Obsidian handaxe-making workshop from 1.2 million years

Melka Kunture, Upper Awash, Ethiopia

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain, working with two colleagues from France and another from Germany has discovered an Obsidian handaxe-making workshop from 1.2 million years ago in the Awash valley in Ethiopia. In their paper published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, the group describes where the handaxes were found, their condition and their age.

The Stone Age lasted from approximately 2.6 million years ago, to approximately 3,300 BCE, when the Bronze Age began. Historians generally break the era down into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. Prior research has shown that "knapping workshops" appeared sometime during the Middle Pleistocene, in Europe—approximately 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.



https://phys.org/news/2023-01-obsidian-handaxe-making-workshop-million-years.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01970-1


---------------------------

1.2-million-year-old obsidian axe factory found in Ethiopia  – IFLScience 14:15 An unknown species of human apparently mastered obsidian, something it had been thought only occurred in the Stone Age.

https://ethiopanorama.com/?p=186356
--------------------------------

Topographic and geological mapping in the prehistoric area of Melka Kunture (Ethiopia)

This paper describes the results of topographical and geological surveys carried out at the prehistoric area of Melka Kunture (Ethiopia) in order to produce new detailed maps at a scale of 1:10,000 for supporting archaeological investigations and providing good reference cartography during fieldwork. The topographic support was created from the stereorestitution of two pairs of Standard Stereo IKONOS-2, 1m pan-sharpened satellite imageries covering an area of about 100km2.



https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17445647.2012.680779
--------------------------------
❗❗❗❗❗
❗❗❗❗❗