View source for Lomekwi

{{short description|Kenyan archaeological site dated to 3.3 million years ago}}
{{Infobox ancient site
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| alternate_name      = LOM3
| image               = Lake turkana satellite.jpg
| image_size          = 201px
| alt                 = o
| caption             = Lomekwi is near the west bank of [[Lake Turkana]], which is pictured in green on this satellite image.
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| map_type            = Kenya
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| map_size            = 200px
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| coordinates         = {{coord|3|52|27|N|35|45|3|E|display=inline,title}}
| map_dot_label       = Approximate location of dig site
| location            = [[Turkana County]], [[Kenya]]
| region              = [[Rift Valley Province]]
| type                = Ancient campsite
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| abandoned           =
| epochs              = 3.3 million years ago <!-- actually displays as "Periods" -->
| cultures            = ''[[Australopithecus]]'' or ''[[Kenyanthropus]]''
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| event               =
| excavations         = {{start date|2011}}–present
| archaeologists      = Sonia Harmand, [[Stony Brook University]], US
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| public_access       = Limited
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{{Tone|date=April 2023}}
'''Lomekwi''' is an [[archaeological site]] located on the west bank of Turkana Lake in [[Kenya]]. It is an important milestone in the history of human archaeology. An archaeological team from [[Stony Brook University]] in the United States discovered traces of Lomekwi by chance in July 2011, and made substantial progress four years after in-depth excavations.
Artifacts excavated from Lomekwi date back to 3.3 million years ago, completely overturning the history of human use and tool making and advancing it by about 500,000 years. Its appearance, the most conspicuous among these cultural relics is a large stone tool with obvious traces of human processing. It looks like a cutting board, but its exact purpose is not clear yet.
The artifacts from Lomekwi have a unique production method and are an independent production style. The archaeological team calls it Lomekwian. These tools, which are not highly processed, completely distinguish [[Australopithecus]] from other primates, and it is highly likely that ancient humans already had basic cognitive abilities.
==Discovery==
In July 2011, a team of archeologists led by [[Sonia Harmand]] and Jason Lewis of [[Stony Brook University]], United States, were heading to a site near  [[Lake Turkana]], Kenya near where ''[[Kenyanthropus platyops]]'' fossils had previously been found.<ref name=SA /><ref name=science /> The group made a wrong turn on the way and ended up in a previously unexplored region and decided to do some surveying. They quickly found some stone artifacts on the site, which they named Lomekwi 3.<ref name=SA />  A year later, they returned to the site for a full excavation.<ref name=science /> Harmand presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society on April 14, 2015<ref name=SA>{{cite news |last1=Wong |first1=Kate |title=Archaeologists Take Wrong Turn, Find World's Oldest Stone Tools |url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/archaeologists-take-wrong-turn-find-world-s-oldest-stone-tools-update/ |work=Scientific American Blog Network |date=20 May 2015 }}</ref> and published the full announcement and results on the cover of Nature on May 21, 2015.<ref name="Harmand Lewis Feibel et al 2015"/>
== Artifacts ==
Around 20 well preserved artifacts have been dug up at Lomekwi 3, including anvils, cores, and flakes. An additional 130 artifacts were found on the surface. In one instance, Harmand's team was able to match a flake to its core, suggesting a [[hominin]] had made and discarded the tool at the site.<ref name=science />  The tools were generally quite large – larger than the oldest known stone tools, recovered in the [[Gona, Ethiopia|Gona area]]  of the [[Afar Region]] of [[Ethiopia]], in 1992. The largest weighs 15kg, and may have been used as an anvil.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Morelle |first1=Rebecca |title=Oldest stone tools pre-date earliest humans |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32804177 |work=BBC News |date=20 May 2015 }}</ref> 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.<ref name=SA /> She ruled out the possibility that the  tools were actually natural rock formations, saying "The artifacts were clearly [[knapping|knapped]] and not the result of accidental fracture of rocks".<ref name=science /> Analysis suggested the cores had been rotated as flakes were struck off.<ref name=science /> The purpose of the tools found at Lomekwi 3 is unclear, as animal bones found at the site do not bear any sign of hominin activity.<ref name=SA /> This is the greatest expression of late [[Neogene]] technology known to the archaeological record.
Based on the buried artifacts' stratigraphic position (in undisturbed sediment) relative to two layers of volcanic ash and known magnetic reversals, Harmand and her team dated the tools to 3.3 million years ago.<ref name=SA /><ref name=science /><ref name="Harmand Lewis Feibel et al 2015">{{cite journal |last1=Harmand |first1=Sonia |last2=Lewis |first2=Jason E. |last3=Feibel |first3=Craig S. |last4=Lepre |first4=Christopher J. |last5=Prat |first5=Sandrine |last6=Lenoble |first6=Arnaud |last7=Boës |first7=Xavier |last8=Quinn |first8=Rhonda L. |last9=Brenet |first9=Michel |last10=Arroyo |first10=Adrian |last11=Taylor |first11=Nicholas |last12=Clément |first12=Sophie |last13=Daver |first13=Guillaume |last14=Brugal |first14=Jean-Philip |last15=Leakey |first15=Louise |author-link15=Louise Leakey |last16=Mortlock |first16=Richard A. |last17=Wright |first17=James D. |last18=Lokorodi |first18=Sammy |last19=Kirwa |first19=Christopher |last20=Kent |first20=Dennis V. |last21=Roche |first21=Hélène |title=3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya |journal=Nature |date=May 2015 |volume=521 |issue=7552 |pages=310–315 |doi=10.1038/nature14464 |pmid=25993961 |bibcode=2015Natur.521..310H |s2cid=1207285 }}</ref> The finds at Lomekwi therefore represent the oldest stone tools ever discovered, predating the Gona tools, dated to 2.6 mya,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Semaw |first1=Sileshi |last2=Rogers |first2=Michael J |last3=Quade |first3=Jay |author-link3=Jay Quade |last4=Renne |first4=Paul R |last5=Butler |first5=Robert F |last6=Dominguez-Rodrigo |first6=Manuel |last7=Stout |first7=Dietrich |last8=Hart |first8=William S |last9=Pickering |first9=Travis |last10=Simpson |first10=Scott W |date=2003-08-01 |title=2.6-Million-year-old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248403000939 |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |language=en |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=169–177 |doi=10.1016/S0047-2484(03)00093-9 |pmid=14529651 |issn=0047-2484}}</ref> by 700,000 years.
==Hominin evolution==
The date predates the genus ''[[Homo]]'' by 500,000 years, suggesting this tool making was undertaken by ''[[Australopithecus]]'' or ''[[Kenyanthropus]]'' (which was found near Lomekwi 3).<ref name=SA />  Previously, evidence of stone tool use by [[Australopithecus]] has been suggested on the basis of cut-marks on animal bones,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McPherron |first=Shannon P. |last2=Alemseged |first2=Zeresenay |last3=Marean |first3=Curtis W. |last4=Wynn |first4=Jonathan G. |last5=Reed |first5=Denné |last6=Geraads |first6=Denis |last7=Bobe |first7=René |last8=Béarat |first8=Hamdallah A. |year=2010 |title=Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09248 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=466 |issue=7308 |pages=857–860 |doi=10.1038/nature09248 |issn=1476-4687}}</ref> but those findings have been debated, with no scientific consensus forming on either side of the debate.<ref name=science>{{cite journal |last1=Balter |first1=Michael |title=World's oldest stone tools discovered in Kenya |journal=Science |date=14 April 2015 |doi=10.1126/science.aab2487 }}</ref>
Harmand said the Lomekwi 3 artifacts do not fit into the [[Oldowan]] tool making tradition and should be considered part of a distinct tradition, which she termed Lomekwian.<ref name=SA /> It has been hypothesized that tool making may have aided in the evolution of [[Homo]] into a distinct genus.<ref name=science />  However, it is unclear whether the Lomekwian tools are related to those made by [[Homo]] species – it is possible the technology was forgotten and later rediscovered.<ref name=NPR />
Independent researchers who have seen the tools are generally supportive of Harmand's conclusions.<ref name=NPR /><ref>{{cite news |last1=Hays |first1=Brooks |title=World's oldest tools found near Africa's Lake Turkana |url=https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2015/04/16/Worlds-oldest-tools-found-near-Africas-Lake-Turkana/7751429187807/ |work=UPI |date=16 April 2015 }}</ref> [[George Washington University]] anthropologist Alison Brooks said the tools "could not have been created by natural forces&nbsp;... the dating evidence is fairly solid."<ref name=science /> [[Rick Potts]], head of the [[Human Origins Program]] at the [[Smithsonian Institution]], said the tools represented a more primitive style than known human-made tools, but something more sophisticated than what modern [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]]s do. "There's no doubt it's purposeful" toolmaking, he remarked.<ref name=NPR>{{cite news |last1=Joyce |first1=Christopher |title=New Discovery Of World's Oldest Stone Tools |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/15/399937433/new-discovery-of-worlds-oldest-tools |work=NPR |date=15 April 2015 }}</ref> A Paleoanthropologist [[Zeresenay Alemseged]], who was responsible for the earlier research suggesting [[Australopithecus]] had made tools, also backed Harmand's conclusions.<ref name=science />
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* {{cite conference |last1=Spoor |first1=F |last2=Leakey |first2=L |last3=Leakey |first3=M |title=A comparative study of Pliocene hominin fossils from Lomekwi, west of Lake Turkana (Kenya) |conference=Seventy-First Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists |date=April 2002 |pages=146 |url=https://bioanth.org/documents/16/ajpa2002.pdf }}
* {{cite news |last1=Feltman |first1=Rachel |title=Stone tools may have been used before our genus came on the scene |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/05/20/stone-tools-may-have-been-used-before-our-genus-came-on-the-scene/ |newspaper=Washington Post |date=20 May 2015 }}
*[http://africanfossils.org/search List of stone tools and their 3D-model]
{{Prehistoric technology}}
[[Category:2015 in science]]
[[Category:Archaeological sites in Kenya]]
[[Category:Lithics]]
[[Category:Lower Paleolithic Archaeological cultures of Africa]]
[[Category:Archaeological sites of Eastern Africa]]