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Early
Human Tool-Making Activities One Million Years Ago in Kenya
ABSTRACT
Determining
the ways in which early humans (hominins) distributed their activities
across ancient landscapes represents a relatively novel approach to
the study of hominin behaviour and evolutionary history. This research
focuses on the spatial distribution of stone tools and stone tool raw
materials excavated from Olorgesailie, a Pleistocene site in southern
Kenya. This study will allow for a better understanding of the distribution
of hominin tool-making activities on a landscape-scale, and will provide
a basis for comparison with other hominin sites. The results of this
study demonstrate that hominins recognized the quality of different
types of stone raw material. Furthermore, hominins invested more effort
in collecting and transporting high quality stone raw material than
low quality raw material.
INTRODUCTION
Archaeological
excavations at Olorgesailie.
The Olorgesailie basin, located in the southern Rift Valley of Kenya,
contains numerous archaeological sites which have been excavated since
the mid-1980s by a team from the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program,
led by Dr. Richard Potts. This study focuses on the sites from the Upper
Member 1 paleosol (UM1p) – an ancient landscape that dates to nearly
1 million years ago. To date, over 20,000 stone artifacts have been
excavated from 65 sites in UM1p.
MATERIALS & METHODS
-
65
UM1p sites within the Olorgesailie basin were placed into ten distinct
excavation groups.
-
Seven
types of stone raw material used by hominins for manufacturing stone
tools were identified.
-
The
raw materials were classified according to their quality in the manufacture
of stone tools.
-
The
location of the sources of stone raw material was mapped, and the
distance from each excavation group to the different raw material
source was measured.
-
Transport
intensity (TI) was calculated for each stone raw material, allowing
for the comparison of hominin effort spent in collecting and transporting
different raw materials, while taking into account distance to source
and the size of the excavation areas
TI
= Stone Weight (g) x Distance to Source (m)
Sediment volume of excavated areas (m3)
RESULTS
High vs. Low
quality raw materials
-
Ol
Keju Nyiro basalt (Kb), a high quality raw material, displays the
highest transport intensity at all excavation groups, with the exception
of group 9. The group 9 excavations are the furthest removed from
the sources of Kb.
-
Mt.
Olorgesailie phonolite (Oph) ranks in the top three for transport
intensity across all excavation groups.
-
Mt.
Olorgesailie basalt (Ob) does not show high transport intensity across
the excavations. This does not conform to the pattern displayed by
the two other high quality raw materials, Kb and Oph.
- Ob is found in very limited quantities at Olorgesailie. The availability
of stone affects its transport intensity.
- Ob has a high transport intensity in group 1, which is the excavation
group closest to the sources of Ob.
- Ob is nearly absent from group 9, which is the most distant excavation
group from the sources of Ob.
-
Pyroxene
porphyry (Pp) displays relatively high transport intensity in group
6 (site 15). This is unexpected, since Pp is a low quality raw material.
This suggests that something unique was occurring at Site 15, perhaps
a specific activity that required the use of tools made of Pp.
MAJOR
CONCLUSIONS
High quality, high
availability raw materials, such as Kb and Oph, were very intensely
transported across the Olorgesailie basin, regardless of proximity to
the source.
The availability
and abundance of stone raw materials impacts how intensely they will
be transported, as demonstrated by Ob.
Low quality raw materials (e.g. On, Otp, Pp, Tt) are not intensely transported
within the Olorgesailie basin.
The abundance (by
weight) of low quality raw materials in excavation groups is greatly
affected by site-to-source proximity; this may reflect a Decay Function,
where an increased distance from the site to the raw material source
results in a decreased abundance of the stone raw material at the site.
DISCUSSION
Implications
for Hominin Behaviour
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would
like to extend her gratitude to the National Science Foundation and
the Bill and Jean Lane Internship Endowment for the financial support
that made this internship possible. Thanks are also extended to Dr.
Rick Potts for providing this wonderful opportunity, to Jennifer Clark
for helping to make everything run smoothly, and to Dr. M. Noll, whose
PhD dissertation formed the starting point for this research. Finally,
the author would like to thank Mary Sangrey, Elisa Maldonado and Norma
Kellogg for their help and support during this internship. This project
would have been impossible without all of your efforts.
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The
information presented here represents preliminary research as
the result of ten-weeks of investigation in-residence at the
National Museum of Natural History. This is not an official
publication of the information.
As preliminary information, results and/or findings should not
be cited as part of conclusive work. Please contact the authors
first if you wish to utilize the information presented here.
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