• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Meet us
    • Open days
    • Virtual tours
    • Upcoming events
    • Applicant days
    • Meet us in your country
    • Chat to our students
    • Ask us a question
    • Order a prospectus
    • Our campuses
    • Our four campuses
    • Accommodation options
    • Our halls
    • Helping you find a home
    • What you can study
    • Find a course
    • Full A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Our academic departments
    • How to study with us
    • Undergraduate application process
    • Postgraduate application process
    • International student application process
    • Apprenticeships
    • Applying through Clearing
    • Transfer from another university
    • Fees and financial support
    • Undergraduate finance
    • Postgraduate finance
    • Our funding and support options
    • Supporting you
    • Your wellbeing
    • Student support and guidance tutors
    • Study skills support
    • Careers and employability
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Trees in front of two slatted fences which meet in the middle of the photograph - the SECP banner
Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics
  • What we do
  • Join us for study, work or visit
  • Who we are
  • What we do
    • What we do
    • Research and enterprise projects
  • Research and enterprise projects
    • Research and enterprise projects
    • Protest camps and climate activism
    • Cityscapes of Violence in Karachi
    • Migrant Journeymen from Afghanistan: Taxis, Life and Making Tracks in Britain
    • Mental Disorder: Anthropological Insights
    • On Kandahar Street: Afghan migration to Singapore and the British Straits Settlements in the mid to late nineteenth century
    • Outer space as environment
    • Peasant Resistance, Food Sovereignty, and Human Rights
    • Homer in the laboratory
    • cli-MATES
    • Growing Heritage: The politics of heritage vegetables
    • Evaluation cultures in the political risk industry
    • FutureCoast Youth
    • IKETIS The mediation of climate change induced migration
    • Indebted-entanglements
    • The Isimila stone age project
    • Babochka
    • Ecological crisis, sustainability and the psychosocial subject
    • YOUR world research - Insecurity and uncertainty
    • The People's Pier
    • Emergent Authorities
    • Formulating implicity: contemporary feminist activism and critique in a neoliberal context
    • Here today: moving images of climate change
    • Mediating climate change
    • Power in outer space
    • Problems of participation
    • Landscapes of authority, affect and public memory
    • Race, Place and the Seaside: Postcards from the Edge
    • social-ecological resilience of a waterside community in changing water conditions
    • The happiness project
  • The Isimila stone age project

The Isimila stone age project

East Africa has long been associated with the origins of a number of hominin species, including our own genus Homo c. 2.3mya, and a material culture record now stretching back almost 3.3 million years. What is not so well known or documented is the Palaeolithic archaeology or behavioural record of hominins located outside the Rift Valley. One major Stone Age site, called Isimila, is located within a korongo (erosion gulley) on the Iringa plateau in Tanzania and has long been recognised as a site of international importance for understanding the behavioural complexity and plasticity of our hominin ancestors.

One of the primary reasons for the importance of Isimila is the unique artefact record for a site outside the Rift Valley system present in both primary and secondary contexts consisting of thousands of handaxes - including enigmatic giant handaxes. Despite the international significance of Isimila, the archaeology, chronology, taphonomy and geomorphology of the site remain poorly understood, and in urgent need of re-examination.

The Isimila Stone Age Project is an international research collaboration led by Dr James Cole (University of Brighton) and Co-investigated by Dr John McNabb (University of Southampton), Dr Martin Bates (University of Wales Trinity St David) and Dr Pastory Bushozi (University of Dar es Salaam). The project was formed in order to revisit the famous Stone Age site of Isimila located on the Iringa plateau, Tanzania, close to the East African Rift Valley with a modern research focus and methodology.

Ismilia

Project timeframe

The project will runs from March 2014 to March 2017.

The project is funded by

  • University of Brighton
  • Society of Antiquaries
  • Quaternary Research Association
society-of-antiquities-logo

QRA-logo

Museum-site-stich

Project aims

In order to try and resolve the issues of chronology at Isimila, the project team collected 16 sediment samples through the range of stratigraphic contexts present at the site. The purpose of collecting the sediment samples was to enable a series of dating analyses through techniques such as Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and post-IR infrared stimulated luminescence (pIRIR-SL). These analyses are still being processed and we will update these pages once we have the results.

In addition to trying to resolve the chronological questions surrounding Isimila, the project team also undertook a small raw material analysis study led by Dr John McNabb and funded through a small grant from the Society of Antiquaries, (London). The purpose of this study was to analyse the lithologies of raw material outcrops within a 5km radius of Isimila against a sample of Isimila handaxes using Portable X-Ray Florescence (PXRF). The aim was to identify potential raw material sources that may have been exploited by past hominins in the Isimila landscape. This in turn would shed light on past hominin raw material exploitation strategies, planning depth and the range of hominin movements. The results are still undergoing analysis and will be updated as the project progresses.

Ismila-2
Isimila-Panaorama

Project findings and impact

The project is in progress, with a completion date of March 2017. Key results and links to publications will be added here as the project progresses.

Research team

Dr James Cole (University of Brighton)

Dr John McNabb (University of Southampton)

Dr Martin Bates (University of Wales Trinity St David)

Dr Pastory Bushozi (University of Dar es Salaam)

Dr Amandus Kwekason (National Museum of Tanzania)

Dr Phillip Toms (University of Gloucestershire)

Professor Geoff Duller (Aberystwyth University)

Professor David Nash (University of Brighton)

 

Output

The project is in progress. Papers that provide context to the research and mentioned above include:

Barham, L., Tooth, S., Duller, G. A. T., Plater, A. J., & Turner, S. (2015). Excavations at Site C North, Kalambo Falls, Zambia: New Insights into the Mode 2/3 Transition in South-Central Africa. Journal of African Archaeology, 13(2), 187-214.

Cole, G. H., & Kleindienst, M. R. (1974). Further Reflections on the Isimila Acheulian. Quaternary Research, 4, 346-355.

Duller, G. A. T., Tooth, S., Barham, L., & Tsukamoto, S. (2015). New investigations at Kalambo Falls, Zambia: Luminescence chronology, site formation, and archaeological significance. Journal of Human Evolution, 85, 111-125.

Hansen, C. L., & Keller, C. M. (1971). Environment and Activity Patterning at Isimila Korongo, Iringa District, Tanzania: A Preliminary Report. American Anthropologist, 73(5), 1201-1211.

Harmand, S., Lewis, J. E., Feibel, C. S., Lepre, C. J., Prat, S., Lenoble, A., Roche, H. (2015). 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature, 521, 310-315.

Howell, C. F. (1955). A preliminary Note on a Prehistoric Donga (Maclennan's Donga) in Central Tanganyika. The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 10(38), 43-52.

Howell, C. F. (1961). Isimila: A Palaeolithic Site in Africa. Scientific American, 205(4), 118-129.

Howell, C. F., Cole, G. H., Kleindienst, M. R., & Haldemann, E. G. (1962). Isimila, an Acheulian occupation site in the Iringa Highlands, Southern Highlands Province, Tanganyika. Paper presented at the Musee royal de l’Afrique Central

Howell, C. F., Cole, G. H., Kleindienst, M. R., Szabo, B. J., & Oakley, K. P. (1972). Uranium-series Dating of Bone from the Isimila Prehistoric Site, Tanzania. Nature, 237, 51-52.

Kelley, H. (1959). Bifaces de Dimensions Exceptionelles. Paper presented at the Compte Rendus du Congres Prehistorique, Monaco.

Kleindienst, M. R., & Keller, C. M. (1976). Towards a functional analysis of handaxes and cleavers. Man, 2, 176-187.

McBrearty, S. (1978). The Isimila Site and the Status of East African Paleolithic Research. Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, 10, 25-46.

Spoor, F., Gunz, P., Neubauer, S., Stelzer, S., Scott, N., Kwekason, A., & Dean, C. M. (2015). Reconstructed Homo habilis type OH 7 suggests deep-rooted species diversity in early Homo. Nature, 519, 83-86.

van Riet Lowe, C. (1951). A New African Acheul Stage IV Site in Tanganyika. The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 6(24), 94-98.

Partners

University of Southampton

University of Wales Trinity St David

University of Dar es Salaam

National Museum of Tanzania

University of Gloucestershire

Aberystwyth University

Project funded by:

University of Brighton

Society of Antiquaries

Quaternary Research Association

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19
  • The Student Contract

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents