Search

International audience; Pleistocene archaeology records the changing behaviour and capacities of early hominins. These behavioural changes, for example, to stone tools, are commonly linked to environmental constraints. It has been argued that, in earlier times, multiple activities of everyday life were all uniformly conducted at the same spot. The separation of focused activities across different localities, which indicates a degree of planning, according to this mindset characterizes later hominins since only 500,000 years ago. Simbiro III level C, in the upper Awash valley of Ethiopia, allows us to test this assumption in its assemblage of stone tools made only with obsidian, dated to more than 1.2 million years (Myr) old. Here we first reconstruct the palaeoenvironment, showing that the landscape was seasonally flooded. Following the deposition of an accumulation of obsidian cobbles by a meandering river, hominins began to exploit these in new ways, producing large tools with sharp cutting edges. We show through statistical analysis that this was a focused activity, that very standardized handaxes were produced and that this was a stone-tool workshop. We argue that at Simbiro III, hominins were doing much more than simply reacting to environmental changes; they were taking advantage of new opportunities, and developing new techniques and new skills according to them.

International audience

A well-preserved felid skull from the Turolian (late Miocene) of Karaslari (FY Republic of Macedonia) is described and assigned to a new taxon, Yoshi garevskii, gen. et sp. nov. The new genus Yoshi is characterized by a round, short, and deep skull, and short canines that are somewhat transversely compressed but are not serrated. We assign to the same genus the poorly preserved skulls from the Aegean region described as Metailurus parvulus (Hensel, 1862), the Chinese type of “Metailurus” minor Zdansky, 1924, as well as some other skulls from China. The latter name thus becomes Y. minor (Zdansky, 1924), but the former name is a nomen dubium. The genus Metailurus Zdansky, 1924, is represented by the type-species M. major Zdansky, 1924; it considerably differs from the forms here referred to the new genus, and is closer to the Machairodontinae. Although definitely more plesiomorphic in dental features, Yoshi, especially Y. garevskii, reaches a high specialization in its skull shape, parallel to that of the cheetah, suggesting that it represents the first attempt towards the morpho-functional model of this modern felid.

The oldest direct evidence of stone tool manufacture comes from Gona (Ethiopia) and dates to between 2.6 and 2.5 million years (Myr) ago. At the nearby Bouri site several cut-marked bones also show stone tool use approximately 2.5 Myr ago. Here we report stone-tool-inflicted marks on bones found during recent survey work in Dikika, Ethiopia, a research area close to Gona and Bouri. On the basis of low-power microscopic and environmental scanning electron microscope observations, these bones show unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access. The bones derive from the Sidi Hakoma Member of the Hadar Formation. Established (40)Ar-(39)Ar dates on the tuffs that bracket this member constrain the finds to between 3.42 and 3.24 Myr ago, and stratigraphic scaling between these units and other geological evidence indicate that they are older than 3.39 Myr ago. Our discovery extends by approximately 800,000 years the antiquity of stone tools and of stone-tool-assisted consumption of ungulates by hominins; furthermore, this behaviour can now be attributed to Australopithecus afarensis.

Since 1999, the Dikika Research Project (DRP; initiated by Z.A.) has conducted surveys and excavations in badlands that expose Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments south of the Awash River in Ethiopia, between surrounding hominin localities at Hadar, Gona and the Middle Awash region. Here we report our geological mapping and stratigraphic measurement of the DRP area, and the context of a remarkably well-preserved skeleton of the earliest known juvenile hominin at the Dikika DIK-1 locality. Our mapping of the DRP area permits a complete definition of the hominin-bearing Hadar Formation and provides a cohesive structural and tectonic framework defining its relationships to adjacent strata. Our findings reveal the basin-scale tectonic, depositional and palaeoenvironmental history of the area, as well as a clear taphonomic and palaeontological context for the juvenile hominin. Such data are crucial for understanding the environmental context of human evolution, and can be integrated into larger-scale tectonic and palaeoenvironmental studies. Our basin-scale approach to palaeoenvironments provides a means to elucidate the complex geological history occurring at the scale of temporally and geographically controlled fossil point localities, which occur within the rich tectonic and depositional history of the Awash Valley.

Examination of some collections from several late Miocene Turkish localities allows us to describe and definitely identify for the first time several species of spiral-horned antelopes in this country: Palaeoreas lindermayeri, Protragelaphus skouzesi, Prostrepsiceros zitteli and Nisidorcas sp. During the first part of the late Miocene, several endemic species are restricted to central Anatolia, while more widespread taxa appear in the later part of this period, suggesting a decrease in provinciality of this area.

Die oberpliozane Lokalitat Ahl al Oughlam bei Casablanca (Marokko) hat umfangreiches Material der GiraffeSivatherium maurusium geliefert. Die Dimensionen der Knochen liegen nicht zwischen denen der unterpliozanen und denen der pleistozanen Formen. Die Entwicklung der Gattung in Afrika, obwohl wahrscheinlich anagenetisch, ist komplizierter als bisher angenommen. Die Grosenreduktion im Laufe des Pliozans ist eine neue Ausnahme der Bergmann’schen Regel.

Nature 418, 145–151 (2002). Owing to an editorial oversight, the sentence in the second column of page 150 that reads ‘Lower c and the lower and upper premolars each have three pulp canals and two roots’ is in error. Instead, it should read ‘Lower and upper premolars each have three pulp canals and two roots’.

The primitive cercopithecidProhylobates is known only from the (middle?) Orleanian sites of Moghara (Egypt) and Zelten (Libya). No cercopithecid is known from north Africa during the Astaracian and Vallesian periods.Macaca (or a closely allied form) appears in the (late?) Turolian of Sahabi (Libya) and Menacer (Algeria) where it is associated with colobines.Macaca persists into the Pliocene (Wadi Natrun, Egypt; Garaet Ichkeul; Ain Brimba) but apparently disappears before the end of this period, and is absent from north Africa until the middle Pleistocene (Ain Mefta).Theropithecus is known from a single tooth from the upper Pliocene of Ain Jourdel, and from several jaws from the middle Pleistocene of Ternifine (c. 0.7 m.y.) and Thomas Quarry III (c. 0.4 m.y.) in Algeria.

Beschreibung eines vollstandigen Schadels und mehrer anderer Reste vonS. maurusium aus Djibouti im Vergleich mit anderen afrikanischen Fossilien und mit der Siwalik-Art. Die bei den Sivatheriinae zum ersten Mal beschriebene Hinterhauptbasis betont die Eigentumlichkeit dieser Gruppe. Bemerkungen uber die Phylogenie und Okologie vonSivatherium.