The ability to adapt to changing environments has deep roots. In a technology-driven world, people tend to associate adaptability with technological change, especially when it comes to adverse climates and places. But not every technological revolution is the result of environmental change.
Sometimes existing toolkits, for example containing simple cutting and scraping flakes, enabled the early humans to exploit new resources and thrive under changing conditions. As a species, humans are also characterized by the ability to use rapidly disrupted environments. And as new research on the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania shows, this adaptability was already evident millions of years ago.
Our new study, published in Nature Communications, is the result of a real team and multidisciplinary effort. Lead researchers from Canada and Tanzania have worked with partners in Africa, North America and Europe to describe a large composition of stone tools, fossil bones and chemical effects of dental and plant material. We also examined the microscopic pieces of silica examining plants, old pollen and charcoal from natural fires left behind from the old riverbed and lake sprouts in the Serengeti plains.
The data we have collected provides the earliest evidence of human activity in the Olduvai Gorge: about 2 million years ago. It also shows that early humans used a large variety of habitats as they adapted to constant changes.
East Africa is one of the most important regions in the world for research on human origins. It boasts extraordinary records of extinct species spanning several million years. For more than a century, paleo-anthropologists have studied the sedimentary corners and excavated hominin fossils in surveys and excavations. But the connection between these fossils and their environmental context remains elusive. This is because there are not many paleo-ecological datasets directly linked to the cultural remnants left by extinct early humans. Our study is an important step in filling the gap.
Varied artifacts and data
The dataset was obtained during a recent survey of the unexplored western portion of the ancient basin. The place is called Ewass Oldupa; in the Maa language spoken by locals, it means ‘the way to the gorge’. This is an appropriate name: the site is located on the road that connects the edge of the gorge with its bottom. Here, the exposed gorge wall reveals 2 million years of history.
The team worked closely with Maasai scholars and communities as they excavated the site. The research group employed a large group of participants, male and female, selected by the local community. In addition to the community equipment in the national language, Swahili, we offer college training opportunities for two Masai scholars interested in archeology and heritage, along with several other Tanzanians.
The exposed stone tools belong to the “culture” that archaeologists identify as the Oldowan. This is a characteristic of early people who deal with their environment in new ways, for example through dietary innovations that combine meat and plants. In East Africa, the Oldowan started about 2.6 million years ago.
The concentration of stone tools and animal fossils is evidence that both humans and fauna have accumulated around water sources. We also learned that Oldowan hominins spread their resources widely. Our data shows that early humans took rocks with them for tools they found from afar over the basin 12 miles east. They also developed the flexibility to use different changing environments.
From our research it appears that the geological, sedimentary and plant landscapes around Ewass Oldupa have changed very rapidly. Yet people have come here for over 200,000 years to use local resources. They used a wide variety of habitats: fern meadows, forest mosaics, natural burnt landscapes, palm groves, steppes. These habitats have been frequently covered by ash or reworked by mass flows associated with volcanic eruptions.
Thanks to continuous and continuous radiometric work – using the Argon method, which dates the precipitation of volcanic materials containing the archaeological finds, we were able to date these artifacts to a period known as the Early Pleistocene, 2 million years ago.
What is not clear is which hominin species made the tool. We did not recover hominin fossils, but the remains of Homo habilis was found in the younger sediments of another site, just 350 meters away. It probably is not either Homo habilis or a member of the genus Paranthropus –of which remains were also previously found at Olduvai Gorge – was the toolmaker. More research will be needed to be sure.
Cooperation
One of the reasons why this research is so important is that it once again demonstrates the value of collaboration. Archaeologists, geoscientists, biologists, chemists and materials scientists were all involved in the study at Ewass Oldupa.
It is thanks to the multiple samples and artifacts that these experts collected and analyzed, that we also know that the adaptation to major geomorphic and ecological transformations did not affect the technology used by hominins. They roamed many habitats, but used only one set of tools amidst unpredictable environments.
This is a clear sign that humans were not technologically limited 2 million years ago and already had the ability to expand their geographical scope, because they were ready to exploit a multitude of habitats in Africa – and possibly beyond.
Julio Mercader Florin, Professor, University of Calgary
This article was published from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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