Paleoecology of OGS-12, an Early Acheulian archaeological site at Gona, Ethiopia

Abstract

The Acheulian stone tool complex first appears in the East African archaeological record at ~1.75 Ma from Kokiselei, Kenya, and Konso, Ethiopia. It marks the beginning of tool making with a preconceived notion of form and is thought to coincide with the evolution of Homo erectus. Despite being one of the most important transitions in early human prehistory, little is known of the behavioral and environmental background of its emergence. The data presented here, collected from fauna excavated at Ounda Gona South 12 (OGS‐12), an early Acheulian site from Gona, Ethiopia, and collected in nearby contemporaneous paleontological sites, help us to contextualize and better understand this transition. OGS‐12 is estimated ~1.6–1.5 Ma with two tuffs in the section below the site yielding age estimates of 1.9 Ma and 1.64 Ma (Quade et al. 2008). A total of 315 bones were identified to element (NISP‐E) and were included in a taphonomic analysis (Cáceres et al. 2017). The presence of indicator taxa of bovids, hippo, crocodile, and cane rat depict the paleoenvironment as near a perennial water source close to open areas suitable for grazing as well as a more wooded component. This is fairly consistent with findings presented by Quade et al. (2004, 2008) that associate OGS‐12 with a Type II tributary channel of the ancestral Awash River. Updated in depth analyses of the fauna, comparing excavated assemblages to surrounding paleontological assemblages, including abundance data and ecomorphometrics are presented. Evidence of anthropomorphic bone modification (bone marrow extraction, cut marks), high degrees of fragmentation, green fractures, a high proportion of low‐density elements, along with a low ratio of carnivore to hominin marks indicate that hominins were processing animal carcasses at OGS‐12 and appear to have been the dominant accumulative agent of this assemblage.