• The First Million Years of Technology: The Lomekwian and the Early Oldowan

    From Primum Sapienti@invalide@invalid.invalid to sci.anthropology.paleo on Tue Oct 28 22:48:34 2025
    From Newsgroup: sci.anthropology.paleo



    https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-071923-112250


    ABSTRACT
    During the course of human evolution, lithic
    technology became a critical element of hominin
    foraging ecology and a contributor to feedback
    loops selecting for increasingly sophisticated
    tool use, cognition, and language. Here we
    review the first million years of technology,
    from 3.3 million years ago (Ma) to 2.3 Ma. This
    time interval includes the two oldest
    archaeological industries (the Lomekwian and
    the early Oldowan) known exclusively from Africa,
    which collectively overlap with four genera of
    hominins (human relatives and ancestors). These
    Early Stone Age (ESA) industries focused on the
    production and use of sharp edges for cutting,
    as well as the use of larger, sometimes unworked
    stones for pounding. We review our current
    understanding of these technologies, where they
    were found, how they were made, what they were
    used for, and the hominins that could have
    produced them, and consider them in the context
    of nonhuman primate archaeology.

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