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Environments and hominin activities across the FLK Peninsula during Zinjanthropus times (1.84 Ma), Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania |
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| Authors: | Blumenschine Robert J Stanistreet Ian G Njau Jackson K Bamford Marion K Masao Fidelis T Albert Rosa M Stollhofen Harald Andrews Peter Prassack Kari A McHenry Lindsay J Fernández-Jalvo Yolanda Camilli Eileen L Ebert James I |
| Institution: | a Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 131 George Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414, USA b Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Street, P.O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK c Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University, 1001 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1405, USA d The Stone Age Institute, Bloomington, IN 47407-5097, USA e Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, P. Bag 3, WITS 2050, South Africa f Archaeology Unit, Department of History, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania g Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA)/Research Group for Paleoecological and Geoarchaeological Studies, Department of Prehistory, Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Barcelona, c/Montalegre, 6-8, 08001 Barcelona, Spain h GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Schlossgarten 5, D-91054 Erlangen, Germany i Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK j Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 3209 N. Maryland Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53211, USA k Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain l Ebert and Associates, 3700 Rio Grande Blvd. N.W., Suite 3, Albuquerque, NM 87107, USA |
| Abstract: | We establish through 13 excavations the landscape context and nature of hominin activities across the Zinjanthropus land surface from which the Leakeys recovered the FLK 22 and FLK NN 1 paleoanthropological assemblages. The land surface was created by fluvial incision of the eastern margin of paleo-Lake Olduvai following a major lake withdrawal. Erosion was uneven, leaving a peninsula bounded by a river channel, the FLK Fault, and a freshwater wetland. This FLK Peninsula supported groves of trees that attracted hominins and carnivores, and that preserved the dense concentrations of carcass remains and stone tools they left behind, including those at FLK 22. Some carcasses appear to have been acquired at the ecotone of the Peninsula and Wetland, where another dense artifact and bone assemblage accumulated. A lesser topographic high at the edge of a Typha marsh in the Wetland was the site of FLK NN 1 and a scatter of large stone tools used possibly for rootstock processing.Our landscape reconstruction delimits the vegetation mosaic indicated by previous work and provides a topographical explanation for the existence of FLK 22 and FLK NN 1. Both are unexpected if the FLK area was the flat, featureless lake margin terrain typical of lake basins similar to paleo-Olduvai. The results show that the Leakeys’ sites were not isolated occupation floors but rather parts of a land surface utilized intensively by hominins. Although commonly considered to have been home bases, their likely high predation risk, evidenced by large carnivore feeding traces and the remains of four hominin individuals, suggests visits to them were brief and limited to feeding. Finally, stratigraphic observations confirm that FLK NN 3 accumulated on an older land surface, refuting the hypothesis that the OH 8 foot found there is the same individual as the OH 35 leg from FLK 22. |
| Keywords: | Landscape paleoanthropology Oldowan Homo habilis Land use Paleoecology |
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