Sonia Harmand (born in 1974) is a French archaeologist who studies

Early Stone Age The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in t ...

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 Technology" research unit, which was well known in the field of stone tool analysis. Harmand earned a PhD from

Paris Nanterre University Paris Nanterre University (French: ''Université Paris Nanterre''), formerly Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Paris, France. It is one of the most prestigious French universities, ma ...

, and is a research associate at

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

, which is the largest French governmental research organization, and Europe's largest fundamental science agency. She worked as a Research Scientist at CNRS for four years before joining

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 ...

in New York as an associate professor. In 2017 she was named one of the '50 Most Influential French' by the French edition of '' Vanity Fair'' magazine.

Early stone age archaeology

Lomekwi 3 stone tools

In 2011, Harmand discovered the

Lomekwi Lomekwi 3 is the name of an archaeological site in Kenya where ancient stone tools 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 Harman ...

3 stone tools in the

Turkana Basin An '' Acacia'' tree in the Kokiselei river, northern Kenya The greater Turkana Basin in East Africa (mainly northwestern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, smaller parts of eastern Uganda and southeastern South Sudan) determines a large endorheic ba ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

near the town of Lomekwi. This discovery was made while Harmand was leading the West Turkana Archaeological Project team along with Jason Lewis. They were both working with Stony Brook University's Turkana Basin Institute at the time. At the Lomekwi 3 site, between 2011 and 2012, there were 149 stone artifacts recovered in total. These artifacts were found at the Lomekwi 3 site which sits above the Toroto Tuff, dated at about 3.32 Ma. The 149 artifacts range from small broken flakes weighing less than 1 kg to anvils and passive elements weighing about 12 kg. All of these tools are evidence of knapped stone tools. Stone tool knapping was previously associated with 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 ...

''. The discovery of stone tools from the

Olduvai Gorge The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropology, paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human ev ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

dating to about 2.6 Ma brought forth a theory of non-''

hominins 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 ...

usage of stone tools since there is only fossil evidence of ''Homo'' from 2.4-2.3 Ma. The tools found at Lomekwi 3 are dated to ≈3.3 Ma which pushes back the evidence of stone tool use by nearly 700,000 years, and further expands the overall

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

record. Furthermore, these discoveries support the theory of usage of stone tools by non-''homo'' hominids. Harmand and other archaeologists and

paleoanthropologists Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship ...

suspect '' Australophithecines'' including: '' A. Africanus'', ''

A. Sediba ''Australopithecus sediba'' is an extinct species of australopithecine recovered from Malapa Cave, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. It is known from a partial juvenile skeleton, the holotype MH1, and a partial adult female skeleton, the par ...

'', ''

A. Garhi ''Australopithecus garhi'' is a species of australopithecine from the Bouri Formation in the Afar Region of Ethiopia 2.6–2.5 million years ago (mya) during the Early Pleistocene. The first remains were described in 1999 based on several skele ...

'', ''

A. Aethiopicus ''Paranthropus aethiopicus'' is an extinct species of robust australopithecine from the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of East Africa about 2.7–2.3 million years ago. However, it is much debated whether or not ''Paranthropus'' is an invali ...

'', and '' A. Robustus'' to be possible non-''homo'' stone tool knappers. The Lomekwi 3 site is still currently under excavation and the West Turkana Archaeological Project team continues fieldwork in the

every summer.

Acheulean tools

Harmand additionally worked along the northwest shore of

Lake Turkana Lake Turkana (), formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. B ...

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

in 2011, recovering and studying

acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

tools. The stone tools found at the Kokiselei 4 site are dated to about 1.76 Ma which pushes the evidence for acheulean tool use back an extra ≈300,000 years. Acheulean tools are thought to be connected to ''

Homo Erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...

'' because there were H. erectus fossils found in the same area which are dated at a similar age.

Work at Stony Brook University

Sonia Harmand is currently an associate professor at New York's Stony Brook University teaching in the Anthropology Department. Along with professorial work, Harmand is an associate research scientist at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

(CNRS), and the head of the West Turkana Archeological Project (WTAP) as of 2012. Harmand's research utilizes the

chaîne opératoire Chaîne opératoire (; ) is a term used throughout anthropological discourse, but is most commonly used in archaeology and sociocultural anthropology. It functions as a methodological tool for analysing the technical processes and social acts i ...

method to aid in her analysis of stone tools, which places emphasis on the interactions between tool-makers and their environment. The central focus of her research at Stony Brook is on the origins of hominin technology and the role of

biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to organs, cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is a branch of ...

in stone tool production.

Honors and publications

Harmand has received many awards for her work with Early Stone Age archaeology. In 2015, Harmand won both the

Stone Age Institute The Stone Age Institute is an independent research center dedicated to the archaeological and paleontological study of human origins and technological development beginning with the earliest stone tools. The institute was founded by archaeologis ...

Award for Outstanding Research into Human Origins, and the Field Discovery Award from the Shanghai Archaeology Forum for her work with the Lomekwi 3 tools. The following year, in 2016, she earned the Prix La Recherche archaeology award in Paris, France. In 2017, the Tübingen research prize for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology was awarded to Harmand from the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

, Germany.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harmand, Sonia Living people French archaeologists Stony Brook University faculty 1974 births French women archaeologists