African Middle-Late Pleistocene archaeological sites from the Lower Omo Valley Kibish Formation in Ethiopia are among the very few sites in East Africa that preserved human skeletal remains and archaeological residues in securely-dated stratigraphic contexts. The scarcity of such well-documented paleoanthropological contexts limits anthropologists’ ability to test hypotheses about human origins and evolution in Africa. This section summarizes major findings about the Omo Kibish Formation archaeological lithic assemblages, lists relevant publications, and provides access to source data on the stone tool assemblages.

New excavation, 2003.

The content on this webpage was adapted by Michael J. Timms from the publications marked below with asterisks (*) with the permission of Dr. John J. Shea and the other authors.

Recent Publications on the Archaeology of the Omo Kibish Formation:

*Shea JJ, Fleagle JG, Assefa Z. 2007. Context and chronology of early Homo sapiens fossils from the Omo Kibish Formation, Ethiopia. In: Mellars P, Boyle K, Bar-Yosef O, Stringer C, editors. Rethinking the human revolution. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Monographs. p 153-162.

*Fleagle JG, Assefa Z, Brown FH, Shea JJ. 2008. Paleoanthopology of the Kibish Formation, Ethiopia. J Hum Evol 55:360-365.

*Shea JJ. 2008. The Middle Stone Age archaeology of the Lower Omo Valley Kibish Formation: excavations, lithic assemblages, and inferred patterns of early Homo sapiens behavior. J Hum Evol 55:448-485.

*Sisk ML, Shea JJ. 2008. Intrasite spatial variation of the Omo Kibish MSA assemblages: artifact refitting and distribution patterns. J Hum Evol 55:486-500.

Related Publications:

Brown FH. 1969. Observations on the stratigraphy and radiometric age of the ‘Omo beds’, lower Omo basin, southern Ethiopia. Quaternaria 11:7-14.

Brown FH, Fuller CR. 2008. Stratigraphy and tephra of the Kibish Formation, southwestern Ethiopia. J Hum Evol 55:366-403.

Butzer KW. 1969. Geological interpretation of two Pleistocene hominid sites in the Lower Omo Basin. Nature 222:1133-1135.

Butzer KW, Brown FH, Thurber DL. 1969. Horizontal sediments of the Lower Omo Valley: the Kibish Formation. Quaternaria 11:15-29.

Butzer KW, Thurber DL. 1969. Some Late Cenozoic sedimentary formations of the Lower Omo Basin. Nature 222:1138-1143.

McDougall I, Brown FH, Fleagle JG. 2005. Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature 433:733-736.

McDougall I, Brown FH, Fleagle JG. 2008. Sapropels and the age of hominins Omo I and II, Kibish, Ethiopia. J Hum Evol 55:409-420.

Leakey REF, Butzer KW, Day MH. 1969. Early Homo sapiens remains from the Omo River region of south-west Ethiopia. Nature 222:1132-1138.