Archaeological sites The simple hierarchy of scientific places for Koobi Fora is the following: Koobi Fora is the region; the region is divided into fossil collecting areas (e.g., Area 102, 103, 140, etc.); within fossil collection areas there are archaeological sites (e.g., FxJj 1, FxJj 10, etc.) and hominin palaeontological localities, which are usually named after the National Museum of Kenya accession number assigned to the important bones found. For example, in Area 131 hominin skull KNM-ER 1470 was found. The fossils found here, including all the non-human ones, are assigned to the 1470 locality. Locating and referencing the hundreds of sites in the Koobi Fora region has been an ongoing process. The entire reservation was divided into somewhat over 100 numbered areas. When there were only a relatively few sites it sufficed to locate them with pinpricks on aerial photos and reference them by stating the area. The archaeologists, such as
Glynn Isaac, developed a co-ordinate system. A site acquired a tag consisting of a 4-letter co-ordinate identifier, such as FxJj, which refers to a small section at the intersection of x and j within a larger section at the intersection of F and J, followed by the number of the site: FxJj 82 refers to the 82nd site within FxJj. In the year 2000 the KFRP went over to a
GPS system and has been trying to correlate the pinpricks to its data. Fossils are labelled with a KNM (Kenya National Museums) accession number, assigned on no other basis than the order in which it was assigned. The number may be preceded in scholarly literature by KNM, KNM-ET or KNM-ER, where ET and ER stand for East Turkana and East Rudolf, respectively, or just plain ER. Some notable areas are as follows. • Area 105 The first archaeological site, i.e., FxJj 1, was found in Area 105. It is nicknamed the KBS site for Kay Behrensmeyer Site, after
Kay Behrensmeyer, the researcher who first found stone tools there. This site is also the place where the first tuff was found, i.e., the KBS Tuff. • Area 131 Known as the location of Skull 1470, which was discovered by
Bernard Ngeneo in 1972, reconstructed by
Meave Leakey, and later reconstructed and named
Homo habilis by
Richard Leakey as possibly the first of the genus
Homo. Then
Homo rudolfensis was found by Richard Leakey below the 1.89 million year old KBS tuff; thus, it is older than that date, but is conventionally dated to it.
Fossil finds Searching for and finding fossils in such a large area is difficult. One solution has been to organise all persons present into a group to sweep a designated area. Richard Leakey devised a method that produced better results: he organised and trained a search team of Kenyans, which became known as "the
hominid gang", under the leadership of
Kamoya Kimeu—"hominid" was then the term used for the present-day meaning of "hominin". They found the majority of the 200-plus hominin fossils discovered to date. Koobi Fora is perhaps best known for its specimens of the
genus Homo, but those of the genus
Australopithecus also have been found. The following
species are represented:
Australopithecus and
Homo seem to have coexisted in African regions for several hundred thousand years. One possible explanation is different food sources. It appears that the Australopithecus genus evolved in eastern Africa around 4 million years ago before spreading throughout the continent and eventually becoming extinct somewhat after 2 million years ago.
Stone tools Large quantities of stone tools have been found at Koobi Fora both on the surface and in caches, which have dates of their own, but are seldom in association with hominins. No other candidates for their manufacture have been found, however. The tools are
Olduwan and
Acheulean. The Koobi Fora community has devised the following terminology to describe three local industries: The initial archaeology, experimental archaeology, and scientific analysis of the tools were performed by J. W. K. Harris, Nicholas Toth and Glynn Isaac. Harris and Braun report their line of investigation: According to the analysis, the conduit became more efficient between KBS and Karari Olduwan; that is, hominins obtained more of a return for a given output of energy and could do more. The chief technological development was the edge. The KBS utilised ".977 cm of edge per gram of mass", but the Karari utilised "2.4 cm of edge", etc., an advantage obtained through a "core reduction strategy"; that is, more and thinner flakes per mass of cores. This "flake production model" made possible a better "flake utility model." More and better flakes meant better utilisation of carcasses and therefore a need for fewer carcasses, less hunting, etc. Moreover, the increased number of flakes available made ranging farther from the source of the stone possible and endowed more staying power to the hunt. ==Stratigraphy==