The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley that stretches across East Africa, it is about 48 km long, and is located in the eastern Serengeti Plains within the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the Olbalbal ward located in Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region, about 45 kilometres from Laetoli, another important archaeological locality of early human occupation. The British/Kenyan paleoanthropologist-archeologist team of Mary and Louis Leakey established excavation and research programs at Olduvai Gorge that achieved great advances in human knowledge. The site is registered as one of the National Historic Sites of Tanzania.
Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of H. erectus in 1950 as H. e. heidelbergensis, but towards the end of the century, it was more widely classified as its own species. It is debated whether or not to constrain H. heidelbergensis to only Europe or to also include African and Asian specimens, and this is further confounded by the type specimen being a jawbone, because jawbones feature few diagnostic traits and are generally missing among Middle Pleistocene specimens. Thus, it is debated if some of these specimens could be split off into their own species or a subspecies of H. erectus. Because the classification is so disputed, the Middle Pleistocene is often called the "muddle in the middle".
Acheulean, 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 with Homo erectus and derived species such as Homo heidelbergensis.
The Oldowan was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made by chipping one, or a few, flakes off a stone using another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower Paleolithic period, 2.9 million years ago up until at least 1.7 million years ago (Ma), by ancient Hominins across much of Africa. This technological industry was followed by the more sophisticated Acheulean industry.
The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture that dates to the early part of the Hoxnian Interglacial around 424-415,000 years ago. Clactonian tools were made by Homo heidelbergensis. The Clactonian is primarly distinguished from the (globally) contemporaneous Acheulean industry by its lack of use of handaxe tools.
Homo antecessor is an extinct species of archaic human recorded in the Spanish Sierra de Atapuerca, a productive archaeological site, from 1.2 to 0.8 million years ago during the Early Pleistocene. Populations of this species may have been present elsewhere in Western Europe, and were among the first to settle that region of the world, hence the name. The first fossils were found in the Gran Dolina cave in 1994, and the species was formally described in 1997 as the last common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals, supplanting the more conventional H. heidelbergensis in this position. H. antecessor has since been reinterpreted as an offshoot from the modern human line, although probably one branching off just before the modern human/Neanderthal split.
Boxgrove is a village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of the English county of West Sussex, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north east of the city of Chichester. The village is just south of the A285 road which follows the line of the Roman road Stane Street.
The Steinheim skull is a fossilized skull of a Homo neanderthalensis or Homo heidelbergensis found on 24 July 1933 near Steinheim an der Murr, Germany.
Azykh Cave, also referred to as Azokh Cave, is a six-cave complex in Azerbaijan, known as a habitation site of prehistoric humans. It is situated near the village of Azykh in the Khojavend District.
Swanscombe Skull Site or Swanscombe Heritage Park is a 3.9-hectare (9.6-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Swanscombe, north-west Kent, England. It contains two Geological Conservation Review sites and a National Nature Reserve. The park lies in a former gravel quarry, Barnfield Pit, which is the most important site in the Swanscombe complex, alongside several other nearby pits.
The Bouri Formation is a sequence of sedimentary deposits that is the source of australopithecine and Homo fossils, artifacts, and bones of large mammals with cut marks from butchery with tools by early hominins. It is located in the Middle Awash Valley, in Ethiopia, East Africa, and is a part of the Afar Depression that has provided rich human fossil sites such as Gona and Hadar.
Qesem cave is a Lower Paleolithic archaeological site near the town of Kafr Qasim in Israel. Early humans were occupying the site by 400,000 until c. 200,000 years ago.
Mark Brian Roberts is an English archaeologist specialising in the study of the Palaeolithic. He is best known for his discovery of, and subsequent excavations at, the Lower Palaeolithic site of Boxgrove Quarry in southern England. Roberts was a principal research fellow at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. He has twice been awarded the Stopes Medal for his contribution to the study of Palaeolithic humans and Pleistocene geology, and in 2021 was made an Honorary Fellow of West Dean College of Arts and Conservation.
Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh is a prehistoric archaeological site in Upper Galilee, Israel. It is situated 800 m (2,600 ft) from the Nahal Amud outlet, approximately 30 m (98 ft) above the wadi bed. It was found to house a fossil today known as the "Galilee skull" or "The Yabrudian Man".
The Happisburgh footprints were a set of fossilized hominid footprints that date to the end of the Early Pleistocene, around 950–850,000 years ago. They were discovered in May 2013 in a newly uncovered sediment layer of the Cromer Forest Bed on a beach at Happisburgh in Norfolk, England, and carefully photographed in 3D before being destroyed by the tide shortly afterwards.
Boxgrove Man is a name given to three fossils of early humans, found at Boxgrove in Sussex, and dated to about 480,000 years old. One piece of the tibia (shinbone) and two teeth were found. The tibia was of a mature well-built man, perhaps from the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals, and the teeth are thought to be of early Neanderthals. They are the oldest fossils of the genus homo found in Britain.
The Clacton Spear, or Clacton Spear Point, is the tip of a wooden spear discovered in Clacton-on-Sea in 1911. At approximately 400,000 years old, it is the oldest known worked wooden implement.
The Untermassfeld fossil site is a palaeontological site in Thuringia, Germany. Excavated continuously since its discovery in 1978, it has produced many fossils dating to the late Early Pleistocene or Epivillafranchian geologic period, approximately 1.2 – 0.9 million years before present (BP). Claims that hominins were also present at the site have sparked a major controversy.
Aroeira 3 is a 400,000 year old Homo heidelbergensis hominid skull which was discovered in the Aroeira cave, Portugal. It is the earliest human trace in Portugal. H. heidelbergensis existed at the transition between Homo erectus and early Neanderthals and used both stone tools and fire. The skull was damaged during the 2014 excavation but was restored in the following two years. In 2017, the description of the skull was published in PNAS. It is on display in the National Archaeology Museum (Lisbon).
The archaeological site of Atapuerca is located in the province of Burgos in the north of Spain and is notable for its evidence of early human occupation. Bone fragments from around 800,000 years ago, found in its Gran Dolina cavern, provide the oldest known evidence of hominid settlement in Western Europe and of hominid cannibalism anywhere in the world.
