Credited to Tanzania. The Oldowan is named for Olduvai Gorge, where the tools were first recognized and classified, but the industry was made by early hominins across much of Africa and the oldest known Oldowan tools are not from Tanzania. Still older flaked stones, dated to 3.3 million years ago, come from Lomekwi 3 in Kenya.
How it began
The term Oldowan is taken from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where the first tools of this kind were discovered by the archaeologist Louis Leakey in the 1930s. Mary Leakey named the industry after the earliest stone tools excavated from the gorge between the 1930s and the 1960s and was the first to create a system to classify the assemblages. Deliberate, fully controlled stone flaking emerged with the Oldowan by about 2.6 million years ago, and the industry was made across much of Africa.
How it works
Oldowan tools were made by striking flakes from a core with a hammerstone, mostly from water-rolled pebbles of volcanic rock. The knappers struck near the edge of the stone, chose a platform angle of less than 90 degrees and hit the core with a glancing blow. Cobble cores may have served as heavy tools, but the makers were most likely after the sharp-edged flakes. Some flakes were retouched along the edge, and hammerstones were also used to break bones for marrow.
What changed first
Current thinking is that the sharp flakes gave hominins access to meat for the first time, which gave them an adaptive edge and allowed for brain growth in later evolution. The industry is attributed mainly to Homo habilis, although australopithecines or another species of Homo may also have made the tools.
What lasted
The Oldowan is conventionally said to end about 1.76 million years ago, when the Acheulean industry with its handaxes replaced it, though Oldowan-style tools continued to be made throughout human history. Olduvai Gorge has yielded the most detailed record of stone tool cultures in the world, from Oldowan choppers through Acheulean handaxes to the small blades of the Later Stone Age.
