Geospatial Approaches to Ali Toyta 2 (Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia)
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a locality in the Koobi Fora Fm. that has previously been explored to understand intra-site spatial analysis. Results from AT2 show that lithic artifacts are concentrated in close spatial association with the proboscidean remains. The distances between each bone in the excavated locality and the associated stone artifacts are consistently shorter than what is expected under random placement (null model). FxJj50 also exhibits a similar non-random lithic-faunal spatial association. Evidence from FxJj50 suggest a more time-averaged archaeological context. These findings indicate that meaningful spatial structure may be preserved in both high-integrity and palimpsest Early Stone Age assemblages. Here I show that the interrelationship between faunal and lithic elements within an excavation can be quantified and compared between different archaeological contexts. This demonstrates the value of reproducible spatial analysis when testing lithic-faunal association at archaeologically significant, carcass-processing localities.
Ali Toyta 2 (AT2), in the Ledi-Geraru Research Project area of Ethiopia, preserves a rare Early Oldowan (~2.6 Ma) archaeological horizon in association with the remains of a single proboscidean carcass. The locality appears to represent a brief and minimally disturbed depositional event. It offers an unusual opportunity to examine the spatial organization of hominin activity at high spatial and temporal resolution. This study presents a detailed geospatial analysis of AT2, focusing on the spatial relationship between lithic artifacts and faunal remains. This is done using kernel density estimations (KDE) and Monte Carlo simulations of lithic placement under true spatial randomness (null model). KDE maps identify areas of concentrated lithic and faunal occurrence across the excavated surface. Monte Carlo simulation tests whether the observed lithic-faunal distances are closer than would be expected under random artifact placement. To situate these results comparatively, the same general analytical framework is applied to FxJj50
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