ABSTRACT

The last half century of palaeoanthropological exploration has experienced a tremendous increase in our knowledge about the 2.4 million year long artefactual record commonly referred to as the Lower or Early Palaeolithic. The growing number of discoveries of plio-pleistocene localities have been accompanied by paradigm shifts in palaeoanthropology and concomitant changes in the way in which early human behaviour is viewed (e.g. Dart 1953; Clark 1960; Leakey 1967; Binford and Binford 1968a, 1968b; Binford 1972, 1981, 1985; Ardrey 1976; Isaac 1977, 1984; Bunn et al. 1980; Potts 1994). During the last few years there has been a torrent of discoveries throughout the Old World, forcing investigators to re-evaluate earlier positions and previous consensus. The new dates for hominid fossil occurrences in Spain (Carbonell et al. 1995a; Parés and Pérez-Gonzàlez 1995), Georgia (Gabunia and Vekua 1995), China (Huang et al. 1995) and Indonesia (Swisher et al. 1994) have created controversy, potentially stretching the time-depth of hominid presence in Early Pleistocene contexts outside of Africa. At the same time, Africa’s pre-eminence as the cradle of mankind continues to be continually strengthened by new discoveries, including the identification of Late Pliocene forms Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus anamensis in East Africa (White et al. 1994; WoldeGabriel et al. 1994; Leakey et al. 1995). To date, there is no strong evidence of australopithecines in any other part of the Old World, and the recent suggestion that pre-erectus hominids are present in eastern Asia (Huang et al. 1995) is arguable.