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.
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.
An artifact or artefact is a general term for an item made or given shape by humans, such as a tool or a work of art, especially an object of archaeological interest. In archaeology, the word has become a term of particular nuance; it is defined as an object recovered by archaeological endeavor, including cultural artifacts.
Clovis points are the characteristically fluted projectile points associated with the New World Clovis culture, a prehistoric Paleo-American culture. They are present in dense concentrations across much of North America and they are largely restricted to the north of South America. There are slight differences in points found in the Eastern United States bringing them to sometimes be called "Clovis-like". Clovis points date to the Early Paleoindian period, with all known points dating from roughly 13,400–12,700 years ago. As an example, Clovis remains at the Murry Springs Site date to around 12,900 calendar years ago. Clovis fluted points are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929 by Ridgely Whiteman.
In archaeology, lithic technology includes a broad array of techniques used to produce usable tools from various types of stone. The earliest stone tools to date have been found at the site of Lomekwi 3 (LOM3) in Kenya and they have been dated to around 3.3 million years ago. The archaeological record of lithic technology is divided into three major time periods: the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic. Not all cultures in all parts of the world exhibit the same pattern of lithic technological development, and stone tool technology continues to be used to this day, but these three time periods represent the span of the archaeological record when lithic technology was paramount. By analysing modern stone tool usage within an ethnoarchaeological context, insight into the breadth of factors influencing lithic technologies in general may be studied. See: Stone tool. For example, for the Gamo of Southern Ethiopia, political, environmental, and social factors influence the patterns of technology variation in different subgroups of the Gamo culture; through understanding the relationship between these different factors in a modern context, archaeologists can better understand the ways that these factors could have shaped the technological variation that is present in the archaeological record.
Koobi Fora refers primarily to a region around Koobi Fora Ridge, located on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in the territory of the nomadic Gabbra people. According to the National Museums of Kenya, the name comes from the Gabbra language:
In the language of the Gabbra people who live near the site, the term Koobi Fora means a place of the commiphora and the source of myrrh...
The Paleo-Arctic Tradition is the name given by archaeologists to the cultural tradition of the earliest well-documented human occupants of the North American Arctic, which date from the period 8000–5000 BC. The tradition covers Alaska, and expands far into the east, west, and the Southwest Yukon Territory of Canada.
In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic flakes and lithic blades, but most often refers to the shatter and production debris, and production rejects.
Kashafrud Basin(کشفرود) is an archaeological site in Iran, known for the Lower Palaeolithic artifacts collected there; these are the oldest-known evidence for human occupation of Iran. Kashafrud includes a cluster of sites which are located 35 km to 85 km southeast of Mashhad, near the Kashfarud River. The French geologist Claude Thibault, in collaboration with the Iranian geologist Ali Ariai, conducted surveys in the Kashfrud basin east of Mashhad in 1974–75, during which 80 stone artifacts were collected from seven open areas.
The Big Eddy Site (23CE426) is an archaeological site located in Cedar County, Missouri, which was first excavated in 1997 and is now threatened due to erosion by the Sac River.
Devil's Lair is a single-chamber cave with a floor area of around 200 m2 (2,200 sq ft) that formed in a Quaternary dune limestone of the Leeuwin–Naturaliste Ridge, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the modern coastline of Western Australia. The stratigraphic sequence in the cave floor deposit consists of 660 cm (260 in) of sandy sediments, with more than 100 distinct layers, intercalated with flowstone and other indurated deposits. Excavations have been made in several areas of the cave floor. Since 1973, excavations have been concentrated in the middle of the cave, where 10 trenches have been dug. Archaeological evidence for intermittent human occupation extends down about 350 cm (140 in) to layer 30, with hearths, bone, and stone artefacts found throughout. The site provides evidence of human habitation of Southwest Australia 50,000 years before the present day.
A geofact is a natural stone formation that is difficult to distinguish from a man-made artifact. Geofacts could be fluvially reworked and be misinterpreted as an artifact, especially when compared to paleolithic artifacts.
Ruth DeEtte Simpson was an American archaeologist and founder of the Archaeological Survey Association of Southern California.
Pedra Furada is an important collection of over 800 archaeological sites in the state of Piauí, Brazil. These include hundreds of rock paintings dating from circa 12,000 years before present. More importantly, charcoal from very ancient fires and stone shards that may be interpreted as tools found at the location were dated from 48,000 to 32,000 years before present, suggesting the possibility of a human presence tens of thousand of years prior to the arrival of the Clovis people in North America.
The Soanian culture is a prehistoric technological culture from the Siwalik Hills, Pakistan. It is named after the Soan Valley in Pakistan.
Lake Manix is a former lake fed by the Mojave River in the Mojave Desert. It lies within San Bernardino County, California. Located close to Barstow, this lake had the shape of a cloverleaf and covered four basins named Coyote, Cady/Manix, Troy and Afton. It covered a surface area of 236 square kilometres (91 sq mi) and reached an altitude of 543 metres (1,781 ft) at highstands, although poorly recognizable shorelines have been found at altitudes of 547–558 metres (1,795–1,831 ft). The lake was fed by increased runoff during the Pleistocene and overflowed into the Lake Mojave basin and from there to Lake Manly in Death Valley, or less likely into the Bristol Lake basin and from there to the Colorado River.
The Coats–Hines–Litchy site is a paleontological site located in Williamson County, Tennessee, in the Southeastern United States. The site was formerly believed to be archaeological, and identified as one of only a very few locations in Eastern North America containing evidence of Paleoindian hunting of late Pleistocene proboscideans. Excavations at the site have yielded portions of four mastodon skeletons, including portions of one previously described as being in direct association with Paleoindian stone tools. The results of excavations have been published in Tennessee Conservationist, and the scholarly journals Current Research in the Pleistocene, Tennessee Archaeology, and Quaternary Science Reviews. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 2011.
George Francis Carter was an American professor of geography who taught at Johns Hopkins University and later Texas A&M University. Carter had a background in anthropology and conducted archaeological excavations in Southern California. He is best known for supporting the theories of trans-cultural diffusion and early human settlement of the Americas.
The Gault archaeological site is an extensive, multicomponent site located in Florence, Texas, United States on the Williamson-Bell County line along Buttermilk Creek about 250 meters upstream from the Buttermilk Creek complex. It bears evidence of human habitation for at least 20,000 years, making it one of the few archaeological sites in the Americas at which compelling evidence has been found for human occupation dating to before the appearance of the Clovis culture. Archaeological material covers about 16 hectares with a depth of up to 3 meters in places. About 30 incised stones from the Clovis period engraved with geometric patterns were found there as well as others from periods up to the Early Archaic. Incised bone was also found.
Chiquihuite Cave is a possible Upper Paleolithic archaeological site in the Astillero Mountains, Zacatecas State, in North-Central Mexico. Chiquihuite Cave may be evidence of early human presence in the Western Hemisphere up to 33,000 years ago. It is located 2,740 meters above sea level and about 1 kilometer higher than the valley below. Stones discovered here, thought to be lithic artifacts, have been dated to 26,000 years ago based on more than 50 samples of animal bone and charcoal found in association with these stones. However, there is scholarly debate over whether the stones are truly artifacts, human-made tools that are evidence of human presence, or if they were formed naturally. No evidence of human DNA or hearth have been unearthed.
