Oldowan

American  

[ohl-duh-wuhn, awl-] / ˈoʊl də wən, ˈɔl- /

adjective

Archaeology.

1. of or designating a Lower and Middle Pleistocene industrial complex of eastern Africa, characterized by assemblages of stone tools about two million years old that are the oldest well-documented artifacts yet known.

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Oldowan Scientific  

/ ōl′də-wən,ôl′- /

1. Relating to the earliest recognized stage of Paleolithic tool culture, dating from around 2.5 to 1.5 million years ago and characterized by crude cores of quartz or basalt from which flakes were removed with blows from a hammerstone. Both the flaked cores and the flakes themselves were probably used as tools for such tasks as chopping, cutting, and scraping. Oldowan tools are associated with early Homo habilis sites at Olduvai Gorge, in Tanzania, and other East African locations; they may also have been made by late australopithecines. Oldowan tools show little change during the million years they were in use, and were gradually replaced by the Acheulian tools associated with Homo erectus.

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Etymology

Origin of Oldowan

1930–35; Oldow ( ay ) ( German spelling of Olduvai ) + -an

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Oldowan

The site has produced the oldest known member of the genus Homo and the earliest known Oldowan stone tools on Earth.

From Science Daily ● May 16, 2026

Far thinner and sharper than the Oldowan tools, hand-axes were even better at the cutting, scraping, and chopping tasks for which they were designed.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

That difference shows up when the collection of macaque tools and flakes are compared with tools from Lomekwian or Oldowan sites.

From Scientific American ● Mar. 10, 2023

Scientists had previously thought that Oldowan tools, a kind of simple stone implement, were only used by ancestors of Homo Sapiens, a grouping that includes our species and our closest relatives.

From BBC ● Feb. 10, 2023

It lay intermingled with hammerstones and sharp flakes that Finestone recognized as early Oldowan tools, an ancient technological breakthrough long thought to be a defining hallmark of our genus, Homo.

From Science Magazine ● Feb. 8, 2023