Lomekwi
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Lomekwi 3 is the name of an
archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...
in
Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...
where ancient
stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...
s have been discovered dating to 3.3 million years ago, which make them the oldest ever found.


Discovery

In July 2011, a team of archeologists led by
Sonia Harmand Sonia Harmand (born in 1974) is a French archaeologist who studies Early Stone Age archaeology and the evolution of stone tool making. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Paris where she was associated with the "Prehistory ...
and Jason Lewis of
Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
, United States, were heading to a site near Kenya's Lake Turkana near where ''
Kenyanthropus platyops ''Kenyanthropus'' is a hominin genus identified from the Lomekwi site by Lake Turkana, Kenya, dated to 3.3 to 3.2 million years ago during the Middle Pliocene. It contains one species, ''K. platyops'', but may also include the 2 million year o ...
'' fossils had previously been found. The group made a wrong turn on the way and ended up at a previously unexplored region and decided to do some surveying. They quickly found some stone artifacts on the site, which they named Lomekwi 3. A year later they returned to the site for a full excavation. Harmand presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society on April 14, 2015 and published the full announcement and results on the cover of Nature on May 21, 2015.


Artifacts

Around 20 well preserved artifacts have been dug up at Lomekwi 3 including anvils, cores, and flakes. An additional 130 artifacts were found on the surface. In one instance, Harmand's team was able to match a flake to its core, suggesting a
hominin The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...
had made and discarded the tool at the site. The tools were generally quite large – larger than the oldest known stone tools, recovered in the Gona area of the
Afar Region The Afar Region (; aa, Qafar Rakaakayak; am, አፋር ክልል), formerly known as Region 2, is a regional state in northeastern Ethiopia and the homeland of the Afar people. Its capital is the planned city of Semera, which lies on the pave ...
of
Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
, in 1992. The largest weighs 15kg, and may have been used as an anvil. According to Harmand, it appeared that the tool makers had purposely selected large, heavy blocks of strong stone, ignoring smaller blocks of the same material found in the area. She ruled out the possibility that the tools were actually natural rock formations, saying "The artifacts were clearly
knapped Knapping is the shaping of flint, chert, obsidian, or other conchoidal fracturing stone through the process of lithic reduction to manufacture stone tools, strikers for flintlock firearms, or to produce flat-faced stones for building or facing w ...
and not the result of accidental fracture of rocks". Analysis suggested the cores had been rotated as flakes were struck off. The purpose of the tools found at Lomekwi 3 is unclear, as animal bones found at the site do not bear any sign of hominin activity. This is the greatest expression of late
Neogene The Neogene ( ), informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period Mya. ...
technology in human evolutionary history. Based on the buried artifacts' stratigraphic position (in undisturbed sediment) relative to two layers of volcanic ash and known magnetic reversals, Harmand and her team dated the tools to 3.3 million years ago. The finds at Lomekwi therefore represent the oldest stone tools ever discovered, predating the Gona tools by 700,000 years.


Hominin evolution

The date predates the genus ''
Homo ''Homo'' () is the genus that emerged in the (otherwise extinct) genus ''Australopithecus'' that encompasses the extant species ''Homo sapiens'' ( modern humans), plus several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely relate ...
'' by 500,000 years, suggesting this tool making was undertaken by ''
Australopithecus ''Australopithecus'' (, ; ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genus ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans) emerged within ''Australopithecus'', as sister to e.g. ''Australopi ...
'' or ''
Kenyanthropus ''Kenyanthropus'' is a hominin genus identified from the Lomekwi site by Lake Turkana, Kenya, dated to 3.3 to 3.2 million years ago during the Middle Pliocene. It contains one species, ''K. platyops'', but may also include the 2 million year ...
'' (which was found near Lomekwi 3). Previously, evidence of stone tool use by ''Australopithecus'' has been suggested on the basis of marks on animal bones, but those findings have been hotly debated, with no scientific consensus forming on either side of the debate. Harmand said the Lomekwi 3 artifacts do not fit into the
Oldowan The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...
tool making tradition and should be considered part of a distinct tradition, which she termed Lomekwian. It has been hypothesized that tool making may have aided in the evolution of ''Homo'' into a distinct genus. However, it is unclear whether the Lomekwian tools are related to those made by ''Homo'' species – it is possible the technology was forgotten and later rediscovered. Independent researchers who have seen the tools are generally supportive of Harmand's conclusions.
George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...
anthropologist Alison Brooks said the tools "could not have been created by natural forces ... the dating evidence is fairly solid." Rick Potts, head of the Human Origins Program at the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
, said the tools represented a more primitive style than known human-made tools, but something more sophisticated than what modern
chimpanzee The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s do. "There's no doubt it's purposeful" toolmaking, he remarked. Paleoanthropologist
Zeresenay Alemseged Zeresenay "Zeray" Alemseged (born 4 June 1969) is an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who was the Chair of the Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, United States. He recently joined the faculty of the Un ...
, who was responsible for the earlier research suggesting ''Australopithecus'' had made tools, also backed Harmand's conclusions.


References


External links

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List of stone tools and their 3D-model
{{Prehistoric technology 2015 in science Archaeological sites in Kenya Lithics Lower Paleolithic Archaeological cultures of Africa Archaeological sites of Eastern Africa