Research Training Program

Danielle Royer
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada

Dr. Richard Potts, Ph.D.
Supervising Scientist
Department of Anthropology

"The Research Training Program is like a mother raising her children in the ways of scientific research, giving them the tools they will need to become successful scientists. I am honored to be a part of this family."

Our ancestors have been making stone tools for over two million years. At Olorgesailie, located in the Rift Valley of Kenya, in Eastern Africa, paleoanthropologists have excavated over 20,000 stone tools that are nearly one million years old. From these pieces of stones modified into useful tools, paleoanthropologist can decipher clues about the behaviour and activity patterns of early humans across an ancient landscape. In this research project, some of the questions we sought to answer include 1) did early humans use the entire landscape equally and in the same way, 2) did early humans know that different stones made tools of different quality, and 3) did early humans use particular types of stones to make tools for specific activities. By mapping the location of all excavated areas and the location of each source of stone raw material within the Olorgesailie basin, we were able to measure the distance between the place where a tool was made and used, and the place where that stone originally came from. This allowed us to observe some interesting patterns which give us insight into early human behaviour. At Olorgesailie, it appears that early humans were quite selective about where to make stone tools and where to use them: stone tools are not distributed equally across the landscape, but instead they form clusters. Our research also demonstrates that early humans knew the value of good stone raw material, seeking out high quality stone from sources further away, while nearly ignoring lower quality stones closer to them. Furthermore, some areas of the ancient landscape have a high frequency of tools made from a particular type of stone raw material. This may indicate that early humans were engaging in specific activities requiring the use of tools of a particular type. This project is part of on-going research at Olorgesailie.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Human Origins Initiative, Principle Investigator Dr. R. Potts, Award Number BCS-0218511. This research was further supported by a grant from the Bill and Jean Lane Endowment.

Letter of gratitude