Kokiselei is a complex of ancient archaeological and paleontological sites located in the Nachukui formation, on the western shore of Lake Turkana, in the famous rift valley of Kenya. Two important archaeological sites at Kokiselei are named Kokiselei 4 (sometimes referred to in the literature as FxJh 4 or KS4) and Kokiselei 5 (FxJh 5 or KS5); both date to the Lower Paleolithic period.
The Kokiselei sites lie within the Nachukui Formation, a geological formation that includes several other important archaeological sites such as Lokalalei and Nadung'a. The Nachukui Formation spans a time between 2.34 and .7 million years ago (mya); the Kaitio member, in which both Kokiselei sites lie, dates to roughly 1.7 mya.
Kokiselei 5
An area of approximately 65 square meters have been excavated to date at Kokiselei, under the leadership of Pierre-Jean Texier and Sonia Harmand at the Université de Paris. Stone tools recovered from the site include over 1600 Oldowan lithic artifacts, from unworked or roughly flaked pebbles and cobbles to cores, flakes and fragments, and one trihedral (three-sided) stone tool.
Kokiselei 5 is considered transitional between Early Oldowan and Early Acheulean periods of the Lower Paloelithic.
Kokiselei 4
Kokiselei 4, on the other hand, is one of the oldest Early Acheulean sites in Africa identified to date, dated to approximately 1.76 mya. Several trenches have been dug within an area of some 100 square meters, and although the stone artifacts are relatively few (191), there are large Acheulean handaxes, proto-handaxes, picks, flakes and cores. Many of the pick-like tools are trihedral (three-sided) or quadrihedral (four-sided) in cross-section. Handaxes recovered from Kokiselei 4 are worked on one or two sides. Animal remains recovered from the site, and probably served as prey to the hominids living here include large-sized extinct hippopotamus, pigs, rhinoceros, horses and a few carnivores like hyenas.
The most intriguing thing to date discovered about Kokiselei 4 was reported in a September 2011 article in the journal Nature. Lepre and colleagues (cited below) argue that the flint debitage and tools recovered from Koliselei 4 clearly include some Acheulean forms. Oldowan tools are thought to represent the earliest form of stone tools, currently associated with the hominid Homo habilis; Acheulean are considered a step up in complexity from them. Further, the date of the artifacts at Kokiselei 4 is roughly coeval with the West Turkana Koobi Fora hominin skull called KNM-ER 3733, thought to represent Homo erectus. Many scholars have argued that Homo erectus is responsible for the development of Acheulean lithic techniques.
However, there are Homo erectus outside of Africa at Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia, between 1 million and 1.8 million years ago. But, they don't have Acheulean hand-axes, which first appear in the archaeological record at two sites in Spain, Solana del Zamborino and Estrecho del Quipar, about 0.9 million years ago, 750,000 years after Homo erectus was using Acheulean in the Lake Turkana region of Africa.
Lepre and colleagues believe that this suggests there may have been two tool-making hominids roaming the earth as long ago as 1.7 million years, one making Oldowan and one Acheulean, and we have an as-yet-unidentified competitor to our ancestor Homo erectus.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Lower Paleolithic, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Harmand S. 2009. Raw Materials and Techno-Economic Behaviors at Oldowan and Acheulean Sites in the West Turkana Region, Kenya. Lithic Materials and Paleolithic Societies: Wiley-Blackwell. p 1-14.
Harmand S. 2007. Economic behaviors and cognitive capacities of early hominins between 2.34 Ma and 0.70 Ma in West Turkana, Kenya. Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte 16:11-23.
Lepre CJ, Roche H, Kent DV, Harmand S, Quinn RL, Brugal J-P, Texier P-J, Lenoble A, and Feibel CS. 2011. An earlier origin for the Acheulian. Nature 477:82-85.
Scott GR, and Gibert L. 2009. The oldest hand-axes in Europe. Nature 461(7260):82-85.
Texier P-J, Roche H, and Harmand S. 2006. Kokiselei 5, formation de Nachukui, West Turkana (Kenya) : Un témoignage de la variabilité ou de l'évolution des comportements techniques au Pléistocène ancien? Actes du XIVème Congrès UISPP, Université de Liège, Belgique, 2-8 septembre 2001. Nanterre: Archaeopress, England. p 11-22.
