THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE MUGURUK SITE, WESTERN KENYA (EAST AFRICA, PALEOLITHIC, PLEISTOCENE, STONE TOOLS, LITHIC TECHNOLOGY)

At the end of the middle Pleistocene period in subsaharan Africa Homo erectus populations were replaced by archaic members of our own species, Homo sapiens. This work examines stone artifact manufacturing techniques from a stratified East African locality of this period, the Muguruk site.;Over 98% of the artifacts at Muguruk are manufactured in Miocene Ombo phonolite which crops out at the site. A radial technique of flake production remained essentially unchanged throughout the site's occupation, and a significant proportion of all three Muguruk assemblages contain a Levallois component. Differences between the Sangoan-Lupemban and Middle Stone Age are found in the kinds of retouch applied in tool manufacture, although retouched pieces make up only 1.9% of the total of 14,817 artifacts recovered at Muguruk. Scrapers and retouched flakes in the Sangoan-Lupemban also feature bifacial and alternate retouch, while artifacts in these categories from the Middle Stone Age samples rarely exhibit this feature.;Whether the makers of the Muguruk industries were late members of the species Homo erectus or early members of our own species is unknown. Their behavior indicates a deep conservatism in the retention of the radial flake production technique throughout the sequence, combined with innovativeness in the acceptance of new methods of formal artifact retouch.;Deposits at Muguruk consist of 12 meters of fluvial sediments which are broken by nine stratigraphic gaps and three episodes of soil development. Three major levels of artifact accumulation occur at Muguruk, one Sangoan-Lupemban and two Middle Stone Age. Bifaces, inlcuding large heavy handaxes and finely made lanceolate points, are present in the Sangoan-Lupemban assemblage, while these are absent from the Middle Stone Age samples.