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      Continuity and change in lithic techno-economy of the early Acheulian on the Ethiopian highland: A case study from locality MW2; the Melka Wakena site-complex

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          Abstract

          Recent research has made great strides clarifying the chronology, temporal span, and geographic and technological patterning of the Acheulian in eastern Africa. However, highland occurrences of the Acheulian remain under-represented and their relationship to cultural dynamics in the Rift are still poorly understood. Recently, a stratified sequence of four archaeological layers, recording Acheulian occupations dated between ~1.6 Ma and ~1.3 Ma, has been discovered in locality MW2 of the Melka Wakena site-complex (south-central Ethiopian highlands). This database enabled a systematic exploration of the question of tempo and mode of technological changes at a local sequence, allowing, for the first time, comparison with other highland sites as well as in the Rift. The detailed techno-economic study presented in this study shows that the early Acheulian at the locality was characterized by the co-existence of lithic reduction sequences for small debitage and for flake-based Large Cutting Tool production. In the early, ~1.6 Ma assemblage, a strategy of variable raw material exploitation and technological emphasis on small debitage were coupled with production of few crude bifacial elements. These shifted at ~1.4 Ma towards a preferential and intensive exploitation of a highly knappable glassy ignimbrite and emphasis on Large Cutting Tool production, including higher investment in their techno-morphological aspects. The MW2 sequence tracks lithic technological trends observed in the Rift, with only a short time lag. Diachronic changes in the raw material economy and land use patterns may have occurred at MW2 earlier than previously reported for the Acheulian on the highlands. The behavioral dynamics gleaned from the early Acheulian assemblages at MW2 are important for our understanding of the diachronic changes in the abilities of Acheulian hominins to exploit the diverse geographic and ecological habitats of eastern Africa and beyond.

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          An earlier origin for the Acheulian.

          The Acheulian is one of the first defined prehistoric techno-complexes and is characterized by shaped bifacial stone tools. It probably originated in Africa, spreading to Europe and Asia perhaps as early as ∼1 million years (Myr) ago. The origin of the Acheulian is thought to have closely coincided with major changes in human brain evolution, allowing for further technological developments. Nonetheless, the emergence of the Acheulian remains unclear because well-dated sites older than 1.4 Myr ago are scarce. Here we report on the lithic assemblage and geological context for the Kokiselei 4 archaeological site from the Nachukui formation (West Turkana, Kenya) that bears characteristic early Acheulian tools and pushes the first appearance datum for this stone-age technology back to 1.76 Myr ago. Moreover, co-occurrence of Oldowan and Acheulian artefacts at the Kokiselei site complex indicates that the two technologies are not mutually exclusive time-successive components of an evolving cultural lineage, and suggests that the Acheulian was either imported from another location yet to be identified or originated from Oldowan hominins at this vicinity. In either case, the Acheulian did not accompany the first human dispersal from Africa despite being available at the time. This may indicate that multiple groups of hominins distinguished by separate stone-tool-making behaviours and dispersal strategies coexisted in Africa at 1.76 Myr ago.
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            The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia.

            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.
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              Late Pliocene hominid knapping skills: the case of Lokalalei 2C, West Turkana, Kenya.

              Relatively few remains of Late Pliocene hominids' knapping activities have been recovered to date, and these have seldom been studied in terms of manual dexterity and technical achievements. With regard to early hominid technological development, the evidence provided by the data from 2.34 Myr site of Lokalalei 2C (Kenya) questions both the prior assumption of a continuous and linear evolutionary trend in lithic production and the idea that it long remained static. The level of elaboration evinced by the lithic assemblage is quite unexpected in view of its age, and seemingly more advanced that what can be surmised for other Late Pliocene East-African sites, including the nearby site of Lokalalei 1. Analysis relies mainly on the dynamic reconstruction of entire cobble reduction sequences from particularly informative refitting groups. The Lokalalei 2C knappers had already internalised the notion of planning and foresight in raw material procurement and management. Beyond simple mastery of the basic technical constraints peculiar to stone knapping, they conducted a highly controlled debitage of flakes following constant technical rules and resulting in high productivity. The data suggest that early hominids displayed distinct technical competencies and techno-economic patterns of behavior, thus pointing to an intrasite complexity and intersite diversity which are not accounted for by the existing chrono-cultural classifications.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS One
                plos
                PLOS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                7 December 2022
                2022
                : 17
                : 12
                : e0277029
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Human Evolution Research Center (HERC), The University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States of America
                [2 ] Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
                [3 ] Department of History and Heritage Management, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia
                [4 ] Affiliate Researcher, Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States of America
                Griffith University, AUSTRALIA
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2952-5754
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7855-6573
                Article
                PONE-D-22-21574
                10.1371/journal.pone.0277029
                9728887
                36477016
                3d66c988-3871-4bca-998e-f2909e5ee530
                © 2022 Gossa, Hovers

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 1 August 2022
                : 18 October 2022
                Page count
                Figures: 11, Tables: 10, Pages: 41
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001653, Gerda Henkel Foundation;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100005966, Leakey Foundation;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100001388, Wenner-Gren Foundation;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003390, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100016207, PAST;
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100006363, National Geographic Society;
                Award ID: #9801-15
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Ruth Amiran Fund for Archaeological Research at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Glynn-Isaac post-doctoral fellowship of Human Evolution Research Center (HERC), University of California at Berkeley
                Award Recipient :
                Doctoral studies grants-T.G. -Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) (T.G) -Gerda Henkel Foundation (T.G) -Ruth Amiran Fund for Archaeological Research at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (T.G) -Wenner-Gren Foundation (Wadsworth Fellowship) (T.G) -Leakey Foundation (Baldwin fellowship) (T.G) Fieldwork grants -National Geographic Society (Grant #9801-15) (E.H) -Fritz Thyssen Foundation (E.H) -Gerda Henkel Foundation (T.G) University of California, Berkeley (HERC, Glynn Isaac post-doctoral Fellowship) (T.G) The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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