Random walks in handaxe knapping before 1.2 million years ago in East Africa at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia)

Eduardo Méndez-Quintas, Rita T Melis, Flavio Altamura, Patricia Bello-Alonso, Andrea Serodio Domínguez, Adugna Debalike Belayneh, Riccardo Salvini, Giuliano Ambrosetti and Margherita Mussi

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: A long-standing objective in Acheulean research is defining evolutionary trends in handaxe production over time. This study investigates technological and morphological variability in the Early Acheulean by analysing three geographically and chronologically proximate assemblages (>1.2 million years ago) from Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia). Combined techno-typological and geometric morphometric analyses reveal significant variability in handaxe morphology, shaping strategies and raw material selection. The observed dissimilarity suggests that Acheulean handaxe manufacture did not follow a linear path of standardisation. Rather, it demonstrates considerable flexibility, reflecting hominins’ responses to varying constraints and immediate needs within short timeframes.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0357880 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 57880&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0357880

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0357880

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().