Lomekwi Stone Tools – The World’s Oldest Artifact – Stone Age

Lomekwi is an important archaeological site. This archaeological site is located on the west bank of Turkana Lake in Kenya. The traces of this archaeological site was discovered by chance by an archaeological team of Stony Brook University in July 2011. This archaeological teams was headed by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis. Sonia Harmand was the famous French archaeologist and Jason Lewis was the Lecturer of Anthropology and Assistant Director of the Turkana Basin Institute of Stony Brook University. They don’t know that this archaeological survey is become an important milestone in the history of human archaeology and made substantial progress four years after in-depth excavations.

The discovery of the Lomekwi archaeological site is become an important milestone in the history of human archaeology. This archaeological site is located near the west bank of Lake Turkana in Kenya. This archeological site was discovered by the in-depth excavation by an archaeological team of Stony Brook University, United States of America. This team was led by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis.

This site is became an important milestone in the history of human archaeology because the artifacts excavated from Lomekwi archaeological site date back to 3.3 million years ago. It is unbelievable and this discovery completely overturning the history of use and tool making by the early humans put the history advancing by about 500,000 years ago.

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The appearance of artifacts and tools, the most conspicuous among these cultural relics is a large stone tool with obvious traces of human processing. Some of the tools looks like a cutting board, but the exact purpose and use of the tool is still in the question and the experts is not clear yet.

The artifacts found from Lomekwi archaeological site have its own unique and independent production method and style. The archaeological team call this unique style “The Lomekwian Style”. The archaeologist experts found that the tools are not highly processed. And it is completely different for other primates.
(Meaning of Primates – “Any animal that belongs to the group that includes humans, monkeys and animals like monkeys without a tail”.)
The style of the tools and artifacts found in this site is completely distinguish form Australopithecus (Group of extinct primates closely related to the modern human.) and other primates. It shows that the ancient humans already had basic cognitive abilities.

Important Facts of the Discovery

-A team of archeologists of Stony Brook University of United States of America headed by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis in July 2011.
-The archeological site is near the Lake Turkana in Kenya.
-The Lomekwi archaeological site is located near where Kenyanthropus platyops fossils had previously been found.
-This site was found by-chance when the team made a wrong excavation at the ended part of the previously explored region and decided to do some surveying.
-The team quickly found some stone artifacts on the site, which they named Lomekwi. Then after a year they returned to the site for a full excavation.
-On April 2015 Sonia Harmand presented the findings of the excavation at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society.
-On May 2015 Sonia Harmand published the full announcement and results of her excavation.

Facts of Discovered Artifacts and Tools

1. -Lomekwi 3 (also known as LOM3) is an important point of the site.
2. -LOM3 gives new information about the key adaptations in the hominin lineage.
3. -LOM3 is the point which given an information that the tools and artifacts discovered there is about 3.3 million year old.
4. -LOM3 is a site where around 20 well preserved artifacts have been dug up, including anvils, cores, and flakes.
5. -The team of Sonia Harmand suggested that the hominin had made and discarded the tool at the site.
6. -The tools recovered form LOM3 were generally quite large.
7. -The stone tools were larger and older than the known stone tools recovered in the Gona area of the Afar Region of Ethiopia, in 1992.
8. -The largest weigh of the tool is about 15kg, and may have been used as an anvil.
9. -According to Harmand it appeared that the tool makers had purposely selected large, heavy blocks of strong stone, ignoring smaller blocks of the same material found in the area.
10. -She ruled out the possibility that the tools were actually natural rock formations.
11. -The purpose of the tools found at Lomekwi 3 is unclear because the experts found that animal bones found at the site do not bear any sign of hominin activity. 
12. -The stratified state of two layers of volcanic ash and magnetic reversals have also been found on buried artefacts.

All the Best for a Bright Future.