MELKA KONTOURE
(Melka Kunturk)
Lo CATION
Series of exposures (dozens of individual localities)
spread out along some 5-6 km of the banks of the
Awash River at Melka Kontoure, some 50 km S of
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
DISCOVERY
The various Melka Kontoure localities (archaeological
and paleontological) were discovered at different
times. The first discovery was in 1963 by G. Dekker,
and new localities continued to be worked through
the mid-1970s.
MATERIAL
Two hominid cranial fragments from the locality of
Gombort I1 (Chavaillon et al. 1974; Chavaillon and
Coppens, 1975); three from Garba 111. Partial
subadult mandibular corpus from Garba IV, distal
humerus from GomborC IB (Chavaillon et al. 1977).DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
The 30-m sediment column at Melka KontourC
consists mostly of fluviatile sands and muds, with
interspersed volcanics (e.g., Chavaillon, 1973, 1979;
Westphal et al., 1979). According to the paleomag-
netic studies of Westphal et al. (1979), the exposures
run in age from about 1.7 Ma on the lower river ter-
races to about 100 Ka on the highest terraces, with
the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary located fairly
high in the sequence and the end of the Olduvaisubchron just above its bottom. The Gombort I1
locality lies stratigraphically just above a paleomag-
netic change from reverse to normal polarity that
was thought by these authors to mark the lower
boundary of the Jaramillo subchron. They thus
dated this locality to somewhere in the period from
1.08-0.83 Ma. The Garba IV locality is believed to
be generally similar in age.ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
The many Melka Kontourt archaeological sites have
yielded abundant lithics, ranging from Oldowan
through the Late Stone Age (Chavaillon and Chavail-
lon, 1969; Chavaillon, 1973, 1979; Piperno
et al. 1978). In all, some 30 living floors were exca-
vated throughout the sequence. The Garba localities
yielded lithics from Oldowan through Middle Stone
Age; the Gombort localities produced Oldowan
through Middle Acheulean. Of the hominid localities,
GomborC I1 is middle Acheulean, and Garba I11 is
latest Acheulean, with rare Levallois elements. Gom-
bore IB is early in the sequence, yielding an Oldowan
tool kit.PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
There is surprisingly limited literature on the Melka
Kontourt hominids. The large Gombore I1 parietal
fragment has been described as that of a Homo cf.
erectus (Chavaillon and Coppens, 1975; see also
Chavaillon et al., 1973), as has the juvenile mandible
from Garba IV. The Gombort IB humerus was172