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The appearance of the Acheulean is one of the hallmarks of human evolution. We explore patterns of site function, mobility and hominin landscape use, all of which may be suggestive of a depth of planning in early Acheulean hominins wherein technological activities were undertaken in substantial anticipation of future needs. Other inter-site lithic proxies further complement these patterns in LCT variability.

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Certain sites exhibit the full reduction trajectory while others exhibit only fragments of this trajectory. These sites have ranges of LCT forms which appear to represent different but overlapping stages on a single reduction trajectory. Four sites at Koobi Fora appear to represent a single system of lithic economy, characterized by a discrete tra-jectory of changes in LCT size and shape. Our study demonstrates that when multiple contemporaneous early Acheulean localities are analysed together, a broader picture of LCT variability is elucidated.

The expansive lateral exposures of fluvial and lacustrine sediments, as well as the associated tephrostratigraphy of the Koobi Fora Formation provide the landscape context that enables these comparative analyses. We characterize this variation using both 3D geometric morphometric and descriptive approaches. Here we provide a synthesis of early Acheulean LCT variation in a landscape context by analysing assemblages from four different quasi-contemporaneous (~1.4 Ma) sites from the Koobi Fora Formation. The origins and production patterns of large bifacial cutting tools ('LCTs') e the marker of the Acheulean techno-complex e and the systematic changes in this behaviour through time are gaining increasing interest in paleoan-thropology. Fernando Diez-Mart ın its initial appearance at ~1.7 Ma, the Acheulean was prevalent through a vast chronological span of hominin behavioural evolution that lasted nearly 1.5 million years. This reinforces the idea that subtle functional parameters must be taken into account in our current assessment of the Developed Oldowan/Acheulean interface.

The technological behaviours observed in SHKE, in the frameworkof the SHK complex, confirm that the complex web of inter-assemblage variability during Bed II times operated also in very close fractions of the same palaeo-landscape. The main technological trait of the lithic assemblage from this level is the preservation of a qualitatively significant sample of large flakes and LCTs. The high percentage of small lithic remains and bones, large number of fresh archaeological materials, and the identification of several refit sets support the integrity of the anthropogenic accumulation documented in Level B2.

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The archaeological sequence at SHK Extension, consisting of three archaeo-units, preserves a high-density patch of lithics and fossil bones (Level B2), on an overbank setting, isochronous with the SHK Main site. On the basis of the archaeo-stratigraphical analysis performed, mainly geared towards defining high-resolution chrono-stratigraphical frameworks within the deposit, we report the results of a technological study of the lithic collection sorted by archaeo-units, an assessment of the integrity of the main accumulation and an exhaustive lithic refitting programme. The paper describes the stratigraphy of the site and its correlation with our excavation in SHK Main Site, showing that overbank archaeological accumulations in both areas are synchronous and form part of the same fluvial palaeo-landscape. In this paper, we present the results of new archaeological and geological research carried out in SHK Extension, a new site excavatedwithin the SHK fluvial complex (Bed II, Olduvai Gorge). SHK Extension: a new archaeological window in the SHK fluvial landscape of Middle Bed II (Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania).

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