Refimprove date May 2010 The term australopithecine refers generally to any species in the related genus genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus . These species occurred in the Plio Pleistocene era, and were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the encephalization characteristics of the genus Homo . ref name CambridgeDictHumBiol&Evolp45 They are classified within the Hominina subtribe of the Hominini tribe biology tribe . They appeared in the Pliocene Australopithecus , appeared about 4 million years ago Paranthropus , appeared about 2.7 million years ago. When used alone, the term refers to both genera together. Australopithecus is sometimes referred to as the gracile slender australopithecines , while Paranthropus are also called the robust australopithecines . ref name CambridgeDictHumBiol&EvolGeneral A likely ancestor of the Australopithecines is the genus Ardipithecus , which lived in East Africa. The Homo genus Homo genus human s, appear about 2.4 million years ago with Homo habilis appear to be descended from australopithecine ancestors, more precisely from Kenyanthropus platyops branching off Australopithecus some 3.5 million years ago. An alternative possibility is the derivation of Homo directly from Ardipithecus with an as yet undiscovered link connecting Ardipithecus and Homo habilis existing in parallel to the Australopithecines in the period 4 to 2.5 million years ago. See also wiktionary Human taxonomy References reflist 2 refs ref name CambridgeDictHumBiol&Evolp45 citation date 2005 author Larry L Mai Marcus Young Owl M Patricia Kersting title The Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution page 45 place Cambridge & New York publisher Cambridge University Press isbn 978 0 521 66486 8 ref ref name CambridgeDictHumBiol&EvolGeneral Larry L Mai Marcus Young Owl M Patricia Kersting, 2005 ... ko id Australopithecine ht Ostralopit k ja nds Australopithecina simple Australopithecine ... more details
italictitle A. africanus is an abbreviation of a species name. In binomial nomenclature the name of a species is always the name of the genus to which the species belongs, followed by the species name also called the species epithet . In A. africanus the genus name has been abbreviated to A. and the species has been spelled out in full. In a document that uses this abbreviation it should always be clear from the context which genus name has been abbreviated. Some of the most common uses of A. africanus are Aedes africanus , a mosquito species in the genus Aedes Agapanthus africanus , the African lily, a plant species native of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa Atherurus africanus , the African brush tailed porcupine, a rat like Old World porcupine species Australopithecus africanus , an early hominid, an australopithecine who lived between 2 3 million years ago in the Pliocene Synonyms Androniscus africanus , a synonym for Androniscus dentiger , a woodlouse species Atelopus africanus , a synonym for Werneria preussi , a toad species found in Togo and Cameroon See also A. africana disambiguation Africanus disambiguation Wikispecies Species Latin name abbreviation disambiguation ... more details
Abel is the name given to the only specimen ever discovered of Australopithecus bahrelghazali . Abel was found in January 1995 in Chad in the Kanem Region by the paleontologist Michel Brunet paleontologist Michel Brunet , ref Brunet, M., Beauvilain, A., Coppens, Y., Heintz, ., Moutaye, A.H.E et Pilbeam, D. 1995 The first australopithecine 2,500 kilometres west of the Rift Valley Chad , Nature , 378, pp. 273 275. ref who named the fossil Abel in memory of his close friend Abel Brillanceau, who had died of malaria in 1989. Of Abel remains only part of a jaw, which explains the little information descernable concerning its way of life. The few teeth confirm it to be of the Australopithecus genus it has a second premolar with a broad and molarized crown, not dissimilar to the Lucy fossil, and as such to the Australopithecus afarensis . See also List of fossil sites with link directory List of hominina fossils List of hominina hominid fossils with images References Reflist DEFAULTSORT Abel Hominid Category Hominin fossils Category Specific fossil specimens Chad stub fr Abel hominid it Abel ominide ... more details
Multiple issues refimprove June 2010 onesource June 2010 File BeforeAdam.jpg thumb right 1st edition publ. Macmillan Publishers United States Macmillan Before Adam is a novel by Jack London , serialized in 1906 and 1907 in Everybody s Magazine . ref name SonomaEdu BeforeAdam It is the story of a boy who dreams he lives the life of an early hominid Australopithecine . The story offers an early view of human evolution. The majority of the story is told through the eyes of the boy s hominid alter ego, one of the Cave People. In addition to the Cave People, there are the more advanced Fire People, and the more animal like Tree People. Other characters include the hominid s father, a love interest, and Red Eye, a fierce atavism that perpetually terrorizes the Cave People. A sabre cat also plays a role in the story. The US copyright on Before Adam has expired, and the story is available on Project Gutenberg . References Reflist refs ref name SonomaEdu BeforeAdam cite web title Jack London Before Adam work london.sonoma.edu date url http london.sonoma.edu Writings BeforeAdam accessdate 2011 08 29 ref External links Wikisource Gutenberg no 310 name Before Adam Jack London novels Category 1910 short stories Category Novels by Jack London Category Prehistoric people in popular culture Category Novels set in prehistory Category Works originally published in Everybody s Magazine Category Novels first published in serial form story stub pt Before Adam ... more details
been the first discovery of a robust australopithecine and the second australopithecine after Australopithecus .... Morphology Typical of robust australopithecine s, P. robustus had a head shaped a bit like a gorilla ... to a female. The teeth of these primate s were larger and thicker than any gracile australopithecine ... more details
of Gracile australopithecine , a bipedal primate known to science from approximately 2.5 4.5 million years ago. Australopithecine footprints did have a somewhat diverged toe although far from opposable , but the overall height and the rest of the description fit. At any rate, the Australopithecine ... is that a chimpanzee has adapted towards open country and has filled an Australopithecine like niche ... more details
The Makapansgat pebble , or the pebble of many faces, is a 260 gram jasper ite Cobble geology cobble with natural chipping and wear patterns that make it look like a crude rendition of a human face. The pebble is interesting in that it was found some distance from any possible natural source, in the context of Australopithecus africanus remains in South Africa . Though it is definitely not a manufactured object, it has been suggested that some australopithecine, or possibly another hominid , might have recognized it as a symbolic face, in possibly the earliest example of symbolic thinking or aesthetic sense in the human heritage, and brought the pebble back to camp, which would make it a candidate for the oldest known manuport at between 2.5 and 2.9 million years ago. ref cite web url http sunspot.sli.unimelb.edu.au aura MAKAPANSGAT.htm title Makapansgat cobble analysed last Bednarik first Robert G date work publisher University of Melbourne accessdate 2010 05 14 archiveurl http web.archive.org web 20030330065452 http sunspot.sli.unimelb.edu.au aura MAKAPANSGAT.htm archivedate 2003 03 30 Archived by the Internet Archive , original URI was nowiki http sunspot.sli.unimelb.edu.au aura MAKAPANSGAT.htm nowiki ref The teacher Wilfred I. Eizman found it in the Makapansgat , a dolerite cave in the Makapan Valley north of Mokopane , Limpopo , South Africa in 1925. ref Minnesota State University, Mankato MSU EMuseum http www.mnsu.edu emuseum archaeology sites africa makapan.html Makapan ref Almost 50 years later, Raymond Dart was the first to describe it in 1974. ref OriginsNet http www.originsnet.org oldowangallery1 pages a makapansgat.htm Pebble of many faces ref See also Pre historic art Venus of Berekhat Ram References reflist External links http mc2.vicnet.net.au home portable web manuport.html R. Bednarik Manuports and very early palaeoart photograph and text explaining the cobble s significance http piclib.nhm.ac.uk results.asp?image 013061 photograph of the Makapansga ... more details
the australopithecine s from which it is thought to have descended. H. habilis had a cranial capacity ... BBC Dawn of Man 2000 by Robin Mckie ISBN 0 7894 6262 1 ref demonstrated australopithecine like body with a more human like face and smaller teeth. Compared to australopithecine s, H. habilis s brain capacity ... of an entire line of new species, whereas Paranthropus boisei and its robust australopithecine ... more details
Infobox book See Wikipedia WikiProject Novels or Wikipedia WikiProject Books name Of the City of the Saved... title orig translator image Deleted image removed Image FactionParadoxOfTheCity.JPG 150px Of the City of the Saved... Cover image caption author Philip Purser Hallard cover artist Steve Johnson illustrator Steve Johnson country United States US language English language English series Faction Paradox genre Science Fiction publisher Mad Norwegian Press release date 2004 media type Print Trade paperback Trade Paperback pages 256 pp isbn 0 9725959 4 5 oclc 56589181 preceded by This Town Will Never Let Us Go followed by Warlords of Utopia Of the City of the Saved... is an original novel by Philip Purser Hallard set in the Faction Paradox universe. ref http www.isfdb.org cgi bin title.cgi?155871 ISFDB Entry for Of the City of the Saved... ref ref http www.locusmag.com index yr2005 b42.htm A1420.1 Locus Entry for Of the City of the Saved... ref Compassion Doctor Who Laura Tobin , who first appeared in the Eighth Doctor Adventures BBC Doctor Who books , is a major character in the novel. The full title, as given on the title page, is Of the City of the Saved... of its diverse citizenry and of its sundry divinities, with a disquisition on the protocols of history . The novel won Best Book in the 2004 Jade Pagoda awards, voted on by members of a Doctor Who book mailing list. ref http www.bondegezou.demon.co.uk jp jpawards.htm The Annual Jade Pagoda Awards ref It has been described as a stunning debut from Purser Hallard and easily one of the best Doctor Who related original novels published to date . ref http www.whoniverse.org discontinuity FP02.php Discontinuity Guide Of the City of the Saved... ref Plot introduction Beyond the end of the universe exists The City of the Saved , an urban sprawl the size of a galaxy. Within it every human being that ever lived, from the first Australopithecus australopithecine to the last posthuman, has been inexplicably resurrected. ... more details
unreferenced date February 2009 File Paranthropus aethiopicus.JPG thumb 250px Paranthropus aethiopicus sagittal crest on top of the head Unsourced image removed Image CanineSkull.jpg thumb right Canine skull showing sagittal crest A sagittal crest is a ridge of bone running lengthwise along the midline of the top of the skull at the sagittal suture of many mammal ian and reptilian skulls, among others. The presence of this ridge of bone indicates that there are exceptionally strong jaw muscles. The sagittal crest serves primarily for attachment of the temporalis muscle , which is one of the main chewing muscles. Development of the sagittal crest is thought to be connected to the development of this muscle. A sagittal crest usually develops during the childhood of an animal in conjunction with the growth of the temporalis muscle, as a result of convergence and gradual heightening of the temporal lines. A sagittal crest tends to be present on the skulls of adult animals that rely on powerful biting and clenching of their teeth, usually as a part of their hunting strategy. Skulls of some dinosaur species, including tyrannosaurs, possessed well developed sagittal crests. Among mammals, dogs, cats, lions, and many other carnivores have sagittal crests, as do some leaf eaters, including tapirs and some apes. Sagittal crests are found in robust great ape s, and some early hominins Paranthropus . Prominent sagittal crests are found among male gorillas and orangutans , and do occur but only rarely in male chimpanzee s such as Bili Ape s. The largest sagittal crest ever discovered in the human lineage belongs to the Black Skull , Paranthropus aethiopicus field number KNM WT 17000, the earliest known robust hominid ancestor and the oldest robust australopithecine discovered to date. The prominence of the crest appears to have been an adaptation for the aethiopicus s heavy chewing, and the Black Skull s cheek teeth are correspondingly large. Smaller sagittal crests are also pre ... more details
Maurice Taieb , born 1935 is a Demographics of France French geologist and paleoanthropologist who discovered the Hadar formation, recognised its potential importance to paleoanthropology and founded the International Afar Research Expedition IARE . This enabled co director Donald Johanson to discover the 3.2 million year old Australopithecine fossil Lucy Australopithecus Lucy fossil in the Awash River Awash Valley of Ethiopia s Afar Depression . Taieb is currently Director of Research for the National Centre for Scientific Research Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS , at the European Centre of Research and Teaching of Geosciences of the Environment Centre Europ en de Recherche et d Enseignement de G osciences de l Environnement CEREGE , in Aix en Provence . Early life Taieb was born in Tunisia in 1935 to a Tunisian father and a French mother. He travelled though the African outback with his uncle, a merchant who traded with the Bedouin on the outskirts of Tunis. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris VI in 1974, with a thesis on the geology of the Awash River basin. Taieb started his geological exploration of the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1966 by Landrover and donkey, discovered the Hadar fossil fields in 1968, founded the IARE in 1972, and was present when Donald Johanson discovered fossil fragments of Lucy Australopithecus Lucy in 1974. Taieb, along with co directors of IARE Donald Johanson and Yves Coppens played a key role in identifying the geology and history of the Afar region, which has yielded hominid specimens back to 6 million years old. His investigations of the Afar region were challenged by the extreme harshness of the desert environment, famine, conflicts with local tribesmen, such as the Issa clan Issa , the prolonged political strife including the closure by the Derg government during the 1980s in the fallout from a grave robbing incident between them and Don Johanson, plus ongoing hostilities between militias. See a ... more details
Frederick E. Grine is an American paleoanthropologist. He is a Professor of anthropology and anatomical sciences at the State University of New York at Stony Brook . He received his bachelors s degree from Washington & Jefferson College , and his Ph.D at the University of the Witwatersrand , South Africa in 1984. His research focuses on the hominin fossil record, during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene and the reconstruction of phylogenetic relationships through dental morphology. His most important work has been the analysis of dental microwear in order to reconstruct early hominin dietary habits. Dr. Grine is a major proponent in the argument that species of robust australopithecine should be given their own genus name, Paranthropus . ref Strait DS, Grine FE. Inferring hominoid and early hominid phylogeny using craniodental characters the role of fossil taxa. Journal of Human Evolution , December 2004 http www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov sites entrez?cmd Retrieve&db PubMed&list uids 15566946&dopt Citation abstract ref He also argues that the genus Australopithecus is paraphyletic which would require a new taxonomic designation for specimens included under Australopithecus afarensis to Praeanthropus africanus . ref Strait DS, Grine FE. Inferring hominoid and early hominid phylogeny using craniodental characters the role of fossil taxa. Journal of Human Evolution , December 2004 http www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov sites entrez?cmd Retrieve&db PubMed&list uids 15566946&dopt Citation abstract ref He is the editor of Evolutionary History of the Robust Australopithecines Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0202361373 and co editor of Primate Phylogeny Academic Press, ISBN 0123039606 . He is also author of the widely used anatomical textbook Regional Human Anatomy a Laboratory Workbook for Use With Models And Prosections McGraw Hill College, ISBN 0072438886 . In addition to this, Dr. Grine has published well over 100 scientific research articles. He is also known for his work in leading the team ... more details
Sidney Henry Haughton , 7 May 1888 Bethnal Green , London 24 May 1982 , was an English born South African paleontology paleontologist and geologist. The eldest of three children born to Henry Charles Haughton and Alice Aves, he is best known for his description of the sauropodomorpha sauropodomorph dinosaur Melanorosaurus in 1924, and his work on the geology of the Witwatersrand . Haughton s work on South African geology culminated in the 1964 publication of Gold Deposits of the Witwatersrand Basin The Geology of Some Ore Deposits of Southern Africa , Volume 1, a collection of 18 papers on Witwatersrand geology. He is not to be confused with Samuel Haughton , an Irish geologist of an earlier era. During World War I Haughton elisted with the Royal Army Medical Corps , was posted to Egypt and then India, and picked up malaria, leading to his discharge from the army. ref http www.jstor.org pss 769804 Royal Society biography ref External links http 196.33.85.14 cgs inter content GSSA GSSAMineralDepositsA.htm Mineral Deposits of Southern Africa Publications The stratigraphic history of Africa south of the Sahara The geology of the country around Mossel bay, Cape Province Government Printer, 1937 The geology of portion of the coastal belt near the Gamtoos valley, Cape Province Printed in the Union of South Africa by the Government Printer, 1937 Results of an investigation into the possible presence of oil in Karroo rocks in parts of the Union of South Africa Dept. of Mines, 1953 Geological history of Southern Africa Geological Society of South Africa, 1969 Trans Karroo excursion printed by the Natal witness, 1970 The Australopithecine fossils of Africa and their geological setting Witwaterstrand University Press Institute for the Study of Man in Africa, 1964 The stratigraphic history of Africa south of the Sahara Hafner Pub. Co., 1963 The stratigraphic history of Africa south of the Sahara Oliver & Boyd, 1963 The geology of some ore deposits in southern Africa Geological ... more details
Andre Werner Keyser 8 March 1938 Pretoria 15 August 2010 Pretoria , was a South African palaeontologist and geologist noted for his discovery of the Drimolen hominid site and of numerous hominid remains. In 1994 he discovered a female Paranthropus robustus skull, nicknamed Eurydice , the most complete australopithecine skull ever excavated. In 1997 he found two children s skulls some 1.5 to 2 million years old. The children were under 3 years old at the time of their death, and were found at the Drimolen site near the Sterkfontein Caves. ref http www.lagazzettadelsudafrica.net Gennaio 202006 Art 200106 2.htm ref ref http www.archaeology.org 0007 newsbriefs skull.html ref ref http www.trussel.com prehist news48.htm ref ref http www.cradleofhumankind.co.za ourstory ourjourney humanorigins Pages Andre 20Keyser.aspx ref File Andre Keyser00.jpg thumb left center Andre Keyser at Grootkloof, Magaliesberg In the 1930s Robert Broom, acting on a suggestion from a Transvaal Museum lepidopterist, was the first palaeontologist to visit Gladysvale Cave South Africa Gladysvale Cave , hoping to find a hominid fossil cave close to Johannesburg. In 1946 Phillip Tobias recovered a baboon fossil from the site. The 1948 Charles Lewis Camp Camp Frank Peabody Peabody expedition from the United States failed to find any hominid remains. The site was then forgotten until 1991 when Lee Berger and Andre Keyser started excavations. They soon found two teeth of Australopithecus africanus , making Gladysvale the first new hominid site in South Africa since the 1948 discovery of Swartkrans by Robert Broom . Since then the site has yielded more than a quarter of a million fossils in excavations by teams from the University of the Witwatersrand , the University of Zurich and Duke University . These fossils include, beside hominids, antelope, extinct wolves, giant zebra and monkeys. ref cite book title Field Guide to the Cradle of Humankind accessdate author Hilton Barber, B. and Berger, L.R. author ... more details
Australopithecine species, such as A. africanus and A. afarensis because Paranthropus were taller and heavier ... centre superimposed on a generalized australopithecine background It is commonly believed that the australopithecines ... with the biomolecular data which place the Homo Pan split at the beginning of the australopithecine .... ref Jobling, Hurles and Tyler Smith, 2004 ref An australopithecine 4 million years old such as Ardipithecus ... like those of gorillas. In contrast, it is more difficult to place 3 or 4 million year old australopithecine ... more details
Image Biface Cintegabelle MHNT PRE 2009.0.201.1 V2.jpg thumb right 300px Four views of an Acheulean handaxe Paleolithic 233 The Lower Paleolithic or Lower Palaeolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age . It spans the time from around 1 E13 s 2.5 million year s ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tool s by Hominidae hominid s appears in the current archaeological record , until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the Oldowan mode 1 and Acheulean mode 2 lithics industries. The Lower Paleolithic is followed by the Middle Paleolithic , which sees the appearance of the more advanced Prepared core technique prepared core tool making technologies such as the Mousterian . Whether the earliest control of fire by hominids dates to the Lower or to the Middle Paleolithic remains an open question. Gelasian see Gelasian Homo habilis Olduvai Gorge The Lower Paleolithic begins with the Gelasian Lower Pleistocene , some 2.5 million years ago with the appearance of the Homo genus Homo habilis , possibly developing out of australopithecine forebears such as Australopithecus garhi . These early members of the Homo genus had primitive tools, summarized under the Oldowan horizon, which remained dominant for the best part of a million years, from about 2.5 to 1.7 million years ago. Homo habilis is assumed to have lived primarily on scavenging , using the tools to cleave meat off carrion or to break bones in order to extract the Bone marrow marrow . The move from the mostly frugivorous or omnivorous diet of Australopithecus to the carnivorous scavenging lifestyle of early Homo has been explained by the climate changes in East Africa associated with the Quaternary glaciation . Decreasing oceanic evaporation resulted in a drier climate and an expansion of the savannah at the expense of forests. Reduced availability of fruits forced some Australopithecine to unlock new food sources found in the drier savannah climate. Derek Bickerton has placed t ... more details
italictitle Taxobox name Paranthropus aethiopicus fossil range Pliocene image Paranthropus aethiopicus.JPG image width 200px image caption Paranthropus aethiopicus skull Black Skull replica regnum Animal ia phylum Chordate Chordata classis Mammal ia ordo Primates familia Hominidae genus Paranthropus species P. aethiopicus binomial Paranthropus aethiopicus binomial authority Olson, 1985 Paranthropus aethiopicus is an extinct species of hominid . The finding discovered in 1985 by Alan Walker in West Lake Turkana Turkana , Kenya , KNM WT 17000 known as the Black Skull due to the dark coloration of the bone, caused by high levels of manganese , is one of the earliest examples of robust australopithecine robust pliocene hominid s. ref name Smithsonian cite web title Paranthropus aethiopicus publisher The Smithsonian Institution url http humanorigins.si.edu evidence human fossils species paranthropus aethiopicus accessdate March 2011 ref The skull is dated to 2.5 million years ago, older than the later forms of robust australopithecines. Anthropologists suggest that P. aethiopicus lived between 2.7 and 2.5 million years ago. ref name Smithsonian The features are quite primitive and share many traits with Australopithecus afarensis thus P. aethiopicus is likely to be a direct descendant. With its face being as prognathic projecting as A. afarensis , its brain size was also quite small at 410 cc. ref name ArchaeologyInfo P. aethiopicus was first proposed in 1967 to describe a toothless partial mandible Omo 18 found in Ethiopia by French paleontologists. ref name Smithsonian ref name ArchaeologyInfo cite web title Paranthropus aethiopicus publisher Archaeology.info url http www.archaeologyinfo.com australopithecusaethiopicus.htm accessdate March 2011 ref Lower jaw and teeth fragments have been uncovered. P. aethiopicus had a large sagittal crest and zygomatic arch adapted for heavy chewing as in gorilla skulls . ref name ArchaeologyInfo Not much is known about this species s ... more details
No footnotes date March 2011 Cleanup date March 2011 Taxobox name Lufengpithecus fossil range image image width image caption regnum Animal ia phylum Chordata classis Mammal ia ordo Primate s familia Hominidae subfamilia Ponginae genus Lufengpithecus genus authority Wu, 1987 subdivision ranks Species subdivision See text Lufengpithecus is a genus of extinct ape generally placed in the Ponginae subfamily. It contains three species Lufengpithecus lufengensis , Lufengpithecus hudienensis and Lufengpithecus keiyuanensis . Lufengpithecus lufengensis is a fossil ape recovered from lignite soft coal beds at the Shihuiba Locality in Lufeng County , Yunnan , China, dating to the latest Miocene . It was originally thought to represent two distinct species, Sivapithecus yunnanensis , thought to be an ancestor of Pongo orangutan s , and Ramapithecus lufengensis , thought to be an early human ancestor. The recognition in the 1980s that Ramapithecus fossils were females of Sivapithecus led to the creation of the new genus and species Lufengpithecus lufengensis to accommodate the large collection of hominoid fossils recovered at Lufeng in the 1970s. The species was recognized to have a very large degree of sexual dimorphism, comparable to that seen in cercopithecoid monkeys. The fossil remains from Shihuiba included a number of relatively complete but severely crushed crania of both male and female specimens. In the 1980s and 1990s similar fossils were excavated from a number of localities in Yuanmou County , Yunnan, China, generally attributed to a new species L. hudienensis . The specimens include a large number of teeth, mandibular and maxillary fragments and the facial skeleton of a juvenile, comparable in dental age to the famous Taung Child Taung infant australopithecine from South Africa. Previous hominoid material collected in the 1950s at the Keiyuan colliery site in Yunnan and attributed to Drypopithecus keiyuanensis were subsequently assigned to L. keiyuanensis . Like S ... more details
hominid evolution, the nature and explanation of allometry , Paranthropus robust australopithecine ... graduates include the discoverer of several new australopithecine species, the first paleoanthropologist ... that took place in a small group isolated from australopithecine forebears. The earliest H. sapiens ... more details
no footnotes date October 2011 File 1993 161 14 Olduvai Gorge Leakey .jpg thumb 300px Olduvai Gorge, East Africa, a region of numerous excavations yielding finds that were essential to the prehistory of Africa. The continent of Africa has the longest record of human activity of any part of the world and along with its geographical extent, it contains an enormous archaeological resource. Scholars have studied Egyptology for centuries but archaeologists have only paid serious attention to the rest of the continent in more recent times. Pliocene and Pleistocene Africa The earliest evidence of archaeological activity anywhere comes from the East African Rift such as Olduvai Gorge in modern day Tanzania . It is thought that the earliest Hominidae hominid s evolved in Olduvai or somewhere similar around 4 million years ago. They are known as australopithecine s and fossil s of them include the famous Australopithecus afarensis Lucy . The first, crude Oldowan stone tools produced there were made as long as 2.5 million years ago by the later Homo habilis . Around a million years later, Developed Oldowan and then Acheulian archaeological industry industries produced more advanced handaxe s made by homo erectus . Archaeological study of this era was pioneered by people such as Louis Leakey and his family and has centered on the earliest development of tool use, fire and diet in hominid societies. Sites such as Kalambo Falls have produced well preserved evidence of this activity. By the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic , around 120,000 BC, African societies were hunter gatherer s proficient in exploiting the herds of large mammals that populated the continent for meat, including elephants and the fearsome African Buffalo . The area that is now the Sahara desert was open grassland and it seems that early humans preferred this plains environment to the jungles in the centre. Coastal peoples also existed on seafood and numerous midden s indicate their diet. Homo sapiens sapie ... more details
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