technique named after a Parisian suburb where flakes of this kind were first recognized. Levalloisian cores take a lot of core preparation to get the perfect striking platform in order to generate a flake with a predetermined shape. Typically, Levalloisian flakes are very thin. In addition, there is an increase in retouched flake tools in the Middle Paleolithic. This industrial period also bears witness to improved hunting techniques as reflected by faunal remains. Sites include Gademotta (Ethiopia), Diré-Dawa (Port-Epic, Ethiopia), Katanda (Congo), and Kapthurin (Kenya).

Summary

East Africa is the birthplace of our earliest ancestors and the oldest known stone technology, but, more importantly, this region provides the earliest evidence of a creative pulse that catapulted our ancestors on a evolutionary trajectory never before witnessed in the history of life. It is not surprising that with the formal acquaintance of different hominid groups sharing ecological niches within the rapidly changing environments of East Africa, groups were forced to compete amongst one another and other animals for available resources. It would only be a question of time until the advent of a flaked stone technology would spawn a crucial advantage for the maker and users of the stone tools to out-compete one other and other primates for food (and water) by expanding dietary breadths and significantly contributing to their survival during times of environmental stress. The significance of flaked stone technologies, however, lies not within the corpus of edification that results when one bashes two pebbles together, but the necessary mental faculties and imaginative capabilities of first conceptualizing stones that possess the mechanical properties that facilitate knapping. When this happened, the overall hominid bauplan was changing course. Encephalization in the Family took off, and nothing short of a major hominid radiation occurred throughout Africa. With the bashing of two rocks a few million years ago, it seems our evolutionary path was reflexively set in stone.

Ken Mowbray

See also

Africa, South, Prehistory

References

Clark, J.D. 1969. The Prehistory of Africa. New York: Praeger.

Cole, S. 1963. The Prehistory of East Africa. New York: New American Library of World Literature.

Gowlett, J.A.J. 1993. Ascent to Civilization: The Archeology of Early Humans. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Harris, J.W.K. 1978. The Karari Industry: Its Place in East Africa Prehistory. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms.

———. 1982. “Quest for Fire: The Chesowanja Evidence.” Anthro Quest 24: 9–10.

———. 1983. “Cultural Beginnings: Plio-Pleistocene Archaeological Occurrences from the Afar, Ethiopia. African Archaeological Review 1: 3–31.

Harris, J.W. K., et al. 1987. “The Setting, Context, and Character of the Senga–5A Site, Zaire.” Journal of Human Evolution 16: 701–728.

Isaac, G.L. 1977. Olorgesailie: Archaeological Studies of Middle Pleistocene Lake Basin in Kenya. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

———. 1997. Koobi Fora Research Project, Volume 5, Plio-Pleistocene Archaeology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Kimbel, W. H., et al. 1996. “Late Pliocene Homo and Oldowan Tools from the Hadar Formation (Kada Hadar Member), Ethiopia.” Journal of Human Evolution 31: 549–562.

Leakey, M.D. 1971. Olduvai Gorge, Vol. 3, Excavations in Beds 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leakey, M. D., and D.A. Roe. 1994. Olduvai Gorge: Excavations in Beds III, IV, and the Masek Beds, 1968–1971. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Semaw, S., et al. 1997. “2.5-Million-Year-Old Stone Tools from Ethiopia.” Nature 385: 333–336.

Africa, Egypt

See Egypt: Dynastic; Egypt: Predynastic

Africa, Francophone

Historical self-criticism has seldom been strong among French prehistorians. A rare instance is F. Audouze and andré leroi-gourhan’s article (1981) entitled “France: A Continental Insularity,”