The Early Stone Age lithic assemblages of Gadeb (Ethiopia) and the Developed Oldowan/early Acheulean in East Africa

The Early Stone Age sites of Gadeb (Ethiopian South-East Plateau) were excavated under the direction of Desmond Clark in the 1970s. Dated to between 1.45 and 0.7 Ma, Gadeb proved that humans had already occupied high altitude areas in the Lower Pleistocene. Despite the importance of the Gadeb sites, their lithic assemblages were never published in detail, and no review of the stone tools has ever been reported since the original 1970s study. This paper updates the information available on Gadeb by presenting a systematic review of the lithic technology of several assemblages. The objectives are to evaluate the technological skills of Gadeb knappers and to contextualize them into the current discussion of the origins of the Acheulean and its possible coexistence with the so-called Developed Oldowan in East Africa.     

The Oldowan site Aïn al Fil (El Kowm,Syria) and the first humans of the Syrian Desert

At present, the oldest traces of human cultures are found in Eastern Africa. New discoveries set anew the questions about human and animal dispersal into Eurasia. For over 1.8 million years, humans have been present in the Levant. An extensive program of surveys and excavations in the Syrian Desert showed that this part of the world was a very ancient land of settlement. In Central Syria, the oldest site, Aïn al Fil in the region of El Kowm, was excavated in 2008 and 2010. The lithic industry in the lowest layer can be characterized by numerous unretouched flakes, pebble-tools and core-like artefacts. This assemblage is typical in a broad sense of archaic Palaeolithic the debitage of which corresponds to mode 1. From a techno-typological point of view, this industry tallies quite well with the so-called Oldowan stage. It shows remarkable similarities with the oldest African assemblages. From a chronologic point of view, these levels occur before three positive events in the Matuyama paleomagnetic sequence. It seems consistent to place the Oldowan sequence around 1.8 Ma BP within the Olduvai subchron or just before Olduvai/Matuyama reversal limit. Together with those of the neighbouring site Hummal, these levels would be the oldest traces of human presence ever found in Syria. In the Levant, the first humans not only occupied favourable zones but regularly ventured deep into less welcoming environments suggesting an astonishing flexibility in their behavioural and survival skills.     

Uplift of the roof of africa and its bearing on the evolution of mankind

Evidence concerning the geomorphological evolution of the Western Rift Valley, sedimentation within the valley and comparison of the fossil mammalian faunas of Western Uganda and East Africa indicate that the mountain ranges which now flank the Western Rift were uplifted in three or more stages beginning during the upper Miocene and that they reached climatically important altitudes during the upper Pliocene, at which time they began to modify regional climatic patterns in East Africa. Their main effect was the xerification of conditions over much of the region east of the mountains. The regional climatic effects due to the mountain ranges were themselves modified by global climatic changes related to the onset of the Glacial Period, the two phenomena combining to yield the Present day climatic regime of East Africa. As the climate changed, so did the flora and fauna. Faunal response was of three main kinds: a) dispersal into East Africa of pre-existing forms already adapted to more xeric conditions (many bovids, some cercopithecids), b) autochthonous evolution of forms adapted to mesic environments into forms adapted to more xeric conditions (suids, elephantids, some bovids, hominids), c) displacement of species ranges of those lineages unable to adapt to changing conditions (i.e. local extinctions) (Anancus, Brachypotherium). Autochthonous evolvers, including hominids, adopted two main strategies reflected in their hard anatomy: a) dietary shift (suids, proboscideans, bovids and later Pliocene hominids) and b) locomotor changes (early Pliocene hominids).     

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.     

Early Humans at the eastern gate of Europe: The discovery and investigation of Oldowan sites in northern Caucasus

This article presents the results of excavations and multidisciplinary investigations of the extraordinary Oldowan site of Muhkai II in the northern Caucasus (Republic of Dagestan, Russia) from 2008 to 2012. Archaeological and palaeontological materials are summarized together with data from palaeomagnetic and palynological analyses, obtained from 34 cultural layers at the site. This gives an opportunity for a new approach to the question of the timing and route of the first human settlement of the middle latitudes of western Eurasian, including south-eastern Europe. Judging by the data obtained, this occurred around 2 million years BP and a route of migration was located along the western shore of the Caspian Sea.     

Landscapes of human evolution: models and methods of tectonic geomorphology and the reconstruction of hominin landscapes

This paper examines the relationship between complex and tectonically active landscapes and patterns of human evolution. We show how active tectonics can produce dynamic landscapes with geomorphological and topographic features that may be critical to long-term patterns of hominin land use, but which are not typically addressed in landscape reconstructions based on existing geological and paleoenvironmental principles. We describe methods of representing topography at a range of scales using measures of roughness based on digital elevation data, and combine the resulting maps with satellite imagery and ground observations to reconstruct features of the wider landscape as they existed at the time of hominin occupation and activity. We apply these methods to sites in South Africa, where relatively stable topography facilitates reconstruction. We demonstrate the presence of previously unrecognized tectonic effects and their implications for the interpretation of hominin habitats and land use. In parts of the East African Rift, reconstruction is more difficult because of dramatic changes since the time of hominin occupation, while fossils are often found in places where activity has now almost ceased. However, we show that original, dynamic landscape features can be assessed by analogy with parts of the Rift that are currently active and indicate how this approach can complement other sources of information to add new insights and pose new questions for future investigation of hominin land use and habitats.     

The chronology of the cercopithecoidea of East Africa

The East African fossil record of cercopithecoids spans nearly 20 m. y. Throughout the Miocene Epoch, the diversity of monkeys was low, although at some localities the numbers of individuals is rather high. During the Plio-Pleistocene in contrast, there was a major radiation, or radiations of monkeys, involving both colobines and corcopithecines. A late Pleistocene to Recent radiation within the genusCercopithecus still seems to be under way. The history of diversity in the monkeys is in many ways a chronological inverted mirror image of the diversity history of the hominoid primates, which were highly diverse during the lower miocene, but became less diverse through time. The east african cercopithecoid record is the only one which spans much of the Neogene, and it is consequently the main one by which detailed cercopithecoid cladogenetic and anagenetic events can be dated. In this respect, it provides constraints for interpreting branching schemes derived from neontological evidence. Most of the neontological estimates for monkey origins appear to be too old, the fossil evidence suggesting that the origin of the superfamily Cercopithecoidea and the origins of the Colobinae, Papionini and Cercopithecini are younger than usually suggested on neontological evidence. The superfamily is probably no older than 25 m. y., the colobines diverged as a distinctive group about 12–14 m. y. ago, the Papionines about 8–10 m. y. ago and the Cercopithecines perhaps as late as 7 m. y. However, since the Miocene fossil record is rather spotty, these fossil-based estimates may be revised downwards with new discoveries. They are unlikely to be revised upwards. The sequence and timing of cladogenetic events deduced from the east african evidence indicates that all the modern subfamilies arose in Africa, and subsequently spread to Europe and Asia. The sequence of fossil events is in close agreement with neontological evidence such as karyology and molecular anthropology. It is only in the calibration of the sequence that there is disagreement between the fossil and neontological evidence. Strangely, the polarity of the differences in opinion are opposite to those concerning the hominoids, in which the neontological evidence has suggested much younger divergence dates than did the fossil evidence as perceived in the 1960's and 1970's.     

The Middle Stone Age archaeology of the Lower Omo Valley Kibish Formation: excavations, lithic assemblages, and inferred patterns of early Homo sapiens behavior

This paper describes the excavation, stratigraphy, and lithic assemblages of Middle Stone Age sites from the Omo Kibish Formation (Lower Omo Valley, southwestern Ethiopia). Three sites were excavated, two in Kibish Member I (KHS and AHS) and one at the base of Member III (BNS). The assemblages are dominated by relatively high-quality raw materials procured as pebbles from local gravels. The principal modes of core preparation are radial/centripetal Levallois and discoidal. Retouched tools are rare. Foliate bifaces are present, as are larger tools, such as handaxes, picks, and lanceolates, but these are more common among surface finds than among excavated assemblages. Middle Stone Age assemblages shed light on the adaptations of the earliest-known Homo sapiens populations in Africa.     

The Middle Stone Age of the northern Kenyan Rift: age and context of new archaeological sites from the Kapedo Tuffs

Rift Valley sites in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya preserve the oldest fossil remains attributed to Homo sapiens and the earliest archaeological sites attributed to the Middle Stone Age (MSA). New localities from the Kapedo Tuffs augment the sparse sample of MSA sites from the northern Kenya Rift. Tephrostratigraphic correlation with dated pyroclastic deposits from the adjacent volcano Silali suggests an age range of 135-123 ka for archaeological sites of the Kapedo Tuffs. Comparisons of the Kapedo Tuffs archaeological assemblages with those from the adjacent Turkana and Baringo basins show broad lithic technological similarity but reveal that stone raw material availability is a key factor in explaining typologically defined archaeological variability within this region. Spatially and temporally resolved comparisons such as this provide the best means to link the biological and behavioral variation manifest in the record of early Homo sapiens.     

The life and death of a street boy in East Africa: everyday violence in the time of AIDS

This article focuses on the life history of a single street boy in northwestern Tanzania, whom I name Juma. I suggest that Juma's experiences and the life trajectory of himself and of significant individuals around him (particularly his mother) were structured by everyday violence. I describe everyday violence in terms of a conjuncture between macrostructural forces in East Africa (including a history of failed development schemes and the contemporary political economy of neoliberalism) and the lived experience of individuals as they negotiate local, contextual factors (including land-tenure practices, the power dynamics between immediate and extended kin, life on the streets, and constructions of gender and sexuality). I suggest that AIDS and its many impacts on Juma's life course can only be understood in a broader context of everyday violence. From this basis, I draw several general conclusions regarding AIDS prevention and intervention strategies.     

The fauna and associated artefacts from the Lower Pleistocene site of Mansourah (Constantine, Algeria)

The site of Mansourah (Constantine, Algeria) had yielded to the early authors, and more recently to the late G. Laplace, a lithic industry associated with a fauna of large Mammals, which looks contemporaneous with that of Aïn Hanech, although it is well-distinct ecologically, and might even be slightly older. The lithic assemblage is completely devoid of any bifacial artefact or cleaver and can only be referred to the Oldowan. Thus, the Mansourah site documents a very early human occupation of North Africa, and perhaps one of the earliest. To cite this article: Y. Chaid-Saoudi et al., C. R. Palevol 5 (2006).     

Initial excavation and dating of Ngalue Cave: A Middle Stone Age site along the Niassa Rift, Mozambique

Direct evidence for a systematic occupation of the African tropics during the early late Pleistocene is lacking. Here, we report a record of human occupation between 105-42 ka, based on results from a radiometrically-dated cave section from the Mozambican segment of the Niassa (Malawi/Nyasa) Rift called Ngalue. The sedimentary sequence from bottom to top has five units. We concentrate on the so-called “Middle Beds,” which contain a Middle Stone Age industry characterized by the use of the discoidal reduction technique. A significant typological feature is the presence of formal types such as points, scrapers, awls, and microliths. Special objects consist of grinders/core-axes covered by ochre. Ngalue is one of the few directly-dated Pleistocene sites located along the biogeographical corridor for modern human dispersals that links east, central, and southern Africa, and, with further study, may shed new light on hominin cave habitats during the late Pleistocene.     

The biogeographical assignment of a west Kenyan rain forest remnant: further evidence from analysis of its reptile fauna

Aim The Kakamega Forest, western Kenya, has been biogeographically assigned to both lowland and montane forest biomes, or has even been considered to be unique. Most frequently it has been linked with the Guineo‐Congolian rain forest block. The present paper aims to test six alternative hypotheses of the zoogeographical relationships between this forest remnant and other African forests using reptiles as a model group. Reptiles are relatively slow dispersers, compared with flying organisms (Aves and Odonata) on which former hypotheses have been based, and may thus result in a more conservative biogeographical analysis. Location Kakamega Forest, Kenya, Sub‐Saharan Africa. Methods The reptile diversity of Kakamega Forest was evaluated by field surveys and data from literature resources. Faunal comparisons of Kakamega Forest with 16 other African forests were conducted by the use of the ‘coefficient of biogeographic resemblance’ using the reptile communities as zoogeographic indicators. Parsimony Analysis of Endemism and Neighbour Joining Analysis of Endemism were used to generate relationship trees based on an occurrence matrix with paup *. Results The analysis clearly supports the hypothesis that the Kakamega Forest is the easternmost fragment of the Guineo‐Congolian rain forest belt, and thus more closely related to the forests of that Central–West African complex than to any forest further east, such as the Kenyan coastal forests. Many Kenyan reptile species occur exclusively in the Kakamega Forest and its associated forest fragments. Main conclusions The Kakamega Forest is the only remnant of the Guineo‐Congolian rain forest in the general area. We assume that the low degree of resemblance identified for the Guineo‐Congolian forest and the East African coastal forest reflect the long history of isolation of the two forest types from each other. Kenyan coastal forests may have been historically connected through forest ‘bridges’ of the southern highlands with the Congo forest belt, allowing reptile species to migrate between them. The probability of a second ‘bridge’ located in the region of southern Tanzanian inselbergs is discussed. Although not particularly rich in reptile species, the area should be considered of high national priority for conservation measures.     

The late Pleistocene desiccation of Lake Victoria and the origin of its endemic biota

A brief review is provided in some advances in understanding the ecology of pike Esox lucius Linnaeus over the last 10 years. Based on long-term studies and manipulative, often short-term experiments (laboratory, field and mesocosms) several established theories have been supported, as well as new concepts developed. Despite their wide distribution pike show low levels of polymorphism and divergence indicative of a recent common ancestral population. Recent genetic studies, however, indicate a single refugium in North America compared to several refugia in Europe. Pike are found in rivers, lakes and weakly saline waters. Variables such as growth and mortality are mainly affected by factors such as temperature, water transparency, productivity, availability of prey and density of pike and other predators. In choice of habitat pike have been shown to support the ideal free-distribution theory. The importance of macrophyte habitat in the life history of pike has been reconfirmed and pike have been shown to be flexible in response to water clarity. Pike are extremely ‘plastic’ in choice of prey types, prey size and in response to prey behaviour (e.g. they are unaffected by shoal size). Predation by pike not only affects abundance and biomass of prey (including younger and smaller pike through cannibalism which plays a major role in population dynamics, other fishes and invertebrates) but also evolution and adaptation of their morphology (in particular body shape) and behaviours. There appears to be no relationship between stock and recruitment. Recruitment is influenced by several abiotic factors in lakes and rivers. Pike play a major role in structuring freshwater communities and have been used in stocking programmes to improve water quality (biomanipulation). Many new concepts have been developed in pike behaviour in maximizing these stocking programmes both in biomanipulation and fisheries management. Despite many recent advances in understanding the ecology of pike, particularly at the individual level, developments in quantifying and modelling the role of pike as a top predator in large ecosystems have been limited, probably due to the difficulties of sampling natural populations. Guest editors: J. M. Farrell, C. Skov, M. Mingelbier, T. Margenau & J. E. Cooper International Pike Symposium: Merging Knowledge of Ecology, Biology, and Management for a Circumpolar Species     

Plio-Pleistocene facies environments from the KBS Member, Koobi Fora Formation: implications for climate controls on the development of lake-margin hominin habitats in the northeast Turkana Basin (northwest Kenya)

Climate change is hypothesized as a cause of major events of Plio-Pleistocene East African hominin evolution, but the vertically discontinuous and laterally confined nature of the relevant geological records has led to difficulties with assessing probable links between the two. High-resolution sedimentary sequences from lacustrine settings can provide comprehensive data of environmental changes and detailed correlations with well-established orbital and marine records of climate. Hominin-bearing deposits from Koobi Fora Ridge localities in the northeast Turkana Basin of Kenya are an archive of Plio-Pleistocene lake-margin sedimentation though significant developmental junctures of northern African climates, East African environments, and hominin evolution. This study examines alluvial channel and floodplain, nearshore lacustrine, and offshore lacustrine facies environments for the approximately 136-m-thick KBS Member (Koobi Fora Formation) exposed at the Koobi Fora Ridge. Aspects of the facies environments record information on the changing hydrosedimentary dynamics of the lake margin and give insights into potential climatic controls. Seasonal/yearly climate changes are represented by the varve-like laminations in offshore mudstones and the slickensides, dish-shaped fractures, and other paleosol features overprinted on floodplain strata. Vertical shifts between facies environments, however, are interpreted to indicate lake-level fluctuations deriving from longer-term, dry-wet periods in monsoonal rainfall. Recurrence periods for the inferred lake-level changes range from about 10,000 to 50,000 years, and several are consistent with the average estimated timescales of orbital precession ( approximately 20,000 years) and obliquity ( approximately 40,000 years). KBS Member facies environments from the Koobi Fora Ridge document the development of lake-margin hominin habitats in the northeast Turkana Basin. Environmental changes in these habitats may be a result of monsoonal rainfall variations that derive from orbital insolation and/or glacial forcing.     

Investigation and research on classification of productive skills (1)--Actual work and skills in the car manufacturing industry.

A survey was conducted at a site for production which is in the process of technological innovation to examine and clarify the trend in current productive skills. In August 1991, a questionnaire survey was given to skilled workers of a car manufacturing company. The number of valid responses was 1,215. The survey included 133 items in the following three areas: (1) nature of workers' productive skills, 40 items; (2) human functions and vocational ability necessary for the work, 60 items; and (3) working conditions, 33 items. The characteristics of the productive skills required in each division were compared and examined based on the final results of the survey. Clear characteristics were found which reflect the actual productive skills introduced into the factories and sections through technological innovation. The nature of the product manufactured at each factory and the actual skills which reflect the work done at the factories are clarified. The survey items used for this research have effectively clarified the characteristic of the productive skills.