Cᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Eastern African dry savanna
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The Oldowan Industrial Complex was an early African stone-tool tradition characterized by flakes, choppers, polyhedrons, scrapers, and related implements made through percussion flaking. Named after Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, it appears in the extract as an archaeological complex associated with early hominid occupation sites, animal-bone processing, and the exploitation of meat and plant foods. Its emergence is placed between approximately 2.0 and 2.5 million years ago, although the extract does not provide calendar-year equivalents.
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Stone-tool manufacture appears relatively suddenly in the archaeological record between approximately 2.0 and 2.5 million years ago. The key technical step was the deliberate flaking of a cobble or rock chunk to produce a sharp-edged flake and a usable core. Flakes could serve as cutting tools, while cores could function as choppers; further trimming produced scraping and pointed forms, and continued modification generated polyhedrons.
This basic toolkit is called Oldowan after Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. The extract emphasizes the exceptional preservation of biological and cultural remains there, particularly in primary-context sites with limited disturbance before burial. Assemblages include knife-like tools, utilized flakes, end-scrapers, concave scrapers, and side choppers.
Oldowan sites are described as small concentrations in open park savanna, invariably near water. Artefacts and bone waste commonly occupy areas only a few metres across, with broken marrow-bearing bones mixed among stone implements. Associations involving hippopotamus remains at Koobi Fora and large mammals at Olduvai suggest that the tools were used in dismembering carcasses, although the extract leaves open whether the animals were hunted or scavenged.
The tools allowed early hominids to cut and process meat despite lacking claws or exceptionally large teeth. Site associations are interpreted as evidence for home bases where food acquired through hunting, scavenging, or collecting could be brought for sharing. These places may also have protected juveniles and supported the transmission of practical knowledge, although the behavioural reconstruction remains partly analogical.
The extract links the Oldowan toolkit with increasingly organized communal activity. Larger and more dangerous game would have required cooperation, communication, and strategy, while plant foods probably remained an important component of the diet. Natural stones known as manuports were sometimes carried onto sites, and a semicircular concentration at site DK I in Olduvai Gorge is interpreted as a possible windbreak or hide.
Cᵉ siècle av. J.-C.
Eastern African dry savanna
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Oldowan Industrial Complex was an early African stone-tool tradition characterized by flakes, choppers, polyhedrons, scrapers, and related implements made through percussion flaking. Named after Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, it appears in the extract as an archaeological complex associated with early hominid occupation sites, animal-bone processing, and the exploitation of meat and plant foods. Its emergence is placed between approximately 2.0 and 2.5 million years ago, although the extract does not provide calendar-year equivalents.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
Stone-tool manufacture appears relatively suddenly in the archaeological record between approximately 2.0 and 2.5 million years ago. The key technical step was the deliberate flaking of a cobble or rock chunk to produce a sharp-edged flake and a usable core. Flakes could serve as cutting tools, while cores could function as choppers; further trimming produced scraping and pointed forms, and continued modification generated polyhedrons.
This basic toolkit is called Oldowan after Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania. The extract emphasizes the exceptional preservation of biological and cultural remains there, particularly in primary-context sites with limited disturbance before burial. Assemblages include knife-like tools, utilized flakes, end-scrapers, concave scrapers, and side choppers.
Oldowan sites are described as small concentrations in open park savanna, invariably near water. Artefacts and bone waste commonly occupy areas only a few metres across, with broken marrow-bearing bones mixed among stone implements. Associations involving hippopotamus remains at Koobi Fora and large mammals at Olduvai suggest that the tools were used in dismembering carcasses, although the extract leaves open whether the animals were hunted or scavenged.
The tools allowed early hominids to cut and process meat despite lacking claws or exceptionally large teeth. Site associations are interpreted as evidence for home bases where food acquired through hunting, scavenging, or collecting could be brought for sharing. These places may also have protected juveniles and supported the transmission of practical knowledge, although the behavioural reconstruction remains partly analogical.
The extract links the Oldowan toolkit with increasingly organized communal activity. Larger and more dangerous game would have required cooperation, communication, and strategy, while plant foods probably remained an important component of the diet. Natural stones known as manuports were sometimes carried onto sites, and a semicircular concentration at site DK I in Olduvai Gorge is interpreted as a possible windbreak or hide.
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