What to expect:

Where are the oldest archaeological sites on the planet? Where do we find the first advances towards the human species we are all familiar with today?

Africa.

Africa is the continent with humanity’s deepest history, tracing back 7 million years. In this video, we explore some of this continent’s most significant archaeological sites, each marking the first of its kind. This includes the first hominin species, the first stone tools, and more.

Having only ever performed archaeological excavations in the United States, conducting work outside of my home country has always been in the back of my mind. Of the many places around the world that host digs and field schools, Africa might be the most appealing to me. Making this video only solidified that.

I hope this video opens your eyes, shows you how special Africa really is, and motivates you to go out and do some of your own research into the archaeology of humanity’s origins.

The OLDEST Archaeological Discoveries in Africa

On the sun-baked plains of East Africa, the wind whispers through the tall grasses, carrying with it the echoes of our ancient ancestors. Beneath your feet, hidden in the rusty red soil, lie the remnants of the very first sparks of human ingenuity—tools carved from stone, bones etched with the marks of early rituals, and the fragile remains of those who once walked upright for the very first time. These are not just relics, but the silent storytellers of our beginnings. 

It is the continent with our species’ deepest history, and today we’ll explore what it has to offer. Africa’s archaeological record is staggering, almost to the point of frustration. It extends from seven million years ago to the era of colonialism and beyond. Within those seven million years are many “firsts”. What do I mean by this? Many of the traits we see today in human biology and culture began in Africa. This includes the first species with anatomical features that now define who we are and the first tools that were modified to meet our survival needs.

As we progress through this video, I want you to think about what other “firsts” could be out there waiting for discovery. By the end, I hope you have an interesting and unique answer to share with us in the comments. So, join me as we unearth four of the oldest archaeological discoveries in Africa, each one a key that unlocks a chapter in the grand story of humanity.

Toros-Menalla, Chad - The First Hominin

Today, we walk the earth alone, but 200,000 years ago we had company. Homo erectus, the Neanderthals, and the Denisovans were all roaming their respective home ranges. Granted, they were slowly on their way out. In all, roughly (20) different human species have been identified since archaeologists began searching for which one was first. The lines between them can sometimes be blurred, which will be discussed later in this video, but each had features that we now consider to be reasonably human-like. In the world of anthropology, they all fall under the taxonomic category of “Hominin”.

So which of these 20 species came first? Who was our progenitor? Where did they come from? When did they exist? These are all important questions, and the answer lies in the African Sahel. The Sahel region stretches across Africa's widest midpoint, on an east/west axis. It marks the separation between the dry Sahara desert to its north and the more humid savannas to its south. It runs through several countries, including Senegal, Chad, and Sudan, forming a belt that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Luckily, its climate has remained dry enough to keep preserved what could be the oldest member of the human lineage.

Since 2001, archaeologists and paleontologists from various universities have been collaborating on human origin investigations, narrowing their search to Chad specifically. In the Djurab Desert of Northern Chad, they have identified a site now known as the Toros-Menalla fossiliferous area, or TM 266 for short. Here, the team of researchers led by Michel Brunet found fossil remains in a layer of perilacustrine sandstone [1]. This sedimentary rock typically forms along lake shores, suggesting that this specimen was living in a very different Sahel than today. 

The fossil was fractured and clearly deformed, but Brunet and his colleagues could nonetheless identify them as the remains of a primate cranium. The fossil was nicknamed Toumai, which means “hope of life” in the local Goran language [2]. Primate skulls can be found all over the continent, but what makes his one so unique is its anatomical relationship to the human lineage, where it was found, and its age. 

First, the cranium exhibits traits that are both derived and ancestral. In evolutionary biology, we consider ancestral traits as those which have been inherited and preserved from previous species. Derived traits are novel, emerging with the evolution of the species under investigation. 

The ancestral traits of Toumai that can be linked to pre-hominin primates include things such as a small cranial capacity (indicating a smaller brain) and a longer more narrow braincase, as well as a narrower U-shaped dental arch. In contrast, some of the defining features of the human lineage include larger brains with more bulbous skull architecture, and jaws that are less narrow, opening wider as you move toward the molars.

However, some derived traits suggest that Toumai was inching towards a human-like form [3]. For example, its teeth lack a diastema. This is a space between the lower canine and lower third molar and it allows the upper incisor to grind and sharpen as the primate chews. So its teeth are less sharp. Its lower face is less prognathic - less protruding. 

And maybe most importantly, its foramen magnum is more anteriorly positioned. The foramen magnum is an opening at the base of the skull that allows the spinal cord to connect to the brain. If you look at typical primates who walk on all fours or climb, this opening is closer to the back of the skull. For modern humans, the opening is closer to the center of the skull allowing us to look forward while we stand upright with bipedal locomotion. Because the foramen magnum of Toumai was more central than those of other primates, we can infer that it was likely walking upright on occasion.

The second unique feature of this discovery is its location. It was long believed that humans can trace our origins to East Africa, the true cradle of humanity. Species like Homo erectus and Homo habilis (which we will be looking at later in this video) are distributed all around East Africa. Toumai, on the other hand, was found in the dead center of Northern Africa, about 2,500 kilometers away from the East African Rift Valley.

Lastly, the age of this specimen is what solidified it as a contender for the first hominin species. The hominin lineage is often thought to have emerged in the Pliocene Epoch, between 5.3 and 2.6 million years ago. This discovery pushes that back into the Miocene. Biochronological studies looking into diverse faunal assemblages found in the same sediment layer as Toumai show that the fossil is around seven million years old [4].

Toumai has been assigned the scientific name Sahelanthropus tchadensis as an ode to the lands in which it was found. Sahelanthropus challenges our previously held assumptions about the temporal and geographic setting of humanity’s origin. We can no longer confidently say that the hominin lineage started in East Africa within the past five million years. Rather, we have to adjust our scientific lens more than 2,000 kilometers west and push that date back another two million years.

Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia - The First Member of Homo Lineage

While the first hominins may not have lived in East Africa, the first members of our genus probably did. We belong to the Homo genus and some of our defining features include large brains, habitually walking upright, having longer legs than arms, and using stone tools. The mosaic of these traits is largely what separates us from the earlier Australopithecines. 

Many of those 20 or so human species mentioned earlier fall under this taxonomic class. Us, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, and Homo heidelbergensis are all closely related species that have similar degrees of the aforementioned traits. The first of which we have documentation of is Homo habilis, and in 2013, Chalachew Seyoum, an ASU graduate student from Ethiopia, may have unearthed the oldest remains of this species [5].

Homo habilis stood about 4 feet tall, with a brain about twice the size of a chimpanzee’s. Its leg-to-arm length ratio was better adapted to bipedalism and its teeth and jaws were smaller than the australopithecines’. A sample of those teeth and jaw was what Seyoum saw exposed in the hillside sediment he and his team were surveying. Their survey was located in Afar, Ethiopia, at a site called Ledi-Geraru. Back to East Africa, we go.

Similar to the Sahelanthropus remains, this fossil had a combination of ancestral and derived traits, suggesting that it was some form of intermediate species. The researchers, though, are confident that it was an early member of our Homo family tree. They were limited to only this jaw fragment, but they believed enough information was embedded within it to make their determination.

For example, when looking at a side view of the jaw, its top and bottom run relatively parallel, keeping a uniform height from front to back. This is less common in earlier hominins and primates, whose jaws taper from front to back. Another is related to a small hole in the jaw called the mental foramen, which acts as a passageway for nerves and blood vessels. That hole is oriented posteriorly in the Homo genus and anteriorly in the australopithecines. In this fossil, it's oriented posteriorly. 

Lastly, its dentition had some derived traits as well. Molars have cusps, you can feel them with your tongue. Different species have different cusp numbers and patterns. The first molar of the Ethiopian fossil has an extra cusp that exists in more recent Homo species but is either absent or less pronounced in the australopithecines. The researchers note many more nuances to their justification for identifying this as an early Homo genus member, but those were some of their key observations. Now that we are more familiar with the find itself, let's put it into context.

The sediment from which Seyoum extracted the fossil has some interesting characteristics. First, it was likely deposited around 2.8 million years ago [6]. This would push back the Homo genus about 300,000 years. Second, it’s associated with dramatic climate changes and large species turnover, meaning significant amounts of species disappear or appear around this time. Specifically, the environment was likely becoming more open and arid, which could have required species to adapt accordingly and some just did not make the cut. This includes whatever hominins were present at the time, and could account for the adaptations we see in the Homo lineage.

These findings lend credence to two ideas. First is that the antiquity of our genus is much older than we thought. Second is the idea that direr, more open environments were a selective pressure that influenced human evolution. Paleoecological studies support this showing a transition from medium tree coverage over the landscape to arid grasslands during this time [7]. Combined with the data on species turnover, it seems likely that this would have been a time when more primitive hominins would have been climatically stressed and evolutionary strides towards our genus could have been made.

Among these evolutionary strides was a stronger commitment to walking and/or running on two feet. This would have been favorable for traveling long distances between the more patchily distributed fruit-bearing foliage. Evident in the archaeological record is the emergence of stone tool-making around this time, allowing Homo habilis to hunt and process meat more efficiently - the reason its name translates to “handyman”. This would have been adaptive in an environment with a reduction in calories available from plant foods. 

As we close this chapter on the earliest members of the Homo genus, we are reminded that the journey from Homo habilis to modern humans was not a straight line but a complex web of adaptations, survival strategies, and evolutionary experiments. Homo habilis, with its tools, modified teeth and jaw, and expanded braincase, represents a pivotal moment in our ancestral story—a species poised on the cusp of a new era, where intelligence and ingenuity began to shape the future of humankind. And it all started on this transforming African continent. 

Lomekwi 3, Kenya - The First Stone Tools

In the last section, I mentioned how creating and using stone tools is one of the features that make the Homo lineage unique when compared to the Australopithecines. Well, I’m about to contradict myself. This is a great example of both the complexity of studying human evolution and our ignorance of the matter. We are constantly going back and forth, debating ideas, and the origin of the first stone tools is one of them. 

The stone tools originally attributed to Homo habilis are known as Oldowan tools. They are only recognizable as artifacts by archaeologists and researchers who study them. To the everyday person, they simply look like broken cobbles, but when you become familiar with fractures produced by modifying stones into tools you can identify them as such.

To construct an Oldowan stone tool, ancient hominins used a technique called direct freehand percussion. It consists of holding one rock called the core in one hand (which is the rock being sculpted into a tool) and one rock in the other, acting as the hammer to create that tool. They would then strike the core with hammerstone to flake off pieces creating a stone tool. 

Known as knapping, this technique remained fundamental to the human tool kit for millions of years. It was later refined in Acheulian biface production. The apex of knapping is evident in the archaeological record of North America, where we see intricately shaped Clovis points dating to around 13,000 years ago, notched points dated to the later archaic period, and precise arrowheads from the more recent woodland period prior to contact with the Europeans. 

However, we now have evidence of a more elementary technique of stone tool shaping that predates the Oldowan industry. In West Turkana, Kenya, a team of researchers led by Sonia Harmond and Jason Lewis found what is now the oldest artifact assemblage ever discovered [8]. The site is known as Lomeki 3, and it consists of a small hill that was slowly eroded by a ravine many years ago. Below the topsoil, which was deposited by runoff from the sloping hill, are layers of sands and silts that hold what they call Lomekwian tools - the precursors to Oldowan tools. 

Lomekian tools are similar to Oldowan tools in that they are both relatively simple, with only about one decent useful edge. Not all of what the researchers found were the tools themselves, much of it was excess material. Of the 149 artifacts discovered throughout their fieldwork, 83 were actual tool-like cores, and the remainder were things like flakes and fragments, which certainly could have functioned as tools themselves. Most of these are made from basalt, which is locally sourced, indicating that whoever made these tools made them right where they were found.

In contrast to Oldowan tools, Lomekian tools are much larger and heavier. The biggest of which was a 15 kg block of basalt, which poses a problem. These heavier stones would have been far more difficult to use freehand knapping techniques, so how did they do it? It’s believed that these ancient hominins were using a technique seen in modern primates, like chimps and capuchin monkeys, who use rocks to crack open nuts. Instead of holding the targeted core in a free hand, it is placed on a surface, like an anvil, and then struck with the other rock. 

Importantly, “LOM3 core and flake techno-morphology does not conform to any observed pattern resulting from accidental natural rock fracture. On the contrary, LOM3 cores and flakes bear all the techno-morphological characteristics of debitage products,” said the authors of this study. Some of the most notable characteristics of human production are a.) how we can see repeated percussion marks in the same direction, which seldom happens naturally, as well as b.) knapping accidents, identified by hinge and step fractures. 

Using a dating method called Argon-Argon dating, they have determined that these human-modified stones date to a startling 3.3 million years ago - predating the Oldowan industry by nearly one million years. But we don’t have evidence of the handyman 3.3 million years ago, so who made these tools? 

In a paper published in 2016, the researchers grappled with this very problem and posed three possibilities [9]. First, these tools are the product of Homo habilis, but we simply have yet to find fossil remains of the species that far back. Second, we have to extend the cognitive capacity of stone tool-making to other hominin species. The only hominin species we have evidence of in this region around that time are Australopithecus afarensis and Kenyanthropus platyops, so they are the alternatives. Third, stone tool-making might not be unique to the human lineage. Lomekian tools may have been created by some other ancient primate, and the ability to do so vanished with time. For the record, the authors stand by the second possibility as the most plausible.

As it stands today, Lomekian tools are recognized as the first stone tool industry that can be attributed to a human-like ancestor. Who knows if we find something older, the deeper we keep digging. What we do know is that the tool palette of humans widens as we progress through the ages and the incorporation of bones is one of the many flavors. So let’s head to South Africa to look at the first bone tools of the archaeological record as currently stands. 

Drimolen Paleocave, South Africa - The First Bone Tools

Throughout Africa, archaeologists have found the bones of animals that were butchered by what are now extinct human species. The remains of ungulates, elephants, and even hippos have all been found either in association with stone tools or with marks indicative of being cut with said tools. You can check out my video on prehistoric diets for a more in-depth analysis of these findings.

In this video, we’ll continue looking at these bone remnants, but not from the perspective of diet - from the perspective of their function as tools. 

The oldest evidence we have of bone tool use was found within a collapsed cave in South Africa. The Drimolen paleocave is roughly 7 km north of another cave system, Sterkfontien. A sinkhole caused the cave’s ceiling to collapse between 1.5 and 2 million years ago and the vast majority of fossils and artifacts were found buried under that sediment. Since the 1990s, ongoing research has been investigating this fill deposit.

The faunal assemblage consists of various species, including primates closely related to the baboon family, general “carnivores”, and bovids. They also found an abundance of remains from Paranthropus robustus, an australopithecine cousin to our Homo habilis ancestors.

Twenty-two possible bone tool specimens were found here in association with Paranthropus [10]. Worked bone can sometimes be trickier to spot than stone, often lacking the large flakes and fractures found on things like Oldowan tools. Instead, archaeologists will examine the bones under microscopes and other magnifying technologies to look for microwear patterns. 

After performing such an analysis, researchers reduced the number of suspected tools from 22 to 14. This is because 8 of the bones did not meet the identification criteria for evidence of tool use. For example, the 14 bones determined to be tools exhibited many of the same characteristics as bone tools found in other cave systems, including the type of bone used (typically long bone shafts), one smooth end, and striations running parallel to the main axis of the bone. The remaining 8 lack these attributes and have been identified as “pseudo-tools”.

So what kind of activity produces these wear patterns? It’s unlikely that these bones would have been used for butchering meat because they lack cutting edge. The most likely candidate is digging, but we can get even more specific. Experiments have shown that digging for things like tubers, which was a likely foraging strategy for early hominins, did not produce patterns like those seen on the Drimolen bones. It turns out that digging termite mounds is the best fit for the observed striations on these tools. 

It should be noted that this behavior has been observed in chimpanzees, specifically in female chimps. Using this as an inference, the researchers said, “if P. robustus was the user of the bone tools, then the foraging activity in which they were used may have been conducted mainly by females.”

So, we may have discovered not only the first bone tools ever used but also the oldest tools we can attribute to female ingenuity. 

Conclusion

When we look at these archaeological discoveries in light of the various genetic studies conducted by the Human Genome Project and other research organizations, it becomes clear that our human roots are engrained in the African landscape. The first hominin, Sahelanthropus tchadensis was discovered in Africa, as was the first member of our more specific Homo lineage. Even the first examples of tool use and modification are found on this continent. 

That being said, there are past theories and even some fringe theories circulating today arguing that humanity’s origins lie elsewhere. If you find this idea interesting and want to see a video comparing these theories to the mainstream out-of-Africa hypothesis, let me know in the comment section. In my opinion, the evidence for an African origin far outweighs that of Europe, Asia, and certainly the Americas. But, we can put that to the test in such a video.

References:

[1] Brunet, M., et al. 2002. “A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa.” Nature 418, 145–151.

[2] Lieberman, D. 2011. The Evolution of the Human Head. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

[3] Guy, F., et al. 2005. “Morphological affinities of the Sahelanthropus tchadensis (Late Miocene hominid from Chad) cranium.” Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102(52):18836-41.

[4] Vignaud, P., et al. 2002. “Geology and palaeontology of the Upper Miocene Toros-Menalla hominid locality, Chad.” Nature 418, 152–155.

[5] Villmoare, B., et al. 2015. “Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia.” Science 347, 1352-1355.

[6] DiMaggio, N., et al. 2015. “Late Pliocene fossiliferous sedimentary record and the environmental context of early Homo from Afar, Ethiopia.” Science 347,1355-1359.

[7] Reed, K. 2008. “Paleoecological patterns at the Hadar hominin site, Afar Regional State, Ethiopia.” J Hum Evol. 54(6):743-68.

[8] Harmand, S., et al. 2015. “3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya.” Nature 521, 310–315.

[9] Lewis, J., and Harmand, S. 2016. “An earlier origin for stone tool making: implications for cognitive evolution and the transition to Homo.” Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 371(1698):20150233.

[10] Backwell, L. and d’Errico, F. 2008. “Early Hominid Bone Tools from Drimolen, South Africa.”Journal of Archaeological Science 35(11):2880-2894.

Song Suggestion

Music is a human universal. It’s found in every culture, at every corner of the globe. The Evolve.2 song suggestions are hand-picked by yours truly. I love all types of music, but here, I like to share some of my more extreme tastes.

(Caution: These songs consist of heavy, brutal guitar riffs and gruesomely guttural vocals. I timestamp what I believe to be the best riff of the song. You’ve been warned.)