Acheulean Sites at Makuyuni (Lake Manyara, Tanzania): Results of Archaeological Fieldwork and Classification of the Lithic Assemblages

This study focuses on the previously marginally known Middle Pleistocene culture in the surroundings of Makuyuni village, located east of Lake Manyara (northern Tanzania) in the East African Rift System (EARS). Recent surveys resulted in the discovery of 56 new sites. Besides the discovery of Middle Stone Age (MSA)/Later Stone Age (LSA) artifacts and exclusive fossil sites, 45 sites yielded varying amounts of Acheulean artifacts that were recorded and collected during the survey. The majority were surface finds, with additional artifacts retrieved from test excavations. Based on technological and chronological classification, the vast majority of the assemblage was attributed to the Middle Acheulean, with a few artifacts dated to early Late Acheulean. Chronometric dating places the Makuyuni finds to between 630,000 and 270,000 years BP, with the majority of artifacts belonging to an earlier period between 630,000 and 400,000 years BP. A key result is the discovery of artifacts at the contact zone between the lacustrine (lower) and the terrestrial (upper) member of the Manyara Beds, which allows a stratigraphic attribution of the artifacts for the first time. It suggests that hominins exploited the landscape along the shoreline of the paleolake Manyara during the early Middle Pleistocene.