Identifying fire in Early Stone Age: A study of site FxJj20 AB, Koobi Fora, Kenya

Summary

Fire use by human ancestors may explain changes seen in Homo erectus and be responsible for the development of later human species. Anthropogenic fire claims in the Early Stone Age (ESA) are disputed because many of these sites are in secondary deposits and contain no association between human behavior and fire evidence. Careful excavation producing high-resolution spatial data, detailed micromorphological analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), and high-resolution spatial analysis can provide more information about the nature of fire evidence in the ESA. FxJj20 AB, Koobi Fora Formation, Marsabit County, Kenya, a locality dated to 1.5 million years ago, is in proximity to FxJj20 East and Main which claim to have the earliest evidence of anthropogenic fire. Here, we document new excavations utilizing multiple lines of evidence to clarify the nature of fire at FxJj20 AB. Micromorphological analysis indicates that the archaeological material at FxJj20 AB is in primary depositional context. FTIR analysis documents that there are in situ archaeological and sedimentary samples that have been exposed to fire. Spatial analysis documents the relationship between burned specimens and human activity. This research was supported by USNSF IRES grant 1358178, DDRIG Grant # BCS-1443339, Wenner Gren Gr 8984, and SSHRC #430-2013-000546.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Fire, Food, Farms, and Fortifications: Recent Advances in the Archaeology of Africa

Keywords

Spatial Coverage