Mysterious Fist-Wedge Factory Olorgesailie

Olorgesaille is the name of an inhospitable area near the Kenyan Ngong Mountains. In 1919, the geologist J.W Gregory made a curious discovery on the approximately four-hectare site: the ground there was littered with thousands and thousands of stone tools made by the early ancestors of Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus. How did they get there, and why were there so many?

Aceuleén Stones - The Swiss Army Knife of Homo Erectus - History and distribution of the fist wedges

This stone tool was developed about 1.5 million years ago by Homo Erectus (a little earlier also by other hominid species), the predecessor of Homo Sapiens in Africa. They were drop-shaped fist wedges. They were made by working one stone with another. They replaced the previously used Oldowan tools. These were hardly machined, blunt, and no larger than a hand.

The Acheuleén stones themselves were the most prominent product of the so-called Acheuleén culture, but the waste they produced was processed into tools with unique functions.

For example, sharp-edged chippings were further machined into tools that were used as scrapers and for other purposes.

The Acheulean stones were named after the place where they were first found. It was the small town of St. Acheul in France. The representatives of Homo Erectus who emigrated from Africa had brought their tools with them to Europe.

The hand wedges found in France date back to 600.00 years ago, whereas the production of hand wedges in Kenya demonstrably began 1.5 million years ago. It is only since St. Acheul was discovered earlier that it was named after a whole cultural epoch and not Olorgesaille.

The spread of this early technology presented science with some puzzles for a long time, because although the prehumans had penetrated far into Asia in the course of their migrations, no corresponding finds of their tools were found in these regions for a long time.

The so-called Movius line represented a puzzling boundary. All over Africa, from Europe to India, Acheuleén tools were detectable. East of a border running through India, however, these tools did not seem to exist at all.

Meanwhile, this mystery is partly solved, since one could finally find Acheuleén stones on the other side of this border. They were found in China as well as in the Philippines. It remains to be clarified why, on the other hand, they still could not be proven on Java, although their creators also settled there.

Fist wedges of more primitive design were found there, but not the more sophisticated Acheuleén tools, which had been available to Homo Erectus for a long time at that time.

Fist wedges in mass production - What was the purpose of the massive overproduction?

Science has succeeded in many things: It discovered the Acheuleén culture, unerringly assigned it to our ancestor Homo Erectus, reconstructed the migratory movements of this early hominid species and even determined the age of the artifacts left behind by it.

One question, however, does not seem to be conclusively answered: What prompted Homo Erectus to do nothing else in the same place over a period of a million years but produce masses of hand wedges?

Why are the testimonies of this mass production still today free and completely scattered in the area where they were once produced? What would our ancestors have used all these fist wedges for?

Maybe we have to assume it was some kind of hobby. It seems to be an absurd idea to attribute such seemingly meaningless leisure activities to our ancestors, who concentrate on bare survival, but why not?

If their brains were similar to ours, it would come as no surprise that Homo Erectus would have felt joy and satisfaction in performing an activity that he mastered well.

Perhaps he understood the production of his fist wedges as an expression of his cultural identity.

Much is conceivable, and ultimately, nothing can be proven when it comes to fathoming the motives of our ancestors for their actions. Science is always good at answering questions about how and when, but not at conclusively explaining why.