Origin and cultural evolution of Homo erectus in East Africa

The disappearance of the earliest human culture, the Oldowan, and its substitution by a new technology, the Acheulean, is one of the main topics in modern Palaeolithic Archaeology. Recent research has established that the Acheulean emerged originally in East Africa around 1.7-1.6 million years ago, and from that area expanded across the rest of Africa, Europe and parts of Asia. However, despite the great relevance of the Oldowan- Acheulean transition, little is known about the biological and cultural evolutionary mechanisms underlying this process. Traditionally, it has been assumed that this major cultural change was ignited by the emergence of a new human species, Homo ergaster/ erectus, and that there was a steady technological evolution during the Oldowan that eventually led to the emergence of the Acheulean handaxes. However, these assumptions are not grounded in the current available evidence, but rooted in cultural-history paradigms that should now be superseded.
Eastern Africa is the region where the earliest Acheulean is first found, and where the traditional view of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition has been established. Most research projects focus on one single site or archaeological sequence in one country, whereas transnational projects with multidisciplinary scopes and wide, far-reaching objectives are rare. Our project aims to solve this problem by conducting a comprehensive research program across eastern Africa, based on the retrieval of fresh data derived from new laboratory and fieldwork research. The multidisciplinary character of our project is providing an integrative perspective to the analysis of the paleoecology, archaeology, geology and geochronology of the early Acheulean and Homo erectus in eastern Africa. Using an innovative theoretical perspective that combines interests in cultural change, ecological adaptations, and biological evolution, and state-of-the-art methods in archaeology, geology, and taphonomy, this project aims to achieve a full picture understanding of the evolutionary processes that led to the emergence of Homo erectus and the Acheulean, the longest lasting culture in the history of humankind.