Olduvai Gorge and the Olduvai Landscape Paleoanthropology Project

Blumenschine, Robert J.; Stanistreet, Ian G.; Masao, Fidelis T.

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.05.005

Cited by 20 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…(Johanson et al 1987). In 1989, Robert Blumenschine and Fidelis Masao initiated OLAPP with its stated goals to further paleoanthropology's understanding of Oldowan hominin behaviour using an ecological-landscape approach (Blumenschine et al 2012a). OLAPP conducted fieldwork annually apart from a government-imposed moratorium which lasted from 1990 to 1993 and excavated approximately 20,000 lithics, 25,000 vertebrate fossils, and led to the discovery of nine hominin remains (CODI 2017).…”

Section: History Of Archaeological and Geological Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lithic Raw Material Characterisation at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Favreau¹,

Mercader²

2019

Preprint

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Olduvai Gorge is located within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northern Tanzania along the western margin of the East African Rift System. Olduvai’s sedimentary record exhibits a complex sequence of inter-stratified lithic technologies including Oldowan, Acheulean, Middle Stone Age, and Later Stone Age assemblages. While diachronic technological change is perceptible, one aspect that remained largely unchanged through time was the totality of locally available rock types. This study constitutes Olduvai Gorge’s first systematic survey and characterisation of source lithologies using thin section petrography. The primary objectives of this thesis were to establish the range of available lithic raw materials, petrographically characterise these, and determine if there were unique inter-outcrop petrographic signatures to determine if it is feasible to source lithic artifacts at the mineralogical level. Geological samples were collected in primary and secondary positions within the greater Olduvai Gorge region. A total of seventy-four thin sections of sixty-two geological samples from nineteen sources were analysed. By way of comparative analyses, it is shown that four quartzitic outcrops have unique mineral compositions, four meta-granite varieties are unique to individual outcrops, Engelosin phonolite samples are texturally and mineralogically unique, and magmatic samples recovered in secondary position may be sourced to their volcanic centre. The results of this thesis demonstrate it is feasible to differentiate between source material by way of optical mineralogy which implies that sourcing lithic artifacts from Olduvai is possible. Altogether, these revelatory insights will allow future researchers to glean new understandings of hominin raw material transport, as well as ecological and social behaviour within the Olduvai paleobasin.

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Section: History Of Archaeological and Geological Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lithic Raw Material Characterisation at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Favreau¹,

Mercader²

2019

Preprint

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“…Early excavations at Olduvai focused on dense archaeological and fossiliferous deposits termed hominin "living floors" (e.g., Leakey, 1971). A methodological shift occurred in 1989, when the Olduvai Landscape Archaeology and Paleoanthropology Project (OLAPP) initiated a landscape mode of excavation to address environmental, community, and behavioral changes across temporally refined but spatially expansive paleolandscapes (Peters and Blumenschine, 1995;Blumenschine and Peters, 1998;Blumenschine et al, 2003Blumenschine et al, , 2012a. OLAPP excavations sampled areas across the landscape, regardless of fossil or artifact densities, with a focus on understanding Homo habilis behavior and its use of Oldowan technologies during Bed I and lowermost Bed II times.…”

Section: Geology and Early Stone Age Archaeology At Olduvai Gorgementioning

confidence: 99%

The paleoecology of Pleistocene birds from Middle Bed II, at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and the environmental context of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition

Prassack

Pante

Njau

et al. 2018

Journal of Human Evolution

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Fossil bird data (community composition and taphonomic profiles) are used here to infer the environmental context of the Oldowan-Acheulean transitional period at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. This is the first comprehensive report on the Middle Bed II avifauna and includes fossils excavated by the Olduvai Geochronology and Archaeology Project (OGAP) and recently rediscovered fossils collected by Mary Leakey. Crane, ibis, darter, owl, raptor, crow, and vulture are reported from Bed II for the first time. The presence of these taxa, absent earlier in this Bed, point to a general opening and drying of the landscape with grassland and open woodland expansion. Taxa associated with dense, emergent wetland vegetation, such as dabbling ducks and rails, are uncommon and less diverse than earlier in Bed II. This suggests more mature wetlands with clearer waters. Cormorants continue to be common, but are less diverse. Cormorants and other roosting taxa provide evidence of trees in the area. Compared to lowermost Bed II, the Middle to Upper Bed II landscape is interpreted here as more open and drier (but not necessarily more arid), with matured wetlands, scattered trees, and a greater expansion of grasslands.

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“…Two concepts guide our retrieval and interpretation of environmental indicators and activity traces (see Blumenschine et al [2012a] for detail). One, that ancient environments and land use vary over landscape scales, prescribes sampling from multiple places on a landscape, not single sites as practiced at Olduvai originally.…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%