1.9-million- and 2.4-million-year-old artifacts and stone tool-cutmarked bones from Ain Boucherit, Algeria.

East Africa has provided the earliest known evidence for Oldowan stone artifacts and hominin-induced stone tool cutmarks dated to ~2.6 million years (Ma) ago. The ~1.

The first evidence of cut marks and usewear traces from the Plio-Pleistocene locality of El-Kherba (Ain Hanech), Algeria: implications for early hominin subsistence activities circa 1.8 Ma.

The current archaeological data on early hominin subsistence activities in Africa are derived chiefly from Sub-Saharan Plio-Pleistocene sites. The recent studies at El-Kherba (Ain Hanech) in northeastern Algeria expand the geographic range of evidence of hominin subsistence patterns to include the earliest known archaeological sites documented in North Africa. Dated to 1.

Human skull from the Taza locality, Jijel, Algeria.

Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1990 in prehistorically inhabited caves sites in the Taza locality along the eastern Algerian coast. Recovered materials included stone and bone artifacts, faunal remains and a single human skull (Taza 1). A radiocarbon date for the upper cave level from which the skull was found was 16,100 B.

Further research at the Oldowan site of Ain Hanech, North-eastern Algeria.

Further investigations were carried out at Ain Hanech, Algeria in 1998 and 1999 to explore its potential for investigating early hominid behavioral patterns and adaptation. Research concentrated on the stratigraphy and dating, identifying new archaeological deposits, and excavating the Ain Hanech and El-Kherba localities. To enhance the chronological control within a biostratigraphic framework, the Ain Boucherit fossil-bearing stratum, yielding a Plio-Pleistocene fauna, is correlated with the regional stratigraphy.