Lower Paleolithic or Early Stone Age
Nachukui Formation
The Nachukui Formation is a geological formation in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya, where several important Lower Paleolithic sites have been found.
Kokiselei Complex (Kenya)
Kokiselei is a complex of Lower Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) archaeological and paleontological sites located on the western shore of Lake Turkana, Kenya.
Lower Paleolithic Period - Timeline and Description
The Lower Paleolithic period (2.7 million to 200,000 years ago) is the first archaeology, that is to say, that period when the first evidence of what scientists consider human behaviors occurred.
Beeches Pit (United Kingdom)
Beeches Pit is the name of a Lower Paleolithic archaeological site located in Suffolk, England. The site has been dated to about 400,000 years old, and was probably used by Homo heidelbergensis.
Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Israel)
The archaeological site of Gesher Benot Yaaqov is located in the northern Jordan Valley on the shore of an ancient lake. Paleomagnetic dating of this site makes it a Lower Paleolithic site, dated to approximately 790,000 years ago.
Gran Dolina (Spain)
Gran Dolina is a cave site in the Sierra de Atapuerca region of central Spain, with human occupations dated between 300,000 and 885,000 years ago.
Gona (Ethiopia)
At 2.6 million years old, the Lower Paleolithic site called Gona or Kada Gona in Ethiopia is the earliest site yet to contain evidence of chipped stone tool making.
Isernia la Pineta (Italy)
Lower Paleolithic site in Italy, occupied about 736,000±40,000 BP.
Karari culture
The second cultural tradition (the first is KBS) identified at the very ancient hominid occupation site called FxJj18 at Koobi Fora.
Kaletepe Deresi 3 (Turkey)
The site of Kaletepe Deresi 3 is located in the Göllü Dag region of central Turkey, and it contains at least three Middle and Lower Paleolithic archaeological components
Koobi Fora
Lower Paleolithic site in northern Kenya, east of Lake Turkana.
Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania is an ancient hominid archaeological site in Tanzania, excavated by the Leakeys in the mid-1950s.
Lokalalei (Kenya)
The Lower Paleolithic archaeological sites called Lokalalei are located in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya
Omo Kibish (Ethiopia)
Kibish is the name of an ancient rock formation along the Omo River at the base of the Nkalabong Range in Ethiopia where excavations by Richard Leakey and others recovered Homo sapiens remains as old as 195,000 years before the present.
Zhoukoudian (China)
Zhoukoudian (also spelled Choukoutien) is the name of a stratified cave site and associated fissures in Fangshan District, about 45 km southwest of Beijing, China
Soan Valley Tradition
The archaeological sites in the Siwalik region of Pakistan and India called the Soan Valley Tradition date to the Lower Paleolithic.
Swartkrans (South Africa)
Swartkrans is a Lower Paleolithic cave site in South Africa, discovered in 1948 by Robert Broom and excavated by C.K. Brain in the 1960s.
Terra Amata (France)
Terra Amata is an Acheulean tradition Lower Paleolithic site located on the Mediterranean coast of southern France.
Vallonet Cave (France)
Vallonet Cave is a paleolithic cave in the maritime Alps of southeastern France, near the Mediterranean coast near Nice.
Butchery in the Lower Paleolithic
Modified bone recovered from a 3.4 million year old site may rewrite what paleontologists understand as the Lower Paleolithic.