COURSE TOPICS

Over 2.5 million years ago in Africa proto-humans discovered how to fracture stone and create sharp-edged tools. With this initial technological discovery, a trail of our ancestors' litter and refuse began to accumulate on the ancient landscape. Archaeologists have been able to study these stone tools and other traces of past human behavior as clues to the ways of life that have characterised human ancestors at different stages in the past. AFRICA is the only continent where we can study a complete record of Stone Age materials from the very beginnings of stone technology.

This course is called the "Earlier" Prehistory of Africa because it focuses on human origins and evolution in Africa during the STONE AGE. We will explore:

HUMAN ORIGINS ARCHAEOLOGY

• background to the evolution of early hominid species;
• basic stone tool technology;
• the major Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites;
• Olduvai Gorge as a detailed case study in method and theory

ACHEULIAN ADAPTATIONS

• why handaxes?!
• examples of how the survival strategies of Homo erectus and archaic Homo can be reconstructed in different regions.

TRANSITIONS TO MODERN HUMANS

• the Middle Stone Age and the Late Stone Age
• how "human" were they? fossil, genetic and archaeological evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens