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The Hippos-Sussita Excavations Project, under the auspices of The Zinman Institute at The University of Haifa, Israel, was initiated in the year 2000. Since then, an international team has excavated for one month each a year, totaling 15 excavation seasons to date at the site of ancient Hippos-Sussita. The last three seasons yielded some surprising finds that allow us to better understand the Hippos necropoleis, religion, public building complexes and the final stages of a major regional polis devastated by the 749 CE earthquake.

Excavations thus far have unearthed a wealth of Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad structures erected during a period of a thousand years – from the 2^nd century BCE to the 8^th century CE.

From the beginning of the 2^nd century BCE, the land that contains present-day Israel was ruled by the powerful Seleucid kings, rulers of a Greek–Macedonian kingdom that was created from the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. In order to strengthen their hold on the various regions under their imperial rule, they founded new cities to contain a Greek-speaking and Hellenized Syro-Phoenician population that regarded itself as the bearers of Greek culture. From its very inception, Hippos (which means ‘horse’ in Greek) was a polis in all respects. When the Romans assumed control over the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean (from 63 BCE onwards), Hippos became one of the ten cities – the Decapolis – that comprised a particular settlement group which included, among others, Gadara (today Umm Qais in the Kingdom of Jordan) as its southern neighbor, and Scythopolis (today Beth Shean in Israel) to the southeast, on the western bank of the River Jordan. These cities were highly influential centers of Greek culture within a region almost entirely populated by people of Semitic origin. The hostility between a gentile Hippos and a Jewish Tiberias on the opposite side of Lake Kinneret was notorious in ancient times.

During the Pax Romana that extended from the end of the 1^st century BCE until the end of the 2^nd century CE, Hippos enjoyed a long period of florescence and prosperity. Most of the magnificent public buildings, still in evidence today in their ruined state, were erected in the city during that time, such as the forum, basilica, kalybe, temple, odeion, and others.

The Christianization of the Roman Empire in the 4^th century CE did not bypass Hippos. The eight churches built there during the Byzantine period (4^th to 7^th century) are clear proof of the conversion of Hippos and its citizens to Christianity. The Arab conquest in the first half of the 7^th century was not inimical toward the Hippos population, which continued to conduct their lives normally. Among the ruins in Hippos are a few structures and agricultural installations built during the Umayyad period.

But on January 18, 749 CE, the region suffered a violent and devastating earthquake. The damage it caused Hippos was so severe that all its citizens abandoned it, never to return. The dramatic evidence of the violent destruction can still be seen in the ruins today. 

At the end of the First World War (1918), when the British and French marked the borderlines between the Palestine under the British Mandate and Syria under the French Mandate, Sussita Mountain was included within the mandatory borders of Palestine. It is now a part of the modern state of Israel.

The Hippos Excavations Today

Sussita Mountain, upon which the city was built, is located about 2 km east of the shores of the Sea of Galilee, overlooking the lake and the Galilee to its west and the southern Golan Heights to its east. The mountain rises to a height of about 350m above the lake and about 200m above its surroundings, making it a prominent feature in the area. The crest of the mountain is long and narrow in shape, descending slightly from east to west. The length of the crest is about 550m along a southeast-northwest axis and the width is about 150m at the center of the crest.

The mountain is almost cut off from the surrounding area by three riverbeds that flow around it. On the western side, where the mountain slopes toward the Sea of Galilee and its surrounding valleys, an ancient path snakes gradually downward from the mountain crest. In only one place, on the southeast side, is the mountain attached to its surroundings—a natural geologic saddle ridge connecting Sussita with the southwestern slopes of the Golan Heights. It is here that the main road was paved to the east gate, the main entrance to the city.

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Hippos within its geographic context near the Sea of Galilee.

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Sussita Mountain and the Sea of Galilee. View from the Golan Heights (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The Necropoleis

Recent surveys and excavations in the vicinity of Sussita Mountain made it clear that there is much more to be found in Hippos’ necropoleis. We have recently discovered a new necropolis, excavated a mausoleum and exposed the settlement’s first burial tombs with portraiture, affording a better understanding of the world of the dead at Hippos.

During a small-scale excavation south of the Sussita saddle ridge we located a tomb stone in secondary use which most probably originated in the nearby necropolis, south of Hippos. It was the first find of a portraiture of a Hippos man—a roughly depicted bust of a man wearing a toga within an aedicula on a basalt stone, likely dated to between the 3^rd and 4th centuries CE.

The main necropoleis are set on a hill and a wadi just south of Sussita, to the east of the mountain and along the saddle-ridge. It was here that the main road to the city was paved, leading to the main east city gate. A field of sarcophagi, which contains hundreds of hewn rectangular graves and a series of mausolea (elaborate tombs with their upper stories highly decorated), were built along the ridge but did not cross the ditch that was cut in the middle of the saddle ridge. The ditch, though created purely for protective reasons, marks the limit of the urban boundary of Hippos, and it is only from this area and beyond that burial was permitted anciently.

A square mausoleum, 7.5 x 7.5m, was built of basalt ashlars in the Roman period (2^nd century CE) and was in use until the Byzantine period (6^th century CE). The mausoleum consists of a lower vaulted chamber supporting its upper story. The lower chamber was found to include family members’ sarcophagi, and the upper story was highly decorated and seen by everyone crossing the main road toward Hippos. The architectural fragments found here, made of the local basalt, are of superb craftsmanship. The best designed piece found here is a small Ionic corner capital of a pilaster. The rest of the pilaster drums are scattered around the building and down into the nearby wadi. One of several recovered fragments of the sarcophagi lids is made of limestone and features a crouching lion at its crown. We have located some of its remains, mainly the lion’s head, which features a protruding tongue that makes the image perhaps more amusing than threatening.

We hope to one day reconstruct this mausoleum, one of a few dozen that were erected along the main road leading to the city’s main east gate.

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Sussita Mountain as seen from the saddle ridge towards the crest. The mausoleum, the ditch and the round tower area are visible (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The mausoleum on the saddle ridge (photo M. Eisenberg, photogrammetry. E. Gerstein).

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Lion head that adorned sarcophagus lid from the mausoleum (photo M. Eisenberg).

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Y. Vitkalov from Haifa Uni., leaning on an Ionic corner capital of a pilaster from the mausoleum (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The ditch cut in the middle of the saddle ridge. On the left a field of graves.

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The Faunus of Hippos

It is only recently that we decided to embark on excavating the northwestern side of the saddle ridge, in between the major excavation seasons. Our hypothesis was that here were a series of basalt structures which were part of the city’s lower defense system, connected with the ditch above it. In such case, these outworks would have served as protected hangers for the Hippos defenders’ projectiles (catapultae and ballistae alike) against besieging forces advancing on the ancient road to the west. We concentrated our efforts on the southernmost of this series of structures. To date, we have exposed a large round tower with an outer diameter of 10 m, its lower courses built of basalt and the upper ones of limestone. It appears to have been part of a bathhouse complex in its second phase; however, its lower courses have not yet been exposed, so it is too soon to determine if it served as a defensive position in its original plane. A fraction of a ballista ball was found in the towers’ debris. We have located about ten of these in various sizes in Hippos so far, but this stone was unique. It was the only one made of hard limestone—not the usual local basalt. It is probable that this ballista ball was shot by the besiegers and broke upon impact.

As good fortune would have it, perhaps the most surprising find thus far at Hippos was located in this area. While clearing the area to excavate another basalt structure located beneath the ditch, Dr. Alexander Iermolin, head of the conservation laboratory at the University’s Institute of Archaeology, heard a faint humming sound coming from the metal detector he was operating. Whatever it was, it was relatively large for a metal finding, buried just above one of the plaster floors of a large, well-built basalt tower with 2 m thick walls. Exploring further, we pulled out a big brown lump and realized it was a large metal mask. We cleaned it, and began to distinguish some details. Hints of its identity began to emerge when we could see small horns on top of its head, slightly hidden by a forelock. Horns like these are usually associated with Pan, the half-man, half-goat god of the shepherds, music and pleasure. Or it could be a satyr. A more thorough cleaning in the lab revealed strands of a goat beard, long pointed ears, and other characteristics that led us to identify the mask as depicting the Greek god Pan, or his Roman counterpart, Faunus. Pan was worshipped not only in the city temples but also in caves and in nature. This mask is made of bronze, somewhat larger than that of a human face: 30 cm long, 29 cm wide and weighing just above 5.0 kg. Pan’s eyes are widely open and his mouth gapping, in what seems to be a furious and tragic expression. Though there are no masks like this one found dating to the Roman period, similar masks made of terracotta and stone were found and are dated to the 1^st-2^nd centuries CE. The first ceramic evidence from the tower floor where the Pan mask was found are dated to the Early Roman period, 1^st-2^nd century, and it seems this may also be the approximate date of what we are now calling the ‘Faunus of Hippos’.

As the mask was not found in-situ, it is difficult to know for certain where and how it was incorporated, but judging by the location there are several options.

• The mask was set up in a shrine for the worship of Pan.
• The mask may have served as a fountainhead.
• The mask may have served as a burial offering in one of the nearby mausolea.
• The mask may have served as an oscillum. The oscilla (pl.) were small figures or masks hung from trees or in between columns for offerings, worship, or for apotropaic reasons.

It is noteworthy to mention here that the polis to the north of Hippos, Paneas, or Banias, is well known as a worshipping compound to the god Pan, set up within a cave. The polis to the south of Hippos, Nysa-Scythopolis, otherwise known as Beit She’an, was dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility, with whom Pan is frequently associated. The idea of the cult of Pan here at Hippos should therefore not be a surprise. Because the festivities of Pan included drinking, sacrificing and ecstatic worship that sometimes included nudity and sex, rituals for rustic gods were often held outside of the city gates.

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The round tower by the saddle ridge overlooking Sussita Mountain and the Sea of Galilee on the far left (photo M. Eisenberg).

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A. Iermolin unearthing the Pan mask (photo M. Eisenberg).

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N. Shamir, Haifa team member, holding the mask just after it was unearthed (photo M. Eisenberg).

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Author holding the mask just after it was unearthed. This shows more directly the comparative sizes of the mask and a human face. (photo. M. Hecht).

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The mask after it was half way cleaned (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The mask after its full cleaning and before final conservation treatment (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The Roman Basilica

The basilica is the main public building found in every Roman city and is usually erected adjacent to the open plaza of the forum to serve as its roofed alternative when weather conditions made it necessary. The basilica served not only as a shopping area and center for public administration, but also for the tribunal (the seat of the magistrate).

During the most recent seasons, we have almost fully unearthed the basilica at Hippos. Its construction is dated to the end of the 1st century CE and its destruction to a 363 CE earthquake. During the last season, Haim Shkolnik, the area supervisor and his team, found some tragic evidence of the destruction of the basilica. Two skeletons on the northern side of the basilica were discovered with some of the roofing and roof-tiles above, suggesting their demise resulting from the collapse of the roof during the earthquake. One of them, a woman, was still wearing her golden dove-shaped pendant, found near her neck.

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The basilica and the northeast corner of the forum (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The basilica main nave and western aisle with partially reconstructed columns (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The golden pendant in the shape of a dove.

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The Bastion

Hippos’ fortifications system is among the most intriguing and elaborate in the region. Though the mountain is naturally well protected by cliffs and sharp slopes, the defenders, during early Roman times, chose not only to surround the crest with a fortification wall and towers but also built an elaborate outwork system consisting of additional fortification walls, a ditch in the center of the saddle ridge, and a series of adjacent protective artillery posts. Among the defensible features, the bastion is no doubt the most unique and impressive. Built over and protruding from the center of the southern cliff, it is the main defensive and firing position along the southern fortification line of the city. The bastion has a rectangular plan, 47m in length and 8m wide, composed of a series of five vaulted chambers and a tower amongst them that supported each other and created a solid and uniform expanse for the upper fortifications, which did not survive. From here most of the firepower was directed toward the most threatening area for Hippos, which was in the direction of the stream flowing south of the mountain and along which passed the ancient road. The series of vaults and especially the opening built into at least one of the chambers, raises the possibility that they served as defensive positions for the heavy launchers. Such a launcher (ballista) of 8m long could have lunched a basalt ball of about 18 kg to a distance of 350m, and indeed some of those basalt balls have been found nearby.

On the ancient binding material of the bastion rear wall, we noticed to our great surprise a number of imprints that were left by Roman military boots while their owners were walking over the mortar before it had dried. To be more precise, there were several imprints made by the iron nails (hobnails) of caligae soles—the standard footwear of the Roman army from the 1^st century BCE until the beginning of the 2nd century CE (from the ordinary soldier up to the level of centurion). One complete sole imprint was discovered as well as other partial imprints. The complete imprint was 24.50cm long and had 29 round impressions. It was a left foot caliga, approximating a European size 40. During the last season, Adam Pazout and his team exposed the block entrance of the fourth chamber vault and initiated the excavation of the fifth, most eastern chamber vault.

The bastion and its imprints raise the possibility that Roman cohorts or auxiliary stationed in Syria were also in charge of building the bastion. This is an exceptional case and probably occurred during a time of emergency. Such an emergency may have been in connection with the Great Revolt in the Galilee (66-7 CE).

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Aerial view of the bastion.

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The western corner of the bastion over the southern cliff. Y. Vitkalov is pretending to support the basalt beam foundations exposed after the mortar had washed away (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The bastion. A suggested reconstruction (drawn by D. Porotski, V. Pirsky and M. Eisenberg)

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The complete caliga imprint on the rear wall of chamber Vault IV and (b) 3D scanning of its cast (photo M. Eisenberg).

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A. Iermolin, the team’s small finds conservator, holding a 42 minae (18.5 kg.) basalt ballista ball (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The Southern Bathhouse

Like any Roman polis, Hippos had public bathhouses, one of which is located east of the forum. It is not yet excavated. The other lies south of the forum. The southern bathhouse is built over the ruins of the bastion on the southern cliff, enjoying the western breeze and overlooking the spectacular panorama of the Sea of Galilee, the Galilee and the Jewish city of Tiberias on the west side of the lake. While only the palaestra (open court for exercises), natatio (pool) and some caldaria (hot rooms) have been exposed so far, the bathhouse yielded several surprises. During some major renovations of the 3^rd cent. CE, a narrow gap was left between two of the bathhouse walls. In this gap we found hundreds of ceramic vessels and terracotta lamps dating to the mid-3^rd cent. CE, as well as a unique relief in stucco of a Heracles bust. During the last season, while clearing the debris of a collapsed caldarium vault of the 363 earthquake, Arleta Kowalweska, the area supervisor and her team, found part of a Roman statue. It is of superb Roman craftsmanship made out of marble, but is only the right leg of a muscular man leaning against a trunk. The statue must have been above 2m tall but without any additional attributes it would be impossible to identify it as a specific god or athlete. We hope to find more of its pieces in the coming seasons.

We realize now that the 363 CE earthquake left Hippos in its debris for a period of about 20 years. Some of the main public buildings, such as the basilica, odeion and southern bathhouse, were never rebuilt.

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The southern bathhouse looking towards the Sea of Galilee. The palestra, natatio and one of the caldaria are well seen (photo M. Eisenberg).

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A stucco relief bust of Heracles after conservation (photo M. Eisenberg, conservation A. Iermolin).

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Team members Anna and Caro, just minutes after unearthing a piece of a Roman statue at the southern bathhouse (photo M. Eisenberg).

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The Umayyad Caliphate

Hippos’ status as the capital of the region soon disappeared after the Byzantine period. Tiberias (Ṭabariya), on the western side of the lake, became the capital of local province Jund al-Urdunn of the Umayyad Caliphate. The decline in Hippos’ urban life was well felt already during the late Byzantine period (6^th-7^th centuries) and in the 8^th century it was no longer a city, but an industrial town. The public area of the forum, and mainly that of the Hellenistic Compound, turned into an industrial zone. A large winery complex, olive press and large bakery were excavated here. Some other parts of the city were abandoned and the question of whether the famous water supply system was still active during the first half of the 8^th century is being studied. The earthquake of January 18, 749 CE, was the ‘last straw’ for the city’s life. It was abandoned, never again to be re-settled.

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An artistic reconstruction of Hippos during the Roman Period, including the ancient road, the ditch at the saddle ridge and a series of hangars next to it (drawn by D. Porotski, V. Pirsky, M. Eisenberg and A. Regev-Gisis).

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Sussita Mountain is an officially declared national park under the supervision of the National Parks Authority of Israel. Its location along one of the main tourist and pilgrimage routes on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee makes it one of the most prominent archaeological parks in the north of Israel.

The Hippos excavation is an international enterprise, welcoming dig participants from all over the world. For more information about participation, see: http://hippos.haifa.ac.il. See also the Hippos-Sussita Excavations Project facebook page for updates and images.

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Ammaia, Portugal—Today there are only a few visible reminders of this ancient community.  In one place, looking like the dilapidated form of a great, round chimney, what remains of an early 2^nd century AD round tower juts glaringly upward from the corner of an area that features the architectural remnants of what in its heyday must have been an impressive gateway entrance for this long vanished ancient Roman town. It was part of a twin-towered structure known as the Porta Sul, or Southern Gate. Well used during its time, one can still clearly see the ruts in the granite block paving stones of the gate threshold, a testament to the many carts with heavy loads that passed this way into the town almost 2,000 years ago. It would have led the common visitor into an expansive monumental square, or courtyard. Today, not much remains to be seen, compared to the full splendor of its appearance during its heyday. But one can still see the large granite block paving stones, and standing pillar sections defining its perimeter. Nearby are exposed parts of the ancient city wall, and not far away are the visible traces of a great Roman bathhouse and evidence of the core of a temple podium that once supported the temple of the central town forum complex.

The town’s standing ruins, though modest in scale as compared to the great monumental remains of other Roman centers and cities, were noted by Spanish and Portuguese historians in the sixteenth century.  But the name of the town remained a mystery, until Leite de Vasconcelos identified it as Ammaia in 1935 in a paper about an honorific inscription found at the site dedicated to the Emperor Claudius.

Seeing the Unseen

Excavations have been carried out more or less continuously at the site since the early 1990’s. But the excavations could only be limited. The remains of Ammaia sit in protective status within a nature reserve. Thus, the biggest revelations about Ammaia didn’t begin emerging until after 2009, with the launch of the Radio-Past (an acronym for Radiography of the Past) project under the coordinative co-direction of Cristina Corsi of the Universita degli Studi di Cassino, Italy, and Frank Vermeulen of the Universiteit Gent in Belgium. As a marshalling of the collective efforts of a consortium of European institutions, spearheaded by the University of Evora in Portugal, as well as a broad array of experts, Radio-Past approached the site with a non-invasive research strategy, collecting data not as much through traditional excavation as through the application of technology and a multi-disciplinary plan to, in essence, ‘see’ what was hidden beneath the surface without digging it up.

Said Cristina Corsi, co-director of the project, “this project allowed some of the most skilled European specialists of different fields to join their resources and work together on a project that involved theoretical and methodological elaboration, the definition of guidelines for good practice in many fields related to the ‘understanding’ of deserted complex archaeological sites, enhancement of fieldwork and data-capture techniques, sophisticated data-processing, development of innovative visualization techniques and management plans, and training and transfer of knowledge and dissemination at several levels.”

In other words, Ammaia became an open lab for testing an integrated ‘hands-off” approach to archaeological discovery—an undertaking they hoped would become a model for future efforts.  

By applying combined and integrated state-of-the-art techniques of remote sensing, such as laser LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanning, topographical survey with global positioning systems, geophysical surveys using magnetic gradiometry and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), surface surveys of artifacts, as well as ‘ground truthing’ of the applications through systematic, limited targeted excavation and artifact analysis, the researchers were able to develop a set of data to visually reconstruct the ancient town as it existed in its time. What they found was a town that appeared to have been carefully planned or developed over time, including:

—a wall circuit that enclosed the town proper;

—the main road network leading into and outside of the town;

—necropoleis outside of the town, as well as industrial, production centers or sectors in the suburban outskirts;

—the street grid system within the town, at least some of which likely featured flanking, streetside porticoes with tabernae  and arcades;

—in amazing detail, the reconstruction of the main public places and monuments of the town, including the forum and its temple, the public baths, and the southern gate and its associated square; and

—the town block plans, with their houses and shops.

“What we can see through the “radiography of the subsoil” is a town carefully planned, according to a regular grid,” stated Corsi. “In different sectors we have been able not only to distinguish easily all essential walls, floors and even columns, but also other meaningful linear structures, such as local aqueducts or drainage systems, and the associated basins, fountains, impluvia or cisterns, and sometimes even ovens, cooking installations and hypocausts, the “heating systems” of Antiquity.”*

The payoff was clearly extraordinary. But there was more.

With the data obtained, the team was able to create images and an interactive, video reconstruction of the town using high resolution digital processing, visualizations and interpretation.

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Aerial view of Ammaia, showing some excavated areas. Courtesy Radio-Past

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View of the Porta Sul, or Southern Gate complex, as excavated. Courtesy Radio-Past

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Ground level view of the Porta Sul. Courtesy Radio-Past

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Temple remains in the forum area of Ammaia. Courtesy Radio-Past

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Some of the remains of the forum, as excavated. Courtesy Radio-Past

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Aerial northwest overview rendering of reconstructed town of Ammaia. Courtesy 7reasons

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Southwest view rendering of the city wall. Courtesy 7reasons

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Rendering of the South Gate of the city wall. Courtesy 7reasons

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Rendering of the internal view of the South Gate. Courtesy 7reasons

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Street view of the south part of the city. Courtesy 7reasons

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The forum and its temple. Courtesy 7reasons

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Internal view of the Basilica. Courtesy7reasons

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Internal detail of the baths. Courtesy 7reasons

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East part of the baths. Courtesy 7reasons

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Clarifying the Place of Ammaia in History

In addition, according to Corsi and her colleagues, the continuing study and analysis of archaeological finds and the archaeological record have further elucidated the significance and historical context of Ammaia.

“Analysis of the archaeological record collected so far allows us to propose for Ammaia a foundation during the Principate of Augustus, possibly in the last years of the first century BC or the very beginning of the new Era,” writes Corsi.*

In an expanding empire, Ammaia was established as a settlement that would function as a center from which the surrounding land and resources would be exploited, strategically placed at the junction within a road network that connected the inner and coastal areas of the new Roman province of Lusitania. It continued to flourish during the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries CE, but then gradually declined and fell to abandonment after the 5^th century. “Recent excavations have shown that some parts were already covered by floods and slope deposits during the Late Antique period,” states Corsi in a recent publication* But in its heyday, it must have served as an important mid-sized economic and cultural center for citizens of the Roman province, as testified by the remains of a typical Roman forum complex that characterized the center of the town, along with its monumental temple and nearby bath complex and the monumental gate, public square area at the entrance to the town, and extensive urban residential structures, tabernae, arcades and shops. As the town is largely absent from the ancient historical sources, it has thus only been through archaeological investigation and the recent application of the non-invasive technologies and resulting state-of-the-art visualization techniques that have informed the re-discovery of this important site, placing it on the map of Roman civilization during the Imperial period. 

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 Ammaia and the Future of Non-invasive Archaeology

Perhaps most importantly, Radio-Past’s work at Ammaia has represented a new model for archaeologists and other researchers looking to tease the detailed information they need from archaeological sites around the world, particularly in terms of expanding our knowledge of the past without incurring the enormous costs and physical destruction of the sites that have traditionally been required.

“For the first time a complete Roman city was investigated and virtually reconstructed based mostly on the results of non-invasive investigations,” said Cornelius Meyer of Eastern Atlas GMBH & Co. KG, a major player in the project. “The result is not only of scientific interest, but it can be directly used for the wider public, as well.”

Adds Corsi, “It is proof that astonishing knowledge can be acquired about ancient settlements without excavation, and that the non-specialist public can enjoy and share this knowledge, thanks to digital technologies.”

Corsi, Vermeulen, and Meyer and their colleagues thus hope that, beyond the obvious contributions that technology-based, non-invasive approaches can make to archaeological research and the scholarly community, it can open up a whole new world, like a visual time machine, for anyone who wants to virtually ‘see’ the past with accurate graphic clarity.

What is next for Radio-Past? Meyer of Eastern Atlas spelled it out:

“We are planning to work at other ancient cities, where predominantly non-invasive strategies for their investigation will be applied,” he said. “In June and July of 2015 we will work on a research project together with Barcelona University on the Roman town of Pollentia (Mallorca); and another project will involve the investigation of the Hellenistic site of Sikyon in the northern Peloponnesus in Greece, a joint project with the University of Kiel and the Danish Institute at Athens.”

Interested readers can see Radio-Past’s website for more information about their work and projects.

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The partners involved in the Ammaia project include the Universidade de Évora, the Universiteit Gent, the British School at Rome, the University of Ljublijana, Past2Present, 7reasons, and Eastern Atlas

The project was funded by the European Union from the 7^th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development under the action scheme FP7, Marie Curie/People IAPP 2008. 

*Ammaia, A Roman Town in Lusitania, publication presented by Radio-Past (Radiography of the Past), 2013

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The El Mirón Cave in the Cantabrian Mountains of northern Spain strikes a dramatic presence, commanding a scenic view of the lush green, mountain-framed upper valley of the Ason River far below. For the ancient human hunter-gatherers who once sojourned here tens of thousands of years ago, this was a convenient and strategic living space. From here, they could view some of their game below them, such as red deer herds migrating in the summer from the coastal plain to take advantage of the high altitude grass. The cave’s solid rock walls and high, dry vestibule would have afforded them good protection from the rigorous elements without.  

Humans no longer camp here as they once did. Humanity has moved on. But a few archaeologists, students, and other scientists regularly pay their visits, and like their predecessors tens of thousands of years ago, they are also making their living by hunting and gathering—though their ‘prey’ and methods are something of a very different sort. Lawrence Straus of the University of New Mexico is one of those scientists. Along with colleague Manuel Gonzalez Morales of the Universidad de Cantabria, he has been exploring the El Mirón Cave since 1996.

“No one had ever done any work there since it was scientifically identified as a site in 1903, as archeologists believed it to be totally disturbed,” says Straus. “It was being used to stable goats. In 1995 I persuaded my old friend and colleague, Prof. Manuel Gonzalez Morales that we ought to conduct a test excavation in it, which we began in 1996.”

Since then, their findings have revealed a veritable gold mine of human occupation. El Mirón contains a long, essentially complete cultural sequence beginning with the late Middle Paleolithic through the early Bronze Age, dated using as many as 84 radiocarbon assays.  Among the features and finds are rock art engravings and especially rich Magdalenian and Neolithic occupation levels. Within the Neolithic alone, according to Straus, is “the oldest evidence of wheat agriculture, domesticated animals and ceramics in northern Atlantic Spain”.

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Above and below: Views of El Mirón Cave, from within and without. Excavations in the El Mirón Cave have yielded a cultural sequence of Late Mousterian, early Upper Paleolithic, Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Medieval period occupation. The research has provided new insight on the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition, the phases of the Magdalenian culture, the emergence of the Neolithic in the Atlantic zone of Spain, and the beginning of metal age cultural complexity. Image courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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The mouth of El Mirón Cave, with L.G.Straus. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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View from inside El Mirón Cave looking at Pico San Vicente in the Cantabrian Mountains (ca. 1000 m. above sea level). Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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View from El Mirón Cave of Pico San Vicente and the second range of the Cantabrian Cordillera and the upper part of the Rio Ason Ruesga Valley. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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Straus and Morales suggest that the cave served as a seasonal camping spot for Paleolithic hunter-gatherers during the summer or warmer seasons of the year, taking advantage of the migrating game and other resources that the Cantabrian mountainous area and its river valleys afforded. This was particularly evident in the finds.

“El Mirón has one of the longest and most complete sequences for the Magdalenian in Iberia,” says Straus. Evidence from the site for this period/culture of human occupation stems from a series of C14 [radiocarbon] dates, paleoenvironmental and subsistence data, evidence for seasonally-patterned occupation and mobility and possible trade based on the presence of non-local flint, and possible stylistic or cultural differences among different groups or hunting bands based on striation-engraved red deer scapulae with red deer images possibly “linking Mirón to such coastal Lower Magdalenian sites as Altamira,” says Straus. Archaeologists were also able to determine the pattern of site use and spatial organization within the large vestibule area of the cave.

The Red Lady

From the analysis of the excavated evidence, researchers have been able to tease a picture of Lower Magdalenian culture and behavior. It depicts a people who used tools and weapons made from both local and non-local stone as well as from antlers and bones—a people who hunted ibex and chamois in the higher elevations and red deer in the Ason river valley below, where they also fished for salmon—a people who built fire pits, butchered carcasses, ate the meat and the plants they gathered, processed hides, bone marrow and grease from the animal remains, and made clothes and moccasins.

But perhaps the most tantalizing discovery came when they encountered red ochre-stained bones in a natural depression in the rear of the cave living area. They were found within a 1-meter-wide space between the cave wall and a large block of stone. They were human, dated to about 18,700 calendar years BP, deposited in a way that suggested intentional burial—an unusual find, particularly as the archaeological record thus far has suggested that the Magdalenians rarely buried their dead in the caves where they lived.

“When one is digging in the burial layer, it is not only red, but it sparkles with thousands of crystals,” said Straus. He was speaking of specular hematite crystals, which created the curious sparkle. “They specially prepared this ochre, which came from an outcrop over 20 km from the cave, despite the presence of other, local ochres in occupation layers of the cave.”

Further analysis of this burial feature and the bones revealed that the remains had been disturbed by a wolf or other canine at some point not long after initial burial, as suggested by gnaw marks on a tibia. Later, according to the analysis, the cranium and all long bones (except the tibia) had been removed, presumably by human occupants for a secondary burial or other purpose. The mandible, tibia and some other bones were re-stained with red ochre and, along with all other bones, remained in place where they had been originally buried. The bones were that of a female, about 35-40 years old, robustly built and in good health. She ate ibex, red deer, salmon and other fish, and mushrooms and other plants. “Chenopod pollen are abundant right in the center of the burial layer, perhaps because small yellow flowers were placed in the grave or because she had eaten a lot of Chenopod seeds in her last meal and they were in her stomach at death,” said Straus.

Perhaps most significant about the burial was the presence of features that suggested something more than a simple, quick interment.  

Said Straus, “the burial seems to have been “marked” by engravings—a multi-line V that could represent a pubic triangle, and other signs that could possibly be hands—on a huge stone block that had fallen from the cave ceiling only a few centuries before the burial. The block fell around 19,600 cal. BP, the burial was made in the meter-wide space between the block and the vestibule rear cave wall around 18,700 cal BP, and the sloping, smooth, west-facing surface of the block was engraved more or less contemporaneously with the burial. The “rear”, east face of the block with the corpse’s back up against it was stained with red ochre to a height above the burial layer, then the block and its west-face engravings were gradually covered over by occupation layers dating to the later Lower, Middle and Upper Magdalenian and post-Upper Paleolithic periods. The engravings may well have to do with the burial and even mark it, especially if the ‘V’ was indeed a female “signifier”.” In addition, according to the published report of the findings, there were lines engraved on the bedrock lower wall and ledge against which the body had been laid behind the stone block.

Straus notes another curious feature of the ‘grave’:  “Given the huge, west-facing mouth of the cave, the sunlight hits the engraved face of the block—which is located a distant 30 meters from the entrance—at the end of the afternoon.” 

Was this a human grave containing a person who was perhaps revered or respected by her family or contemporaries?

The evidence appears to suggest it. Straus states that the burial findings indicate “a complex, no doubt ritualized sequence of events”, not typically found in the prehistoric deposits of human remains.  As he and other study authors report in a recently published paper in the online Journal of Archaeological Science:

Although lacking in clear grave offerings, the amounts of red ochre on the bones and in the burial infilling and the apparent association with rock art (both engravings and red ochre on the block against which the corpse’s back had probably rested), the evidence points to a ritualized interment, different from, but equally impressive as such famous primary burials of Magdalenian age and cultural affiliation on the territory of France as Duruthy, Saint-Germain-la-Riviere, La Madeleine, Laugerie- Basse, Bruniquel, or Chancelade*

In any case, within the context of other finds at El Mirón, the ‘Red Lady’, as the red-ochre-stained burial subject has been aptly named, helps to paint a picture of a people who managed a living more than 18,000 years ago as hunter-gatherers in the cold, open environment of the Ice Age Oldest Dryas (much like an Alpine valley of today), and who likely regarded and related to each other in much the same way as we do today. In and around the cave, “they ate, sang, danced, told stories, reproduced, laughed, cried, slept … and they died.”*

And then there was this one, special burial.

Straus and colleagues would be the first to say that they will never know the full truth of what was happening in this space, but the available archaeological evidence, including lines in stone, could give clues for reasonable hypotheses.

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Inside the cave: The cave vestibule with excavation areas. Burial is out of the photo at center left behind block. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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Inside the cave: Excavation in the burial area behind the engraved block. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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The Red Lady burial, with mandible, clavicle, gnawed tibia, red ochre-stained sediment and east face of block. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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The Red Lady burial, with mandible, tibia, red-stained sediment and east face of block, rocks atop more skeletal remains. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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The Red Lady mandible. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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Looking Ahead

Straus stresses that there is much more to do before additional conclusions can be drawn about El Mirón and its place in understanding the ancient Lower Magdalenian culture. Research will revolve around questions concerning the lithic technology, faunas, human settlement subsistence systems, mobility, trade, site occupation functions, seasonality, palynology, and further study of site features such as pits, walls and hearths, including the red ochre found on the east face of the stone block.  But “most importantly,” said Straus, “we want to see completion of the DNA analyses by Dr. Svante Paabo’s team on the Red Lady to determine the genetic role of human populations that had survived the Last Glacial Maximum in southern France and Iberia in the subsequent (Magdalenian-age) resettlement of northern and Northwest Europe.”

Thus, El Miron stands to play a critical role in advancing what we know about the Lower Magdalenian culture and its environmental context. But some tantalizing questions will likely never have answers.

“At the end of the day, we are left with a mystery,” concludes Straus. “Who was the “Red Lady” of El Miron and why was she given such special treatment after her death?”

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Profs. Manuel Gonzalez Morales (Universidad de Cantabria) and Lawrence Straus (Univ. of New Mexico) excavating the El Mirón Cave Red Lady Magdalenian burial. Courtesy Lawrence G. Straus

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Co-directing this research is Professor Manuel Gonzalez Morales (Universidad de Cantabria in Santander), with the osteological study of the Red Lady skeleton organized and spearheaded by Prof. Jose Miguel Carretero (Universidad de Burgos, a member of the Atapuerca research team).  Funding has been provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Geographic Society, LSB Leakey Foundation, the Regional Government of Cantabria, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education, the Marcelino Botin Foundation, the University of New Mexico and the UNM Fund for Stone Age Research.

The detailed study is published as a special issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science (guest edited by L.G.Straus, M.R. Gonzalez Morales and J.M. Carretero): “The Red Lady of El Miron Cave: Lower Magdalenian Human Burial in Cantabrian Spain”. The issue features 13  articles, all of which are now available on-line and released in a hard -copy version during the summer of 2015.

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*Straus, L.G., et al., “The Red Lady of El Miron”. Lower Magdalenian life and death in Oldest Dryas Cantabrian Spain: an overview, Journal of Archaeological Science (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.02.034

Just west of Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya, the rocky, arid terrain of the desert badlands, like a southern New Mexico landscape, can wear a hiker down very quickly. Without ample water supply, dehydration becomes one’s worst enemy. Temperatures typically vary between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit with little available shade. Venomous snakes and scorpions abound. Malaria is not uncommon among those who live and work here. For Sammy Lokorodi, a local Turkana tribesman who is a resident of these parts, this is a familiar and livable landscape. He is also, among other things, a fossil and artifact hunter. As an integral part of scientific field expeditions, he has been specially trained by experience to see and excavate fossils and artifacts that likely could be millions of years old, teasing them from a surrounding matrix of desert rock and soil that, to anyone with an untrained eye, would make them unrecognizable. On any given day, this would be routine for Lokorodi.

But one day in 2011, while working as a member of the field team for the West Turkana Archaeological Project (WTAP), he found himself front-and-center in a discovery that would end up raising new questions with far-reaching implications about the human evolutionary past. 

“Our project has been working in this region of northern Kenya for 20 years, and in 2011 we made a plan to survey for early stone tools in very old sediments,” said Dr. Sonia Harmand, a French archaeologist and co-director of the WTAP project field team. “So on the morning of July 9,” she continued, “we were on the way to a particular survey zone, where Meave Leakey and her team found a hominin skull back in 1999.”

While driving in a dry riverbed, Harmand and her party came to a point where it branched off to the left and to the right. They chose the left branch. In time they could see, however, that they were off course. They were lost—but, as she and her colleagues soon discovered, they were lost in a very fortuitous way. 

“Something was really unique about this place,” she said. “We could tell that this zone had a lot of hidden areas just waiting to be explored. So for an hour before teatime, while trying to head back to the main channel, we surveyed around and spotted a few strange rocks on the surface. We surveyed around a bit more intensely, and that’s when Sammy Lokorodi, one of our Turkana team members, called us over to the site where we found these oldest stone tools.”

A New Stone Tool Industry

“Oldest stone tools” turned out to be the operative phrase in this discovery. What they found, over two field seasons spanning 2011 and 2012, was an assortment of simple stone tools that exhibited characteristics unlike any they had ever seen before. In some ways they resembled the simplest stone tool industry known to date—that of the Oldowan, first discovered by Louis Leakey in the 1930’s at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Those tools consisted of simple cores, choppers, scrapers, awls and burins made of quartz, quartzite, basalt, obsidian, flint and chert. Early humans produced them by striking a core stone on the edge with a hammerstone to produce a conchoidal fracture with sharp edges that could be used for a variety of functions, such as cutting meat. In some other ways, however, these newly found artifacts differed. By experimenting with the same stone material to replicate what they had found, the researchers concluded that these objects were something altogether distinct from that of the Oldowan. The “lithics (cores and flakes) are significantly larger in length, width, and thickness” than the Oldowan-type tools discovered at many other sites in eastern Africa, noted Harmand and her colleagues. “The dimensions and the percussive-related features visible on the artifacts suggest the hominins were combining core reduction and battering activities and may have used artifacts variously: as anvils, cores to produce flakes, and/or as pounding tools. The use of individual objects for several distinctive tasks reflects a degree of technological diversity both much older than previously acknowledged and different from the generally uni-purpose stone tools used by primates [such as using stones exclusively to crack open nuts].” The arm and hand motion employed in the production of the tools were somewhat less sophisticated than that employed in producing Oldowan tools, the researchers observed. “The “knappers’ understanding of stone fracture mechanics and grammars of action is clearly less developed than that reflected in early Oldowan assemblages……… the assemblage could represent a technological stage between a hypothetical pounding-oriented stone tool use by an earlier hominin and the flaking-oriented knapping behavior of later, Oldowan toolmakers.”*

In other words, what Harmand and her colleagues were looking at was an entirely new stone tool industry, previously unknown to the science. And though simpler or more “primitive” than that of the Oldowan, these were clearly not made or used by chimpanzees or some other primate. The “artifacts indicate that their makers’ hand motor control must have been substantial and thus that reorganization and/or expansion of several regions of the cerebral cortex (for example, somatosensory, visual, pre-motor and motor cortex), cerebellum, and of the spinal tract could have occurred,” stated Harmand and colleagues in the research report related to the discovery.*

By the end of the 2012 season, the artifact assemblage totaled 149 lithic objects in all, including “83 cores, 35 flakes (whole and broken), seven passive elements or potential anvils, seven percussors (whole, broken or potential), three worked cobbles, two split cobbles, and 12 artifacts grouped as indeterminate fragments or pieces lacking diagnostic attributes.”*  They assigned them to a new lithic tool industry, the ‘Lomekwian’, named after the hill site where they were initially found, Lomekwi 3, or LOM3.

How were these stone tools used?

“This is the key question everyone is still trying to answer,” says Harmand. “Early members of our lineage surely first began making tools to solve a problem, but what problem that was remains unclear. Maybe they needed sharp flakes to cut or otherwise process new food resources, whether animal or vegetal. Maybe they were using the cores to pound open nuts or bones. In any case, this development was important because it represents the ability to modify our environment, to imagine tools that aren’t naturally there and make them from available raw materials, and use those tools to solve problems and better survive.”

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The mapped location of the Lomekwi site, just west of Lake Turkana in Kenya. Courtesy West Turkana Archaeological Project

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The Lomekwi site area is not unlike an American Southwest landscape. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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A general view of the excavation site. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Sonia Harmand excavating a stone tool find. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Sonia Harmand examines a stone tool, just unearthed. To the untrained eye, it looks like any stone, but to the scientists who know how and where to look, it bears the unmistakable signs of having been intentionally worked by hand in antiquity. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Project directors Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis examine and compare stone tools just unearthed. How old are they? Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Before Oldowan

Though the finds were tantalizing by themselves, none of them would be more significant without their context in time.

The team called on Christopher Lepre, of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, to take a look at the contextual sediments of the finds. Arriving one week after the initial discovery, he collected samples of sediments from a series of different depths associated with the artifact locations. Returning to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory lab at Columbia University, he worked closely with Dennis Kent to cut the samples into sugar cube-size blocks and place them into a magnetometer. This measured the polarity of key grains of minerals within the sediment known as hematite and magnetite, a record of the time periods in the past when the Earth’s magnetic field reversed itself. “We essentially have a magnetic tape recorder that records the magnetic field … the music of the [earth’s] outer core,” said Kent.

Comparing their measurements with the already-known chronology of those changes going back millions of years, they were able to determine the dating of the artifacts.

The results: These stone tools were between 3.33 and 3.11 million years old. That made them the oldest stone tools ever found.

Moreover, scientists were able to develop a picture of the environment in which the toolmakers must have lived. They did this by studying carbon isotopes in the sediments, conducting forty-seven isotopic analyses on eleven paleosol samples using a Micromass Optima mass spectrometer. They also examined the animal fossils recovered at the site.

What they found was surprising: These tools were fashioned in a partially wooded, shrubby environment. Not a dry savannah. It belied the broadly accepted evolutionary paradigm that toolmaking emerged at least in part due to adaptation by early humans to the spread of the dry, savannah grassland environment, analogs of which can still be seen today in the modern east African landscape.

The implications of these findings were enormous. It meant that there was a group of hominins living in a partly wooded, shrubby land who made simple stone tools before the Oldowan, the earliest examples of which were dated to about 2.6 million years ago and thought to have been made by hominins in the Homo line (more directly ancestral to modern humans) in a dry, savannah-like landscape. 

So who were the Lomekwian toolmakers?

“It is unclear at the moment who the most likely maker of the tools was,” said Jason Lewis of Rutgers University, a lead researcher and lead author of the study. “We can be fairly certain it was a member of our lineage and not a fossil great ape, as modern apes have never been seen knapping stone tools in the wild. Which of the members of our lineage it was, however, remains to be determined. The most likely possibilities include Kenyanthropus platyops (the fossils of which are from just a few hundred meters from the LOM3 site), Australopithecus afarensis [the species best known through the famous Lucy discovery], or an as-yet undiscovered early member of the genus Homo.”

Kanyanthropus platyops, fossils of which were first discovered in 1999 by Justus Erusas, a member of the expeditionary team led by Meave Leakey, is considered by many scholars to be a hominin species that lived 3.2 – 3.5 million years ago in the Lake Turkana region. It is not yet certain whether Kenyanthropus belongs with the Homo genus or the Australopithecus genus, but its discovery has added to the growing consensus that there may indeed have been multiple species, and perhaps even multiple genera, of hominins living at roughly the same time. Early humans and their proto-human cousins may have been a diverse lot. 

And there is already arguable evidence that even more primitive tool production and use was taking place even before LOM3. In 2009, a team of researchers at the site of Dikika in Ethiopia discovered 3.39 million-year-old animal bones featuring slash marks and other cut marks, evidence of intentional de-fleshing. It is considered the earliest possible evidence of hominins consuming meat and marrow. Although no tools were found at the site, it was clear that the marks were made by either sharp-edged stones or more finely crafted stone tools.

Who were the possible hominins responsible for the Dikika cut marks? Fossil remains of Australopithecus afarensis are (as of this writing) the only hominin fossils found in the area of Dikika dated to the same time period.

In any case, even if/when any additional hominin fossils are discovered at or near the LOM3 site, certainty about the identification of the toolmakers may continue to be elusive. As Lewis states, “it is extremely rare to be able to pinpoint what fossil species made which stone tools through most of prehistory, unless there was only one hominin species living at the time, or until we find a fossil skeleton still holding a stone tool in its hand.”

Most important of all, the LOM3 findings may require a re-thinking of what constitutes the ‘evolutionary divide’ between Homo, the genus that gave rise to us—Homo sapiens—and the more ape-like proto-human precursors known as the australopithecines.

“The idea was that our lineage alone took the cognitive leap of hitting stones together to strike off sharp flakes and that this was the foundation of our evolutionary success,” said Lewis. “This discovery challenges the idea that the main characters that make us human, such as making stone tools, eating more meat, maybe using language, etc, all evolved at once in a punctuated way, near the origins of the genus Homo. If the makers of the LOM3 tools were australopiths or some other non-Homo species, then that tells us some of these main traits were important for our lineage’s survival before the origins of Homo. If they were made by an even earlier and as-yet unknown member of the genus Homo, that’s a different but equally interesting story, in which our genus evolved half a million years before, and in response to completely different natural selective pressures, than we currently think.”

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Chris Lepre of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (back to camera) precisely dated the artifacts by analyzing layers above, around and below them for reversals in earth’s magnetic field. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Above and below: A stone tool in situ, in the process of being excavated. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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Sammy Lokorodi, who first found the Lomekwi 3 site. Courtesy MKW and West Turkana Archaeological Project

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The Earliest Homo?

Hundreds of kilometers to the northeast of Lomekwi, another tantalizing new discovery was being made that, like the LOM3 finds, would push back the clock and raise new questions about human evolution. Along with a team of scientists led by Arizona State University’s Kaye E. Reed, ASU graduate student Chalachew Seyoum was conducting an assigned surveying task on a fossil-bearing hill in the Ledi-Geraru area of the Afar region of Ethiopia on January 29^th, 2013. Something had attracted his attention on that day.

“After I climbed up the plateau,” he recalled, “I saw three molars sticking out of the sediment. I sat down and looked at it, and then I picked at it. There were three molars intact with a piece of mandible [lower jaw bone].”

Examining the find further, he could see that there was a “fresh break”, a place where it had been broken away from the body of the rest of the fossil. Thinking that perhaps it was nearby, he began to search for it. “Eventually I found the other piece and I pieced them back together. They fit perfectly. We found more broken pieces of a crown in the same spot.”

The initial discovery led to dry sieving, and the team was able to piece together a relatively ‘complete’ partial 8- cm.-long mandible with five intact teeth, representing the left side of a lower jaw.

Analysis of the fossil, led by Brian Villmoare and William H. Kimbel of ASU’s Institute of Human Origins, revealed features such as slim molars, symmetrical premolars and an evenly proportioned jaw, characteristics that have distinguished species of the Homo lineage from the more apelike characteristics of Australopithecus, the genus of which one species is suggested by many scholars to have been a forerunner of the Homo genus. Yet some features of the Ledi-Geraru mandible, such as a more primitive, sloping chin morphology, is similar to that of the Australopithecines.

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Close-up view of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible close to where it was sighted. Credit: Kaye Reed

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Detailed map of where the Ledi-Geraru site is located in reference to other important fossil sites in Ethiopia. Courtesy Erin DiMaggio

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Site, geography, and geological stratification where the fossil partial mandible was discovered. Courtesy Villmoare, et al.

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A caravan moves across the Ledi-Geraru project area near the early Homo site. The hills behind the camels expose sediments that are younger than 2.67 million year old, providing a minimum age for the mandible. Courtesy Erin DiMaggio

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The best reasoning among the scientists of the team led them, at least for now, to a significant conclusion—the mandible came from a Homo. “We have a jaw with teeth that preserves enough anatomy to be quite confident that it does represent an early part of the Homo lineage,” said Kimbel.

Until this discovery, the earliest credible fossil evidence of the Homo genus was dated to about 2.3 or 2.4 million years ago, as represented by the fossil mandible HCRP-UR 501 (see image below), found by the German paleoanthropologist Friedermann Shrenk at Uraha, Malawi. HCRP-UR 501 has been identified as belonging to Homo rudolfensis, an early Homo species that lived roughly contemporaneous with Homo habilis around 2 million years ago.

Could this partial mandible be as old as that? Or even earlier?

Pushing Back the Clock

To date the find, Kaye Reed’s team used multiple dating methods, including radiometric analysis. Geologists Dr. Erin DiMaggio of Penn State and Dominique Garello of ASU took volcanic ash/tuff samples from the layers just above and below the position where the fossil was found at the site. Returning to the lab with the samples, they then used argon 40/39 dating, a high-precision radiometric dating method that measures the decay through time of different isotopes of argon within the ash/tuff. With this, they were able to calculate the ages of nearby associated ancient volcanic eruptions, determining the youngest and oldest dates when the Homo individual could have lived.

The results, according to DiMaggio, “all show that the hominin fossil is 2.8 to 2.75 million years old.”

That made the Ledi-Geraru find the oldest Homo fossil ever found. It predated the earliest known Homo find by about 400,000 years. If the finding holds, the discovery would be nothing less than remarkable. 

“In spite of a lot of searching, fossils on the Homo lineage older than 2 million years ago are very rare,” says Villmoare. “To have a glimpse of the very earliest phase of our lineage’s evolution is particularly exciting.”

Moreover, Reed’s team was able to determine the environment in which this early Homo must have lived. The variety of 2.8 – 2.75-year-old animal fossils found in the area indicated that the ancient landscape inhabited by the Homo individual was an open habitat of mixed grasslands and shrub lands with a gallery forest—trees lining rivers or wetlands, likely similar to African locations like the Serengeti Plains or the Kalahari.

“We can see the 2.8 million-year-old aridity signal in the Ledi-Geraru faunal community,” said Reed.

This was significant because some researchers have suggested that global climate change during that time created an environment of climate variability and aridity, triggering evolutionary changes in many mammal lines, including early humans. “But it’s still too soon to say that this means climate change is responsible for the origin of Homo,” says Reed. “We need a larger sample of hominin fossils and that’s why we continue to come to the Ledi-Geraru area to search.”

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Geologists Dr. Erin DiMaggio of Penn State (left) and Dominique Garello (ASU, right) sample a volcanic tuff near the early Homo site in the Ledi-Geraru project area. Credit J. Ramón Arrowsmith

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Homo Who?

The next million-dollar question related to the identity of the species to which the fossil could be assigned. Was it Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, or something else?

It is much too soon to say, according to the scientists. More information is needed, not the least of which would be more fossil finds. Nevertheless, according to Villmoare, “what is special about this jaw is not only the date, which is much older than any specimen of Homo known until now, but that it has a unique combination of traits, from the height of the mandible to the shape of the teeth that make it clearly transitional between Australopithecus and Homo,” said Villmoare. “It would not be a direct ancestor, but we are arguing that the population from which this mandible came is ancestral to later Homo, which was in turn ancestral ultimately to us. So it is on our lineage fairly deep.”  

Like most research in this area, discovery and study are producing far more questions than answers. But clues and signs are beginning to emerge that may help paint a picture of human evolution at the “evolutionary divide” between the more ape-like Australopithecines and our more directly ancestral Homo line.

“The fossil record in East Africa between 2 and 3 million years ago is very thin,” says Villmoare, “and there are relatively few fossils that can inform us about the origins of the genus Homo. However, this is one of the most interesting periods in human evolution, because during this poorly- known period, humans made the important transition from the more ape-like Australopithecus to the more modern adaptive pattern seen in Homo.”

“We’re beginning to narrow the time,” added Kimbel, “not only as to the origin of the Homo lineage, which now predates 2.8 million, but to the time when it is likely that these two separate lineages of early Homo could have evolved…….the precise nature of the transition, for example whether it was a gradual transformation along a lineage, or a rapid divergence of lineages, or whether the early changes in the teeth and jaws were accompanied by changes in other systems, such as brain, or technology—these things are unknown still.”

The research team plans to continue their search for additional Homo fossils in the area of the find, hoping to shed additional light on the specimen and ultimately determine a suggested species designation. 

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Close-up images of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible, as seen from different angles and perspectives. Courtesy William Kimbel

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Going Forward

For Sonia Harmand and her team at the Lomekwi site, the remarkable stone tools found west of Lake Turkana, like the Ledi-Geraru fossil finds in Ethiopia, will likely have much more to say about the hominins who inhabited eastern Africa during the critical transition between Homo and Australopith some three million years ago. 

“We are in the process of looking at the surfaces and edges of the tools under microscopes and with laser scans to try to reconstruct how they were used, and [we are] also studying the sediment in which they were found to search for trace elements or residues of any possible plant or animal tissues that could be left on them after use.” Moreover, says Harmand, the site is still under excavation, with many more stone tools left to unearth.

Perhaps most significant of all, the Lomekwi scientists, like the Ledi-Geraru scientists, suggest there is an even older horizon to be discovered. 

“The Lomekwi tools are sophisticated enough that they are likely not from the first time a hominin tried to knap a stone tool,” concludes Harmand.  “We think there are older, even more rudimentary stone tools out there to be found, and we will be looking for them over the coming field seasons.”

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*Harmand, Sonia, et al., 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya, Nature, Vol. 521, 21 May 2015.

Quotations related to the Lomekwi finds were sourced from interview questions posed by Popular Archaeology to Jason Lewis and Sonia Harmand of the West Turkana Archaeological Project, Turkana Basin Institute, and from subject press releases by the project participating institutions.

Quotations related to the Ledi-Geraru find were sourced from transcripts of the subject AAAS press conference conducted on March 4, 2015 in Washington, D.C.

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