(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] We are the paradoxical ape.
Bipedal, naked, large brained.
Long the master of fire,
tools, and language
but still trying to understand ourselves.
Aware that death is inevitable
yet, filled with optimism.
We grow up slowly,
we hand down knowledge,
we empathize and deceive,
we shape the future from our shared
understanding of the past.
CARTA brings together experts from diverse
disciplines to exchange
insights on who we are
and how we got here.
An exploration made
possible by the generosity
of humans like you.
- Good afternoon ladies and gentleman.
I'm very happy to be here and present
the Archeology of the Konso-Gardula site
and this institution.
My speech outline will be first
I'll start by introducing
the Konso- Gardula site
then I'll go through the twenty five years
of archeological research
at Konso- Gardula
focusing on the field research findings.
And I'll touch up on
some of the implications.
What you see here is a map of East Africa
and the Konso- Gardula site is well known
for its Acheulean occurrences.
Meaning, stone tools made on large flakes.
Shaped on large flakes.
Which appeared as of
1.75 million years ago.
My focus will be on sites that are known
for what they have
representing this technology.
Konso- Gardula is one of the sites.
Together with the Kokaselei sites which
is located here in West Turkana.
Konso- Gardula is the
oldest Acheulean site
with hand axes that are dated
to be 1.75 million years old.
And it's not only these
sites, but there are
also other sites in East Africa
further north is the Lower
Awash Valley in Ethiopia
and Turkana Basin, in the Olduvai Gulch
we have many other sites
but all aren't as old
as these windows that we have.
This is The Konso.
The distribution of the sites
within the Konso- Gardula.
We discovered this site,
the Konso- Gardula,
in 1991.
In a project that was run by Dr, Berhane
my colleague here.
We were working together in those years.
We were surveying the whole rift of the
Ethiopian part of the Rift Valley.
And we discovered several sites.
One of these sites happened
to be the Konso sites.
This site was the focus
of attention for people
who were interested in that period.
The period between 800,000
and 2 million years old.
As you can see here,
the oldest sites at
Konso- Gardula dated to
around 1.75 million
years ago are very rare.
And it's only one site that we have.
And when we come to
around 1.6 million years,
we have also few sites,
but as of 1.45 million
years ago, the yellow
shows us the distribution
of sites. The Acheulean
becomes more abundant
and by around 850,000
years ago, we have more
Acheulean sites everywhere.
So not only are Acheuleans
that we have in Konso.
But also Oldowan technologies
are also presented
in sediments which are all around
1.75 million years.
And all the way to 1.5 million.
Here you have a composite
stratigraphic section
of the Konso site.
This section represents
200 meters of sediments
which has about 30 tuff
layers, difaceous layers
which were datable and around
13 of these were dated.
Radiometrically dated.
And they were also correlated with
already dated tuff layers
in the Turkana Basin.
So, we have archeological occurrences from
the lowest, here, at around 1.92 which are
represented by Oldowan technology.
Meaning, simple core flake techniques.
But, the oldest Acheulean stone tools,
represented by hand axes
made on large flakes,
appear at KGA-6-A1, here just
above the KYT tuff which is dated at
1,740,000, 1.75 million years.
And this age is matched only by the
sites that are found in Kokaselei in
West Turkana.
As we go higher in the stratigraphy,
by around 1.63 million
years, we have another
important Acheulean site.
Meaning, a site with abundant hand axes.
But it is only a single
site. But also around
1.45 million years, we
have the number of sites
that increases.
And the technology also
refines through time
as we'll be looking through.
This is to show you one of the sites,
the Oldowan site dated
at 1.9 million years
at a site called KGA-19.
And the Oldowan artifacts
represented there are,
as you see here, are represented by
cobbles and flakes.
This is another site which is dated around
1.75 million years ago,
which we call KGA-6 A1
and what you see here are two tuffs here
you see two toughs the
archeological excavation is
conducted here and the
upper tuff that you see is
dated to 1.74. That is the KYT-2 tuff.
And this the excavation and as you can see
up there, we have hand axes made on large
flakes discovered in
situ through excavations.
And the assemblage as
a whole, when you look
at it, you can see that it is flake based.
You see larger flakes. This the ventral of
these hand axes and picks.
And shaping is minimal and
we also found pick forms
large picks made on large
flakes, so as you can
see here, the shape of hand axes is not
well attained and
shaping is not that great
as other Acheulean hand axes.
This is the second oldest
site that we have at
KGA 4 A2 dated at 1.6 million years ago.
You have here the hand axe tuff and the
archeological layer is just
above the hand axe tuff
and our excavation was
conducted just here.
Because our burden on
this site was higher.
And the artifacts that
are Acheulean hand axes
that are retrieved from the KGA 4 A2,
looked like this.
They are better shaped than the ones that
we saw at KGA 6 A1.
And we see, again, all
these hand axes made on
large flakes detached from mega cores.
Big boulders were used as a core to detach
these large flakes in order
to make these hand axes.
The other most important
site that we have the
Konso series, we have about
twenty one sites in Konso.
Twenty one localities. Out
of the twenty one localities
the KGA 10 archeological
locality is one of
the most important ones.
We have about eleven
locus archeological sites
that we excavated and,
from this side, we also
found Homo erectus and
Australopithecus boisei
skulls discovered dated to around
1.45 million years ago.
And the Konso- Gardula KGA
10 locality looks like this
this is the first
picture that was taken of
this site in 1991.
And on the right side
you see how the fossils
and the artifacts were
eroding out of the sediments
when first arrived there.
The KGA 10 archeology
shows Acheulean hand axes
which are better shaped
compared to the former ones.
Here you see the crude
form of lanceret kind of
crude hand axes. But we see
bifacial shaping contrary to what we saw.
Mostly unifacial shaping.
And we see the edge
regularization also coming
into focus.
And, in general, from
the 1.75 million years to
1.74 million years, we
see the oldest site here
at KGA 6 A1: big boulder,
which was used as a core,
from which large flakes,
as you can see were detached and shaped.
And by KGA 4 time at
around 1.4, we continued
to see large boulders
which were used as cores
with large giant hammers that were used
to detach large flakes.
So, the 1.75 to 1.4 million years.
Acheulean in Konso can
be summarized as such.
When we come to the younger age,
this is the KGA 12 A1 site, and you see
multiple layers of tufts out there.
Which were calibrated
with tuffs that are found
in the Koobi Fora Formation
further south in the
Turkana Basin.
And from this KGA 12 A1 site, by around
1.25 million years ago, we
have better shaped hand axes.
The reduction is well
done, the flakes scars
count augments, age is better allegorized,
and the platform symmetry
is almost attained.
And when we compare the
KGA 12 A1 artifacts,
hand axes, which we
have here, down compared
to the KGA 4 A2 1.6
million years old hand axes
we see better platform symmetry here.
And contrasted with this
one, the edge regularization
is better and the
platform symmetry and the
scar counts and the
invasiveness of the flake scars
is very special.
And not only that, around
the same time at a site
called KGA 8 A1, between 1.4
and 1.3 million years ago,
we see predetermination of the flakes that
they were going to detach.
The hominids knew what
kind of flakes they were
going to detach from the core,
from the mega core that they had.
So, we see here the predeterminations.
Those hominids had the mental template of
the flakes that they detached.
In the upper section, you see the arrows,
which shows that the preparation of the
core before the last detachment
of the flake of the end.
So we see a technique
that is commonly known as
the Kombewa in that area.
Not only that, we also think that from the
techniques that are
applied on this hand axe,
on this biface, by 1.3 million years ago,
we can permit ourselves
things that, perhaps,
shaping using soft hammer
techniques in order to make
better shaped almost three
dimensional symmetric
stone tools was attained.
It was evident by 800,000
years ago, at another
site we call KGA 18 A1, we see
better refinement and the
choice of raw materials.
Rocks are more diverse, they went
for more fine grained rocks.
And the 3D symmetry,
as you can see it here,
is attained in large,
bigger and well regulated
kind of hand axes were also made.
And edge regularization was attained.
So, the Acheulean industry, the technique
of making hand axes, which had started by
around 1.75 million years ago in Konso.
By the way this is one of
the oldest in the world
together with the ones that
we have in west Turkana.
From the preconception
of shape, as you can see
here on the left,
and intentional shaping.
Then by the end of the Lower Pleistocene
by around 800,000 years,
hominids were able
to shape better refined hand axes using
soft hammer, invasive
flake scars are there,
and you can see the platform symmetry and
the section which together
makes the 3D symmetric
hand axes.
So, in summary, what we have in Konso from
1.75 million years ago
all the way to 850,000
years ago is a continuous,
progressive change
of the technologies of hand axes.
It does not mean that there are less
better made hand axes.
But, these are representatives
indicative of the trend.
And as you can see below, the
pick forms continue the same.
But the trend with the hand
axes is well demonstrated.
Konso is not only about lithic materials.
It's not about making only stone tools.
Not only making hand axes from rocks.
There were also knapping
bones from large mammoths
at 1.4 million years ago we
have hand axes made on bones.
Bones which are modified,
maybe for digging.
Spirally fractured bones to extract marrow
possibly from the bones.
And we also have hominids
discovered in this site.
Here represented by this
mandible and cranial frags
is Homo erectus.
And there is also one
post cranial up there.
And the best known Konso specimen
Australopithecus boisei, which made it to
Nature's cover page is represented here.
So, in general, we can
see an evolution from the
older one to the earliest Archeulean then
after 1.45, we have the
boisei and the Homo erectus
going together.
And with more Acheulean sites after the
1.4 million years.
And when we compare Konso
with what we have in
east Turkana, we can say that the earliest
Acheulean in Konso began together with the
appearance of, perhaps,
the oldest Homo erectus.
And as Homo erectus was
established, the Acheulean
was more developed and
took over and you can
even start finding it everywhere
in many sites in Middle East area,
in several sites in East
Africa and elsewhere.
So, in the case west of
Lake Turkana, the earliest
Konso Acheulean occurs at 1.75.
And several people have hypothesized why
Acheulean industry happened
in the first place.
Whether it was a phenomenon
that appeared earlier
with other hominids or with Homo erectus
as Homo erectus started
to include more activities
to exploit the landscapes.
I'd like to thank the
Konso Paleoathropological
research project which I co-lead with my
colleague Professor Gen
Suwa and Berhone Aslaw
was instrumental and it
was his project which
first discovered the site.
And he handed it over to
me and Gen to work on it.
And he continued participating.
And team wide, Gidey Wolde-Gabriel,
Shegihiro Katoh, Shingi
Nagaoka, Hido Nakaya.
Our Japanese colleagues
collaborate in this research.
And other Ethiopian colleagues also
collaborated in this research.
And a grant was provided by the
Japanese Ministry of Education
and Mitsubishi Foundation.
And Ethiopian Museum
of Culture and Tourism
that allows this research.
And the Konso community
and the southern Ethiopian
regions government have
helped us in our endeavor to do the field
and laboratory research.
I thank, again, CARTA
for providing me this
opportunity and I thank you.
