Abstract
The emergence of the Acheulean is a major topic, currently debated by archaeologists researching all over East Africa. Despite the ongoing discussion and the increasing amount of available data, the mode(s) of the technological changes leading to this emergence remain(s) largely unexplained. Overall, there is a dearth of continuous stratigraphic sequences recording both the late Oldowan and the early Acheulean at the same site. Accordingly, the technological changes cannot be evaluated taking into account the variability of each microregional context. Besides, the early Acheulean must be defined not only with respect to the Oldowan, but also in comparison with the following middle Acheulean.
At Melka Kunture, on the Ethiopian highlands, the rather continuous record allows a diachronic analysis from ~1.7 to ~0.85 Ma in a single microregion. In this paper we address the emergence and later developments of the Acheulean in the perspective of technical responses to the qualities/limits of raw materials (lithology , dimensions, geometry). A comparative techno-economic perspective makes it possible to investigate the nature of technological change(s) taking into account the role played by lithic resource availability and constraints in the same paleolandscape.
Our results demonstrate that in this area the main novelties leading to the early Acheulean were new concepts in small and large débitage, in addition to the manufacture of large tools. These innovations emerged at Melka Kunture over two hundred thousand years, during a continuous cultural process leading from the late Oldowan to the early Acheulean. On the opposite side, at the end of the Early Pleistocene, the innovations are not a small qualitative step, but rather a gaint leap. We underline the strong techno-economic discontinuity between the early Acheulean and the middle Acheulean .
There is also evidence that Homo ergaster /erectus produced both the Oldowan and the early Acheulean at Melka Kunture. Accordingly, the technological changes leading to the emergence of the Acheulean on the Ethiopian highlands are not explained by a newly developing hominin species. Conversely, the middle Acheulean develops while Homo heidelbergensis, a new and more encephalized type of hominin, appears on the scene.
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Notes
- 1.
No systematic excavations were carried out at Gombore VI, Gotu II, Garba VI and Garba VIII. The lithic artifacts were collected along exposed sections. The location of Gotu II is unknown, hence it is not shown in Fig. 4.1b. The Garba IIIB industry, heretofore attributed to the final Acheulean, was recently reanalyzed and assigned to the early Middle Stone Age (Mussi et al. 2014).
- 2.
Flakes include whole, broken, and retouched flakes of small-medium dimensions, i.e., with length or width <10 cm.
- 3.
The term discoid corresponds to the discoid concept , as defined by Boëda 1993.
- 4.
LCTs are intended here as shaped or retouched tools with a length or width > 10 cm. They include massive scrapers, bifaces, and cleavers. Massive scrapers are large flake blanks with retouched edge(s). Bifaces are LCTs whose morphology «résulte de l’aménagement simultané de deux convexités, de manière à ce que l’une soit à l’image de l’autre en fonction d’un plan d’équilibre bifacial … De l’intersection de ces deux convexités naît une silhouette « lissée » par retouche, qui se distribue par rapport à un plan d’équilibre bilatéral » (Roche and Texier 1991: 102). Cleavers (sensu Tixier 1956) are intended here as LCTs obtained either by débitage only, or by débitage followed by shaping . The cutting edge must be left unretouched, i.e. it is the outcome of the débitage of the blank. Bifacial pieces with a bit achieved by shaping or by lateral tranchet blow technique are not cleavers but handaxes with a transverse (or terminal) cutting edge (Inizan et al. 1999).
- 5.
Cf. Gallotti and Mussi (2017) for a redefinition of the cultural attribution of level Gombore IB, previously thought to be related to the Oldowan.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Authority for Research & Conservation of the Cultural Heritage of Ethiopia’s Ministry of Culture & Tourism, the National Museum of Addis Ababa, and the Oromia Culture and Tourism Bureau for fieldwork permits and access to the lithic collections. The research was supported by grants from “La Sapienza” University of Rome (“Grandi scavi archeologici”) and from the Italian Foreign Ministry, awarded to MM. The study of the Garba IVD lithic artifacts was made possible by a Post-Ph.D research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation (number 7715 “Technical Behaviors During the Oldowan at Garba IVD, Melka Kunture, Ethiopia”) awarded to RG. We also wish to thank Guy Kieffer and Jean-Paul Raynal for lithological analysis of raw materials, Massimo Pennacchioni and Noemi Tomei for their drawings of artifacts, and Jean-Paul Raynal for the photos in Fig. 4.8e, f. We express deep thanks to the anonymous reviewers as well as to the VERT Series editors, who all helped us to improve this paper.
RG studied the lithic collections. MM, director of the Italian Archeological Mission at Melka Kunture and Balchit, coordinates research and designed and organized this project. RG wrote the paper and MM contributed to the draft.
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Gallotti, R., Mussi, M. (2018). Before, During, and After the Early Acheulean at Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia): A Techno-economic Comparative Analysis. In: Gallotti, R., Mussi, M. (eds) The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa and Beyond. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75985-2_4
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