Mary D. Leakey : A Review of the Oldowan Culture from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania . In: Nature , Volume 210, 1966, pp. 462-466, doi: 10.1038 / 210462a0 .
  • Mary D. Leakey: Olduvai Gorge. Volume 3: Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963. Cambridge University Press, 1971.
  • Richard Potts, Pat Shipman: Cutmarks made by stone tools on bones from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania . In: Nature , Volume 291, 1981, pp. 577-580, doi: 10.1038 / 291577a0 .
  • Phillip V. Tobias : Olduvai Gorge. Volume 2: The cranium of Australopithecus (Zinjanthropus) Boisei . Cambridge University Press, 1967.
  • Phillip V. Tobias: Olduvai Gorge. Volume 4: The skulls, endocasts and teeth of homo habilis . Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Kada Gona site

  • JL Aronson et al .: New Geochronologic and paleomagnetic data for the hominid-bearing Hadar Formation, Ethiopia . In: Nature , Vol. 267, 1977, pp. 323-327.
  • B. Asfaw et al .: Australopithecus garhi: a new species of early hominid from Ethiopia . In: Science , Vol. 285, 1999, pp. 629-635.
  • JD Clark et al .: Hominid Occupation of the East Central Highlands of Ethiopia in the Plio-Pleistoscene . In: Nature , Vol. 282, 1979, pp. 33-39.
  • JWK Harris et al .: Pliocene archeology at the Gona River, Hadar . In: Nyame Akuma , Volume 31, 1989, pp. 19-21.
  • Sileshi Semaw et al .: 2.5-million-year-old stone tools from Gona, Ethiopia . In: Nature , Volume 385, 1997, pp. 333-336.

Dmanisi site

  • G. Bräuer et al .: The hominid lower jaw of Dmanisi: morphology, pathology and analyzes for classification . In: Yearbook of the RGZM 42nd Publishing House of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 1996, pp. 183–203.
  • Eric Delson et al .: Homo at the Gates of Europe . In: Nature , Volume 373, 1995, pp. 472-473.
  • Vachtang Dzaparidze, Gerhard Bosinski et al .: The ancient Paleolithic site of Dmanisis in Georgia (Caucasus) . In: Yearbook of the RGZM 36th Publishing House of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 1992, pp. 67–116.
  • Leo Gabunia, Olaf Jöris: Taxonomy of the Dmanisi Crania . In: Science , Vol. 289, 2000, pp. 55-56.
  • Leo Gabunia: The human lower jaw from Dmanisi (Georgia, Caucasus) . In: Yearbook of the RGZM 39. Publishing house of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 1995, pp. 185–208.
  • Antje Justus et al .: Nine years of excavations in Dmanisi (Georgia, Caucasus) . In: Yearbook of the RGZM 36th Publishing House of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum, Mainz 1992, pp. 67–116.

Oldowan in North Africa

  • Mohamed Sahnouni, Jean de Heinzelin: The Site of Ain Hanech Revisited: New Investigations at this Lower Pleistocene Site in Northern Algeria . In: Journal of Archaeological Science , 1998, Volume 25, pp. 1083-1101, Article No. as980278, full text (PDF; English; 534 kB)

Web links

Commons : Oldowan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

References and comments

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