New research from Kenya’s Turkana Basin finds that early hominins continued producing Oldowan stone tools across a roughly 300,000-year interval as wetlands transitioned to arid plains. Geological, botanical and microcharcoal evidence documents volcanic activity, river reorganization, wildfires and lake-level changes between about 3.6 and 2.2 million years ago. Tool types, raw-material selection and cut marks on animal bones link the artifacts to sustained food-processing behavior. The study, led by Susana Carvalho and published in Nature Communications, highlights behavioral resilience and technological continuity during progressive aridification.
How Early Humans Weathered a Major Climate Shift: New Evidence from Kenya’s Turkana Basin
New research from Kenya’s Turkana Basin finds that early hominins continued producing Oldowan stone tools across a roughly 300,000-year interval as wetlands transitioned to arid plains. Geological, botanical and microcharcoal evidence documents volcanic activity, river reorganization, wildfires and lake-level changes between about 3.6 and 2.2 million years ago. Tool types, raw-material selection and cut marks on animal bones link the artifacts to sustained food-processing behavior. The study, led by Susana Carvalho and published in Nature Communications, highlights behavioral resilience and technological continuity during progressive aridification.
10:13 PM, 11/10/2025Science
New findings show continuous toolmaking across a dramatic environmental transformation
The remote Namorotukunan site in Kenya’s Turkana Basin—now an arid plain punctuated by Lake Turkana—was once a much wetter landscape. Recent multidisciplinary research led by Susana Carvalho (Gorongosa National Park) and published in Nature Communications reveals that hominin groups living there continued to produce Oldowan-style stone tools across roughly 300,000 years, as the environment changed from wetlands to drier grassland and near-desert between about 2.75 and 2.4 million years ago.
Archaeologists excavating the Koobi Fora sedimentary formation recovered flakes, scrapers and other implements preserved in fossilized sands and gravels. Many artifacts retain razor-sharp edges despite some wear, and associated faunal remains show cut marks consistent with butchery using those same tools—direct evidence that these implements were used in food processing and subsistence activities.
“Detailed knowledge of environmental patterns in this region allows us to explore the interplay between periods of environmental change and the continued presence of an early Oldowan techno-complex,” Carvalho and colleagues write, highlighting technological continuity from the late Pliocene into the Early Pleistocene.
Geological and paleoecological data provide a clear timeline of landscape change. A volcanic event ca. 3.6–3.4 million years ago helped reshape the basin and gave rise to a humid floodplain; fossils of palms and sedges indicate higher moisture levels before ~2.8 million years ago. Between ~2.8 and 2.7 million years ago, paleoriver networks reorganized as the region became progressively drier. Microcharcoal evidence documents ancient wildfires, and by about 2.2 million years ago lake levels fluctuated before the basin moved toward sustained aridity.
The knapped stone types—initially basalt and later chalcedony and jasper—suggest that toolmakers selected raw materials with predictable fracture properties, reflecting knowledge of rock mechanics and deliberate raw-material choice. Morphological features of the tools align with other early Oldowan assemblages, indicating comparable knapping skill and technological behaviors across eastern Africa.
Because the archaeological materials span many depositional layers, researchers could link specific artifact-bearing strata to different environmental phases. The persistence of tool production in the same localities despite shifting selective pressures suggests behavioral resilience: hominin populations adapted their technology and subsistence strategies to changing landscapes rather than abandoning familiar territories.
Why it matters: The Namorotukunan record documents long-term technological continuity and adaptive responses to climate-driven habitat change. By tying stone tool use to butchery and tracing environmental oscillations, the study sheds light on how early Homo populations survived, adjusted technologically, and ultimately evolved in the face of major climatic stress.