Oldowan is a traditional toolmaking style, which is dating to about 2 million year ago and characterized by crudely worked pebble tools from the early Paleolithic period. These tools are made of pebbles of quartz, quartzite, or basalt. It is found that these tools are designed in two directions to make it simple and all-purpose tools, which is capable of chopping, scraping, or cutting together. And it is also found that the flakes remaining from such work were also employed as tools. Such type of tools were found in early hominids sites (probably Homo habilis at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania; Omo, Ethiopia; and East Turkana, Kenya).

Some scholars believed that the Oldowan tools were made more advanced by the ancestors living in nearby areas. They come with this argument by the observations of the facts that the robust australopithecines may have been vegetarians. Probably these tools would not have been of great advantage for them. It appear that Oldowan tools would have been spread outside of Africa, perhaps carried by an early species of Homo. In this blog we will discuss about the archaeological sites where Oldowan tools were find. Keep in touch with the article.

Sites known for Oldowan tools and name of their Archaeologists

We are listing some of the better known sites for Oldowan tools because the complete catalog of Oldowan sites would be too extensive for listing here.

Africa

Ethiopia – Afar Triangle

This site is located in the Gona river system in the Hadar region of the Afar triangle. This archaeological site was excavated by Helene Roche, J. W. Harris and Sileshi Semaw. At that site some of the oldest known Oldowan assemblages found dating to about 2.6 million years ago.

Omo River Basin

The second oldest known Oldowan tool site comes from the Shungura formation of the Omo River basin. The Shungura formation is the sediments of the Plio-Pleistocene and provides a record of the hominins that lived there.
A French palaeontologist Arambourg was the first who initially drawn to the Lower Omo Valley by fossils collected from there in 1902.

Egypt

The evidence of Chellean or Oldowan cultures has been found Within the 100-foot surrounding area along the Nile River.

Algeria

In November 2018 Scientists published a report to secure from Ain Boucherit in Setif the Oldowan artefacts dating back of 1.9 to 2.4 million years .

Kenya – Homa Peninsula

Home Peninsula is located between the two branches of the East African Rift Valley on the southern margin of the Winam Gulf of Lake Victoria in SW Kenya. And the oldowan sites Kanjera South, the part of the Kanjera site complex, and Nyayanga are located on the Homa Peninsula.
Out of these Kanjera South is estimated to around 2 million years ago while Nyayanga is estimated to 2.9 million years ago. The expedition of Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey (a Kenyan-born paleoanthropologistand archaeologist) from 1932 to 1935 was one of the significant excavations in the area.

East Turkana – Koobi Fora

The numerous Koobi Fora sites on the east side of Lake Turkana are now part of Sibiloi National Park. Sites were initially excavated by Richard Leakey, Meave Leakey, Jack Harris, Glynn Isaac and others.

West Turkana

A Oldowan site named as Naiyena Engol 2, also known as NY2 located in the Nachukui site at West Turkana. During the excavation around 500 stone tools were found at NY2 site. These artifacts are between dated back from 1.8 million years ago to 1.7 million years ago. The experts believed that these tools are around the peak of the Oldowan period.

Kilombe

Acheulian stone tools have been known about at Kilombe Main site in the central rift of Kenya since the 1970s with excavations by John Gowlett for his PhD.
These stone tools are associated with fossils and have been dated to 1.8 million years ago.

Tanzania – Olduvai Gorge

The Oldowan tools style is named after discoveries made in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania in east Africa by the Leakey family. Primarily it was discovered by Mary Leakey but her husband Louis and their son Richard also worked with her.
Mary Leakey organized a typology of Early Pleistocene stone tools which developed Oldowan tools into three chronological variants A, B and C.

South Africa

Abbe Breuil a French priest and archaeologist, was the first recognized archaeologist to go on record to assert the existence of Oldowan tools. “Chello-Abbevillean” was his first description on these tools. And the finding of Olduvai Gorge by Leakey at least ten years after that.

Swartkrans

The Swartkrans site is a cave filled with layered fossil-bearing deposit of limestone. In Swartkrans site is the majority of bone tools have been found. It is believed that the co-occurrence of Australopithecus robustus and Homo was well established there. Oldowan is found in Lower Bank is from 2.2 million years ago to 1.8 million year ago in association with Paranthropus robustus and a single fossil attributed to Homo .
The cave was discovered in 1948 with an initial excavations were carried out by paleontologist Robert Broom (South African medical doctor).

Sterkfontein

Another site of limestone caves is Sterkfontein, found in South Africa. This site contains a large number of not only Oldowan tools, but also early Acheulean technology.
Guglielmo Martinaglia (an Italian miner) discover during a blast through the surface openings of the Sterkfontein Caves in 1896 and the same time the members of the South African Geological Society reported interesting cave formations and fossils in the caves.

Drimolen

Drimolen is a cave type site which has yielded 6 stone tools attributed to the Oldowan as well as 65 bone tools, along with specimens of Paranthropus robustus and Homo erectus.
This archaeological site was discovered by Dr Andre Keyser (who was a South African palaeontologist and geologist).

Europe – Georgia

H. Georgicus the two Homo erectus skulls were discovered at Dmanisi in southern Georgia in the year 1999 and 2002. In addition to this the archaeological layer in which the human remains, hundreds of Oldowan stone tools, and numerous animal bones were unearthed. Which is approximately dated back from 1.83 million year ago to 1.6 million years ago. The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for presence of early humans outside the African continent.

Bulgaria

The archaeologists have discovered a human molar tooth, lower palaeolithic assemblages from the ground layers of Kozarnika. They are at about 1.6 million year to 1.4 million year ago. The expert believe that it belongs to a core-and-flake non-Acheulian industry and incised bones that may be the earliest example of human symbolic behavior.

Russia

Ainikab-1 and Muhkay-2 located at the Central Dagestan, Northeastern Caucasus. These sites are the extraordinary sites in relation to date and the culture. Geological and geomorphological data, palynological studies and paleomagnetic testing unequivocally point to Early Pleistocene. The experts believe that the age of the sites as being within the range of 1.8 million year to 1.2 million year ago.

Spain

Extremely archaic handaxe archaeological artifacts have been discovered from the Quaternary fluvial terraces of Duero river. Which belongs to dated back to Oldowan and Lower Paleolithic period.
The tools belongs to Oldowan period have been found at the following sites :-
-Fuente Nueva 3,
-Barranco del Leon,
-Sima del Elefante,
-Atapuerca TD 6.

France

Oldowan tools have also been found at :- -Lézignan-la-Cèbe,
-Abbeville,
-Vallonnet cave,
-French Riviera;
-Soleihac,
-Open-air site in Massif Central.
It is believe that the artifacts discovered here has been from 1.5 million years ago to 0.5 million years ago.
Oldowan tools have also been found at Tautavel in the foothills of the Pyrenees. These were discovered by Henry de Lumbley alongside human remains. The discovered tools are made of limestone and quartz.

Asia – China

There are 32 stone tools were found, including choppers, scrapers, and 3-edged tools at the Xihoudu site in China. It is believe that these tools were dated back to 1.8 million years ago. This site also included cultural artifacts, such as animal fossils, burnt bones, and cut antlers.
The presence of numerous fish and beaver fossils near the stone tools indicate the existence of a body of water at the site.

Pakistan

The Oldowan tools have been found at Riwat during a 1980s excavation in Pakistan. The experts believe that the discovered stone were the waste products of finished stone tools products because the discovered stone are the small flakes chipped off of larger stones. In total there are 1479 tools and flakes were discovered at this site.

Syria

Syria revealed a plethora of Oldowan tools at an excavated site at El Kowm in the year 2008. There are at about 790 artifacts were found. These artifacts includes many pebble tools, cores, flakes, manuports, and flake debris. Although many of these tools show little sign of modification but several of the pebble tools are distinctly-shaped bifacial and trifacial choppers. It is believed that these tools or artifacts are between 2.0 million year ago to1.8 million year ago. These stone tools are some of the earliest Near East finds.

Iran

There are 80 tools of different assemblages have been discovered at 7 sites in the Kashafrud Basin in Iran. It is believed that many of the artifacts found here were at about 1.8 million years ago. Some of them belongs to pre-Acheulean and some are of the Oldowan tradition, resembling East African Oldowan finds. The tools discovered here were cores, choppers, flake, chunks, and hammer stones made predominately of quartz.
The experts believed that the tools and artifacts discovered here are displayed the ability of early toolmakers to work skillfully with fragile stones.

Israel

The evidences of stone tool making has been found at the site Bizat Ruhana it is located near to Kibbutz Ruhama site. At this site the experts found the complexity of the stone tool-making process was more complex than previously thought.
Which indicates a new perspective on the capabilities of invention and adaptability of Oldowan hominin populations.
The secondary flakes was a another key finding at the Bizat Ruhama site. The discovery of the secondary flakes have led researchers to believe that this was an intentional response to a raw material constraint.
According to the micro-morphological studies at the Bizat Ruhama site by the experts found that the archaeological assemblages represent one or several occupations of the site in a relatively short time frame.

Quick Links

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Stone Age ‑ Definition, Period & Tools | Ancient History	CLICK HERE
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Lower Paleolithic Period – The Most Early phase of Stone Age	CLICK HERE
Lomekwi Stone Tools – The World’s Oldest Artifact – Stone Age	CLICK HERE
MCQs on Lomekwi Archaeological Site – Important Milestone	CLICK HERE
Oldowan Tools – The Oldest Stone Tools In The World – Stone Age	CLICK HERE
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