ARCHAEOLOGY

1.9-million- and 2.4-million-year-oldartifacts and stone tool–cutmarkedbones from Ain Boucherit, AlgeriaMohamed Sahnouni1,2,3*, Josep M. Parés1, Mathieu Duval4,1, Isabel Cáceres5,6,Zoheir Harichane2,7, Jan van der Made8, Alfredo Pérez-González1,Salah Abdessadok9,2, Nadia Kandi10, Abdelkader Derradji2,11,Mohamed Medig11, Kamel Boulaghraif2,12, Sileshi Semaw1,3

East Africa has provided the earliest known evidence for Oldowan stone artifacts andhominin-induced stone tool cutmarks dated to ~2.6 million years (Ma) ago.The ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent theoldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Here we report older stone artifacts andcutmarked bones excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit estimated to~1.9 Ma ago, and the older to ~2.4 Ma ago. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows thatancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlierthan previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone toolmanufacture and use from East Africa or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stonetechnology in both East and North Africa.

The earliest archaeological evidence for theOldowan and associated fossil bones withevidence of butchery iswithin the 2.6millionto 1.9 million years (Ma) ago time interval,primarily from East Africa (1–7). Most pa-

leoanthropologists believe that early homininsdispersed into northern Africa much later (8).Continued research at AinHanech andEl Kherba(Algeria) over the past two decades has expandedthe geographic range and pushed back the evi-dence for hominin stone tool use and carnivoryto ~1.8 Ma ago (9–11). We recently explored thenearby deposits at Ain Boucherit (Algeria) andreport evidence of Oldowan stone tools and asso-ciated hominin-modified fossil bones from twodistinct strata estimated to ~2.4 and ~1.9Ma ago,respectively.Ain Boucherit is an archaeological locality in

the Ain Hanech research area in northeasternAlgeria. The research area is in the Beni Foudabasin, one of the several intramontane sedi-mentary basins in the High Plateaus of easternAlgeria. The stone tools and associated fossil

bones at Ain Boucherit come from two distinctstrata situated in a sedimentary outcrop cut bya deep ravine. The archeological strata belong tothe Ain Hanech Formation (Fm), which rests onan erosive disconformity atop theOued LaatachFm [supplementary text S2, see (12)]. The AinHanech Fm contains six stratigraphic members(Mb), bottom to top, from P to U (Fig. 1), con-sisting of fluvial deposits made of alternatinggravels and sandstone with mudstone. The low-ermost artifact-bearing stratum (AB-Lw) is lo-cated in the sequence near the top ofMbP.Withinthis stratum, presence of fossil faunawas known(13, 14), andwe excavated in situOldowanartifactsin association with a sizable faunal assemblage,some with evidence of stone tool cutmarks. Thelithic artifacts were overall fresh, but the boneswere subjected tominor alterations (fig. S4). Thematerials were sealed in fine-grained sedimentsconsisting primarily of silt, fine sand, and clay(fig. S6).The second artifact-bearing stratum (AB-Up),

9 m higher in the sequence, is sealed by the over-lying 3.5-m-thick Mb R deposits. A 38-m2 exca-vation yielded a faunal assemblage associatedwithOldowanartifacts encased in a 0.40-m-thicksilty clay and fine sand, underlain by gravels. Thefine-grained sediment context (fig. S6), the freshquality of the artifacts with a large amount ofdebitage, and the absence of preferred orienta-tion or high dip of the remains suggest a low-energy depositional environment (figs. S12 andS13). Microscopic observations show some tapho-nomic alterations related to water activities, butsorting of skeletal parts is entirely absent (fig. S4).The age of the Ain Boucherit archaeological

materials is constrained by means of magneto-stratigraphy, electron spin resonance (ESR), andmammalian biochronology. The magnetostrati-graphic study was carried out on two sections,

totaling a 50-m-thick profile (Fig. 1) [materialsand methods 1, see (12)]. The results indicate avertical succession of both normal and reversedmagnetozones. The independent age control pro-vided by numerical dating (ESRmethod) enabledus to anchor the local magnetic polarity stratig-raphy to the global polarity time scale (GPTS) (15).ESR dating was performed on optically bleachedquartz grains fromMb P, located ~1 m below AB-Lw (Fig. 1). The ESR age calculations, using themultiple centers approach (16), yielded highlyconsistent dates for the Al and Ti-Li centers. Afinal combinedAl-Ti age is 1.92 ± 0.18Ma ago (1s)(fig. S3 and table S4). Although the uncertaintyassociated with the dose-rate evaluation mayaffect this result [materials and methods 2, see(12)], this numerical chronology unambiguouslyindicates that the reverse magnetozone in thelower part of the Ain Hanech Fm correspondsto the early Matuyama chron (C2r), which ischronologically constrained between 1.94 and2.58Ma ago. Subsequent magnetostratigraphicinterpretations indicate that the bottom of thesequence beginswith the Gilbert reversed polar-ity (C2Ar), followed by the Gauss (C2An) normalpolarity, ending with the Matuyama above theOlduvai subchron (C2n). Level AB-Lw in Mb Pfalls within the lower Matuyama chron (C2r),whereas level AB-Up in Mb R correlates to thebottom of C2n (9). The AinHanech and El Kherbaartifact-bearing layers, located higher up in MbT, are near the top of Olduvai, thus dating to~1.78 Ma ago (9). The calcrete deposits in MbU, which preserve Acheulean artifacts, are in thereverse chron C1r postdating Olduvai.This chronostratigraphic framework is sup-

ported by mammalian taxa (table S8), severalof which are of biochronological relevance.Kolpochoerus heseloni (equivalent to K. limnetes)(17) is present atAinHanech (fig. S7) andElKherba(18), and its last appearance is ~1.7Ma ago (19, 20).Anancus is present at AB-Lw (Mb P) (fig. S7, 1aand 1b) and at AinHanech (13), with the youngestoccurrence in East, South, and North Africa andEurope, dating to around 3.8 to 3.5, <3.1 to 2.5,and 2.3 to 2.2Ma ago, respectively (21, 22). In theIndian subcontinent at Pinjor, and in China inthe Nihewan Fm (23, 24), the latest record forAnancus dates to the earliest Pleistocene. Equusnumidicus from AB-Lw and the smaller E. tabetifrom Ain Hanech and El Kherba have extremelygracile metapodials, whereas African species youn-ger than ~1.2 Ma ago are more robust (fig. S8),that is, until the appearance of the Late PleistoceneE. melkiensis [supplementary text S4, see (12)].These taxa support an early post-Olduvai age forAinHanech and El Kherba (~1.8 Ma ago) (9) andthe correlation of AB-Up and AB-Lw to OlduvaiandearlyMatuayama (C2r.2r) subchrons, respectively.Therefore, the magnetostratigraphic and bio-

chronological data combined with the ESR agelead to the following interpretations: (i) AB-Lw ischronostratigraphically positioned between thebeginning of theOlduvai subchron and the top ofthe Gauss chron, and thus, it is chronologicallyconstrained between 1.94 and 2.58Ma ago; and(ii) AB-Up has been deposited during theOlduvai

RESEARCH

Sahnouni et al., Science 362, 1297–1301 (2018) 14 December 2018 1 of 5

1Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana(CENIEH), Burgos, Spain. 2Centre National de RecherchesPréhistoriques, Anthropologiques et Historiques (CNRPAH),Algiers, Algeria. 3Stone Age Institute and AnthropologyDepartment, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.4Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, GriffithUniversity, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 5Àrea dePrehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.6Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social(IPHES), Tarragona, Spain. 7Musée National du Bardo,Algiers, Algeria. 8Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales andConsejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC),Madrid, Spain. 9Département Homme et Environnement,Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France.10Département d’Archéologie, Université Lamine DebaghineSétif 2, Sétif, Algeria. 11Institut d’Archéologie, UniversitéAlger 2, Algiers, Algeria. 12Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici,Università Degli Studi di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.*Corresponding author. Email: mohamed.sahnouni@cenieh.es

on July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from

subchron and therefore has an age between 1.94and 1.78Ma ago. Thus, the age of the Olduvai andtheGauss chrons (15) and sediment accumulationrates allowed further age estimation [supplemen-tary text S1, see (12)], which could not be achievedwith the ESR result alone, owing to current limi-tations of the method for long chronologies.Assuming constant rates during the Olduvai andthe Matuyama C2r and neglecting compactioneffects, we estimate the age of AB-Up and AB-Lwto 1.92 ± 0.05 Ma ago and 2.44 ± 0.14 Ma ago,respectively (Fig. 2). The latter is, in our opinion, themost reasonable age estimate for AB-Lw, al-though we do acknowledge a slightly youngerage given the possibility of uncertainty on theposition of the Gauss-Matuyamaboundary [sup-plementary text S1, see (12)].The lithic assemblages fromAB-Lw andAB-Up

are made on limestone and flint and consist of 17and 236 specimens, respectively (Fig. 3, fig. S11,and table S10). The probable sources of thelimestone and flint rawmaterialswere the nearbychannel beds [supplementary text S5, see (12); fig.S10]. The technological and typological featuresof the Ain Boucherit stone assemblages are sim-ilar to the Oldowan from the Early Pleistocenesites in East Africa. The artifact assemblage fromAB-Lw includes seven cores, nine flakes, and oneretouched piece (Fig. 3). The AB-Lw cores are

Sahnouni et al., Science 362, 1297–1301 (2018) 14 December 2018 2 of 5

A

B

Fig. 1. Location of Ain Boucherit, stratigraphy, and magnetostratigraphic data of the site.The locations of sections A and B (labeled) are shown inthe maps on the right. Magnetostratigraphy is expressed with the virtual geomagnetic pole (VGP) latitudinal position. The solid line connects theaveraged VGP latitude when several specimens (dots) are used. Data from the upper 22 m of section B are modified from (9).

Lower Ain Boucherit (AB-Lw)

C1r C2n C2r C2An C2Ar

Upper Ain Boucherit (AB-Up)

Matuyama GaussOlduvai

1.92±0.05 Ma 2.44±0.14 Ma

Ka. Ma.

Stratigraphic m

embersP

Q

R

STU

R

1.62 ± 0.35

4.07 ± 0.85

2.06 ± 0.28

SAR (cm/ka)

Fig. 2. Sediment accumulation rate values for the Ain Boucherit section and interpolated numericalages obtained for AB-Lw and AB-Up. AB-Lw and AB-Up are indicated with open squares. The thicknessof the gray line and the vertical error bar on the individual points display the depth uncertainty (about 1 mfrom 0 to 22 m and about 2 m below). See further explanations in supplementary text S1 (12). SAR,sediment accumulation rate; cm/ka, cm per thousand years; R, Réunion; Ma., Mamoth; Ka., Kaena.

RESEARCH | REPORTon July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from

variably flaked, with most retaining residual cor-tical areas, ranging from lightly flaked with twoto eight scars to heavily flaked, with one specimenbearing 29 scars. Despite marked technologicalsimilarities, some of the cores are predominantlypolyhedral and subspherical. The flakes rangebetween 30 and 58mm in length, andmost retaincortex. The retouched specimen is a notchedscraper on a cortical flake made of flint.Abundant stone artifacts were recovered from

AB-Up: 121 cores, 65 whole flakes (>2 cm), 3 re-touched flakes, and 47 fragments (Fig. 3). Thecores are primarily made on limestone (95.8%),with a few made on flint (4.13%). The coresinclude unifacial choppers (16.94%), bifacialchoppers (8.05%), polyhedrons (23.05%), sub-

spheroids (1.69%), and spheroids (0.84%). Theywere variably flaked, from light to heavy; morethan half still retain cortex. Specimens withhigh scar counts (15 to 30) represent 11.5% of theassemblage. There are also facetted subspheroidswith pittingmarks suggestive of possible pound-ing activities. The flakes are predominantlymadeon limestone, and nearly half of the specimensretain cortex on dorsal faces and platforms. Theretouched pieces, chiefly in flint, are small andcan be typologically characterized as scrapersand notched scrapers.The faunal assemblages of AB-Lw and AB-Up

include 296 [minimum number of individuals(MNI) = 19] and 277 (MNI = 14) fossil bones, re-spectively. They are primarily composed of small

and medium-sized bovids and equids (tables S5to S7), alsowith the best skeletal representations;the appendicular parts in both levels are themost abundant, followed by cranial and axial ele-ments. Evidence of cutmarked and hammerstone-percussed bones is present in both assemblages(Fig. 4). The cutmarks are characterizedby isolatedor grouped striae with straight trajectory andoblique or transversal orientations. Althoughvariable in depth, many of the specimens havenarrowV-shaped cutmarks in cross section withclear internal microstriation andHertzian cones.In AB-Lw, cutmarks are recognized on 17 bones(5.7% of the assemblage), half of which belong tovery small or small-sized animals. The cutmarksare located primarily on limb bones, on ribs, and

Sahnouni et al., Science 362, 1297–1301 (2018) 14 December 2018 3 of 5

Fig. 3. Oldowan artifacts. (A and B) Oldowan artifacts from AB-Lw [(A), images 1 to 8] and AB-Up [(B), images 9 to 17], including unifacial coreson limestone (1 and 9); bifacial core made of limestone (10) and on flint (2); polyhedral cores on limestone (11 and 12); subspherical core on limestone(3); whole flakes on flint (7, 16, and 17) and on limestone (4, 5, 6, 13, and 14); and retouched pieces on flint (8 and 15).

RESEARCH | REPORTon July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from

on cranial remains, suggesting skinning, eviscer-ation, and defleshing activities (25) (table S7).Four of the bones show hominin-induced per-cussion marks, including percussion pits, med-ullary or cortical percussion notches, and a boneflake, implying marrow extraction. The AB-Upbone assemblage yielded two cutmarked bones(an equid tibia and a medium-sized long bone)and seven hammerstone-percussed long bones,which include large (equid) and medium-sizedanimals and a tibia of a small-sized animal.The Ain Boucherit stone assemblages are

typical of the Oldowan technology, though with

subtle typological variations compared to thenear-contemporary East African assemblagesdated to 2.6 to 1.9 Ma ago, such as Gona, Omo,Hadar (Ethiopia), West Turkana, and Kanjera(Kenya) (1, 3–6). In addition to the ubiquitousmode I core and flake stone assemblages, AinBoucherit also yielded facetted subspheroids.In East Africa, variable mode I artifact assem-blages are documented with the early Oldowan(2.6 to 2.0 Ma ago), but facetted spheroids areunknown at these early sites. The observed var-iability between East and North Africa may bea result of differences in the type and qualities

of raw materials used or attributable to function-related factors that we have yet to identify.Moreover, except for Gona and Kanjera, AinBoucherit stands alone in Africa as the only sitewith evidence of cutmarked and hammerstone-percussed bones associated with in situ stonetools dated to 2.4Ma ago. In addition toKanjera,the Ain Boucherit materials represent a largersample excavated from a single site, allowing usto make stronger inferences on how homininsbutchered carcasses. The Ain Boucherit data un-ambiguously show hominin exploitation of meatand marrow from all animal size categories andskeletal parts involving skinning, evisceration,and defleshing of upper and intermediate limbs.These activities suggest early access to animalcarcasses by hominins (25, 26).For decades, East Africa has been considered

the place of origin of the earliest hominins andlithic technology. Surprisingly, the earliest cur-rently known hominin dated to ~7.0 Ma ago,and the ~3.3-million-year-old Australopithecusbahrelghazali have been discovered in Chad, lo-cated in the Sahara thousands of kilometers awayfrom the East African Rift (27, 28). Now that AinBoucherit has yielded Oldowan archaeology esti-mated to 2.4 Ma ago, northern Africa and theSahara may be a repository of further archaeo-logical materials. Despite its distance from EastAfrica, the evidence from Ain Boucherit implieseither rapid expansion of stone tool manufacturefrom East Africa to other parts of the continentor a possible multiple-origin scenario of ances-tral hominins and stone technology in both Eastand North Africa. On the basis of the potentialof Ain Boucherit and the adjacent sedimentarybasins, we suggest that hominin fossils andOldowan artifacts as old as those documentedin East Africa could be discovered in NorthAfrica as well.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. S. Semaw, J. Archaeol. Sci. 27, 1197–1214 (2000).2. S. Semaw et al., J. Hum. Evol. 45, 169–177 (2003).3. H. Roche et al., Nature 399, 57–60 (1999).4. A. Delagnes et al., J. Hum. Evol. 61, 215–222 (2011).5. W. H. Kimbel et al., J. Hum. Evol. 31, 549–561 (1996).6. T. Plummer, L. C. Bishop, P. Ditchfield, J. Hicks, J. Hum. Evol.

36, 151–170 (1999).7. J. V. Ferraro et al., PLOS ONE 8, e62174 (2013).8. R. Klein, The Human Career (Univ. of Chicago Press, ed. 3,

2009).9. J. M. Parés et al., Quat. Sci. Rev. 99, 203–209 (2014).10. M. Sahnouni et al., J. Hum. Evol. 43, 925–937

(2002).11. M. Sahnouni et al., J. Hum. Evol. 64, 137–150 (2013).12. Materials and methods 1 to 3 and supplementary text S1 to S5

are provided as supplementary materials.13. C. Arambourg, Les Vertébrés du Pléistocène de l’Afrique du

Nord, Volume 1 (Archives du Muséum national d’histoirenaturelle Series, vol. 10, Kapp & Lahure, Paris, 1970),pp. 1–127.

14. C. Arambourg, Les Vertébrés villafranchiens d'Afrique du Nord(Singer-Polignac, 1979).

15. F. M. Gradstein, J. G. Ogg, M. D. Schmitz, G. M. Ogg, Eds.,The Geologic Time Scale (Elsevier, ed. 1, 2012).

16. S. Toyoda, P. Voinchet, C. Falguères, J. M. Dolo, M. Laurent,Appl. Radiat. Isot. 52, 1357–1362 (2000).

17. H. S. B. Cooke, Geobios 30, 121–126 (1997).18. M. Sahnouni, J. van der Made, in The Cutting Edge:

New Approaches to the Archaeology of Human Origins,K. Schick, N. Toth, Eds. (Stone Age Institute Press, 2009),pp. 179–210.

Sahnouni et al., Science 362, 1297–1301 (2018) 14 December 2018 4 of 5

Fig. 4. Evidence of hominin activity from Ain Boucherit faunal assemblages. (A and B) Slicingmark on a medium-sized bovid humerus shaft from AB-Lw (A), with scanning electron microscopy(SEM) micrograph detail (B). (C and D) Cutmarked equid calcaneum from AB-Lw (C), with SEMmicrograph detail (D). (E) Hammerstone-percussed medium-sized long bone from AB-Lw. (F) Boneflake from AB-Up. (G) Equid tibia from AB-Up, showing cortical percussion notch.

RESEARCH | REPORTon July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from

19. T. D. White, in Paleoclimate and Evolution, With Emphasison Human Origins, E. S. Vrba, G. H. Denton,T. C. Partridge, L. H. Burckle, Eds. (Yale Univ. Press, 1995),pp. 369–384.

20. H. S. B. Cooke, in Hominin Environments in the East AfricanPliocene: An Assessment of the Faunal Evidence, R. Bobe,Z. Alemseged, A. K. Behrensmeyer, Eds. (Springer, 2007),pp. 107–127.

21. W. J. E. Sanders, E. Gheerbrant, J. M. Harris, H. Saegusa,C. Delmer, in Cenozoic Mammals of Africa, L. Werdelin,W. J. Sanders, Eds. (Univ. California Press, Berkeley, 2010),pp. 161–251.

22. G. Garrido, G. A. Arribas, Palaeontol. Electronica 17, 1–16 (2014).23. A. C. Nanda, Quat. Int. 192, 6–13 (2008).24. G.-F. Chen, Vertebrata PalAsiatica 37, 175–189 (1999).25. P. J. Nilssen, “An actualistic butchery study in South Africa

and its implications for reconstructing hominid strategiesof carcass acquisition and butchery in the Upper Pleistoceneand Plio-Pleistocene,” thesis, University of Cape Town,South Africa (2000).

26. M. Domínguez-Rodrigo, T. R. Pickering, S. Semaw, M. J. Rogers,J. Hum. Evol. 48, 109–121 (2005).

27. M. Brunet et al., Nature 378, 273–275 (1995).28. M. Brunet et al., Nature 418, 145–151 (2002).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the Algerian Ministry of Culture forthe research permit; S. Hachi, director of CNRPAH; the Wilaya ofSétif; the municipality of Guelta Zergua; K. Guechi (presidentof the University of Sétif 2) and Y. Aibeche (vice presidentof the same) for administrative and logistic support duringfieldwork at Ain Boucherit; and the CENIEH (Spain) staff,especially M. J. de Miguel del Barrio and B. de SantiagoSalinas for administrative support. M.D. is grateful to V. Guilarteand D. Martínez Asturias for their invaluable contributionin the ESR dating analytical procedure. J.M.P. thanks C. Álvarezfor fieldwork assistance and C. Saiz for sample preparation inthe laboratory. Funding: Support by grants from CNRPAH,MINECO (HAR2013-41351-P), The L.S.B. Leakey Foundation,the National Science Foundation (NSF-BCS-0517984), theWenner-Gren Foundation (grants 7815 and 8323), the EuropeanResearch Council (FP7-People-CIG2993581), and the StoneAge Institute (Bloomington, IN) to M.S.; MINECO (CGL2010-16821) to J.M.P. and M.D.; the Australian Research Council(Future Fellowship 150100215) to M.D.; and the EuropeanScience Foundation (Synthesys GB-TAF-4119 and DE-TAF-668)to J.v.d.M., CGL2015-65387-C3-1-P (MINECO/FEDER) to J.v.d.M.and I.C., and AGAUR (2017SGR1040) and URV (2017PFR-URV-B2-91) to I.C. Author contributions: M.S. was principal author and

directed the project; J.M.P. and M.D. led the geochronologicalresearch; A.P.-G. and S.A. led geological research; M.S., Z.H.,A.D., and M.M. conducted the excavation and recovery ofarchaeological and fossil materials; M.S., Z.H., and S.S. conducted thelithic analysis; J.v.d.M. and K.B. conducted the paleontologicalanalysis; and I.C. and N.K. conducted the taphonomical analysis.All authors participated in the writing of the manuscript. Competinginterests: The authors have no competing interests. Data andmaterials availability: All data are available in the paper andsupplementary materials, and the archaeological andpaleontological materials are deposited in CNRPAH, Musée duBardo, and Musée de Sétif in Algeria.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS

www.sciencemag.org/content/362/6420/1297/suppl/DC1Materials and MethodsSupplementary TextFigs. S1 to S14Tables S1 to S10References (29–74)

26 April 2018; accepted 6 November 2018Published online 29 November 201810.1126/science.aau0008

Sahnouni et al., Science 362, 1297–1301 (2018) 14 December 2018 5 of 5

RESEARCH | REPORTon July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from

Boucherit, Algeriacutmarked bones from Ain−1.9-million- and 2.4-million-year-old artifacts and stone tool

SemawPérez-González, Salah Abdessadok, Nadia Kandi, Abdelkader Derradji, Mohamed Medig, Kamel Boulaghraif and Sileshi Mohamed Sahnouni, Josep M. Parés, Mathieu Duval, Isabel Cáceres, Zoheir Harichane, Jan van der Made, Alfredo

originally published online November 29, 2018DOI: 10.1126/science.aau0008 (6420), 1297-1301.362Science 

, this issue p. 1297Scienceearly from East Africa or stone tool manufacture and use originated in both North and East Africa.fringe in North Africa earlier than commonly believed. Furthermore, either stone tool manufacture and use dispersedbones excavated in Algeria, with the earliest dated to 2.4 million years ago. Thus, hominins inhabited the Mediterranean

report the discovery of Oldowan stone artifacts and associated cutmarks on fossilet al.come from East Africa. Sahnouni 2.6 million years ago) has hitherto∼Evidence for the earliest stone tools produced by human ancestors (from

Early humans in northern Africa

ARTICLE TOOLS http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6420/1297

MATERIALSSUPPLEMENTARY http://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2018/11/28/science.aau0008.DC1

REFERENCES

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6420/1297#BIBLThis article cites 62 articles, 3 of which you can access for free

PERMISSIONS http://www.sciencemag.org/help/reprints-and-permissions

Terms of ServiceUse of this article is subject to the

is a registered trademark of AAAS.ScienceScience, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. The title (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published by the American Association for the Advancement ofScience

Science. No claim to original U.S. Government WorksCopyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of

on July 2, 2020

http://science.sciencemag.org/

Dow

nloaded from