The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa and Beyond

In 2013 an international round-table was held in Rome, discussing “The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa” to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Melka Kunture (Upper Awash valley, Ethiopia). The theme had been carefully selected. During the second half of last century, the archaeological research a Melka Kunture directed by Jean Chavaillon, head of the French archaeological mission, had led to the discovery of Oldowan sites, and of an impressive sequence of Acheulean layers – plus some important Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age sites. From 1999 to 2010, the Italian archaeological mission, under the direction of Marcello Piperno, further focused on the Oldowan of Garba IV, also opening for display to the general public a new Acheulean area, Gombore II OAM. Since 2011, under the direction of one of us (MM), new fieldwork had been aimed at updating and completing previous research. Accordingly, both the Oldowan and the Acheulean are extremely well documented at Melka Kunture. However, while workshops specifically addressed at the earliest developments in lithic technology had been held since the beginning of the century, as the “First Hominid Technology Workshop”, Bellaterra, Spain, 2003 and the “Conference on Early Stone Tools and Cognitive Evolution”, Stanford University, USA, 2010, the origin of the Acheulean in East Africa, and its relationships with the Oldowan, had not been collectively discussed in a decade. Thanks to the Wenner-Gren Foundation, which generously sponsored the meeting (grant n. CONF-626), we were able to fill this gap. Researchers who were working on the earliest Acheulean were asked to present recent results and share their experiences, allowing fruitful discussion. The programme, participants and abstracts of the communications are available at http://melkakunture.it/research/fifty_years. A volume of proceedings was the obvious outcome of this collective effort. The Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series – which already included “Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Oldowan” edited by Erella Hovers and David R. Braun - was the perfect option. We gladly acknowledge the support given to this project ever since the beginning by the Series Editors, Eric Delson and Eric Sargis. This new volume reflects fairly well the round-table of 2013, but there are also differences. For various reasons some of the original participants were eventually unable to produce a paper, as it always happens with proceedings. Vice versa, we expanded the volume with some chapters on the preceding Oldowan, on the African fauna, on the Acheulean in Asia and, eventually, on the Acheulean in Europe, where it develops later than elsewhere. In doing so, we contacted tens of colleagues, who were asked to review the papers, definitely improving the quality of the final versions. While they will remain anonymous, they must be assured that we are most grateful to them for their time and dedication. We also thank Università di Roma Sapienza, and namely Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, which provided the venue where the 2013 meeting was held. For the opening of the round-table in September 2013, Jean Chavaillon sent a touching letter of his own hand, ending with the following words “Chers Amis, bon courage, belles et fructueuses découvertes. Avanti!”. At the time he was a frail, 88-years old gentleman, but the enthusiasm of this great prehistorian for archaeological research was unshaken. Sadly, he died the same year, just 3 months later. The volume is dedicated to his memory, as to an outstanding researcher who focused most of his work on Melka Kunture.