African Homo erectus: Old radiometric ages and young Oldowan assemblages in the middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia
- Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Brussels (Belgium)
- Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
- Miami Univ., Oxford, OH (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Institute of Human Origins, Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Univ. of Tokyo (Japan)
- Addis Ababa (Ethiopia); and others
Fossils and artifacts recovered from the middle Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar depression sample the Middle Pleistocene transition from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. Ar/Ar ages, biostratigraphy, and tephrachronology from this area indicate that the Pleistocene Bodo hominid cranium and newer specimens are approximately 0.6 million years old. Only Oldowan chopper and flake assemblages are present in the lower stratigraphic units but Acheulean bifacial artifacts are consistently prevalent and widespread in directly overlying deposits. This technological transition is related to a shift in sedimentary regime, supporting the hypothesis that Middle Pleistocene Oldowan assemblages represent a behavioral facies of the Acheulean industrial complex.
- OSTI ID:
- 6793017
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States), Vol. 264:5167; ISSN 0036-8075
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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