Oldowan behavior and raw material transport: perspectives from the Kanjera Formation
Date
2008Author
Braun, David R
Plummer, Thomas
Ditchfield, Peter
Ferraro, Joseph V
Maina, David
Bishop, Laura C
Potts, Richard
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The archaeological record of Oldowan hominins represents a diverse behavioral system. It has been suggested that exploitation of lithic resources by Oldowan hominins was simplistic and represented mostly use of local sources of stone. Here we investigate the raw material selection and transport behaviors of Oldowan hominins reflected in the stone artifact assemblages from the Kanjera South Formation, South Rachuonyo District, Kenya. Using geochemical methods (ED-XRF) artifacts are linked to primary and secondary source outcrops throughout southwestern Kenya. These data show that hominins selected raw materials for transport at frequencies that are significantly different from their availability on ancient landscapes. Furthermore, a substantial proportion of the assemblage represents transport over relatively long distances (>10 km). Our study further suggests that in the early stages of stone tool use hominins used a wide variety of raw materials and selected these materials at some distance from their eventual discard locations. Early hominin behavior may have incorporated an understanding of raw material source distributions across a more extensive landscape than has been previously documented. This supports the growing perspective that Oldowan technology represents a more complex behavioral pattern than is usually associated with the beginnings of hominin tool use.
URI
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440308000502http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/52767
Citation
Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 35, Issue 8, August 2008, Pages 2329–2345Publisher
Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology, University of Nairobi
Description
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