3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya

Sonia Harmand (), Jason E. Lewis (), Craig S. Feibel, Christopher J. Lepre, Sandrine Prat, Arnaud Lenoble, Xavier Boës, Rhonda L. Quinn, Michel Brenet, Adrian Arroyo, Nicholas Taylor, Sophie Clément, Guillaume Daver, Jean-Philip Brugal, Louise Leakey, Richard A. Mortlock, James D. Wright, Sammy Lokorodi, Christopher Kirwa, Dennis V. Kent and Hélène Roche
Additional contact information
Sonia Harmand: Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University
Jason E. Lewis: Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University
Craig S. Feibel: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Christopher J. Lepre: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Sandrine Prat: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Arnaud Lenoble: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Xavier Boës: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Rhonda L. Quinn: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Michel Brenet: CNRS, UMR 5199 PACEA, Université de Bordeaux
Adrian Arroyo: CNRS, UMR 7055, Préhistoire et Technologie, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
Nicholas Taylor: CNRS, UMR 7055, Préhistoire et Technologie, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense
Sophie Clément: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Guillaume Daver: IPHEP, Institut de Paléoprimatologie, Paléontologie Humaine: Évolution et Paléoenvironnements, CNRS, UMR 7262, Université de Poitiers, Bât. B35 – TSA 51106
Jean-Philip Brugal: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Louise Leakey: Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University
Richard A. Mortlock: Rutgers University
James D. Wright: Rutgers University
Sammy Lokorodi: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Christopher Kirwa: West Turkana Archaeological Project
Dennis V. Kent: Rutgers University
Hélène Roche: CNRS, UMR 7055, Préhistoire et Technologie, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Nature, 2015, vol. 521, issue 7552, 310-315

Abstract: Abstract Human evolutionary scholars have long supposed that the earliest stone tools were made by the genus Homo and that this technological development was directly linked to climate change and the spread of savannah grasslands. New fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has identified evidence of much earlier hominin technological behaviour. We report the discovery of Lomekwi 3, a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site where in situ stone artefacts occur in spatiotemporal association with Pliocene hominin fossils in a wooded palaeoenvironment. The Lomekwi 3 knappers, with a developing understanding of stone’s fracture properties, combined core reduction with battering activities. Given the implications of the Lomekwi 3 assemblage for models aiming to converge environmental change, hominin evolution and technological origins, we propose for it the name ‘Lomekwian’, which predates the Oldowan by 700,000 years and marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/nature14464

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