The Çanakkale-Balıkesir Coastline Palaeolithic Survey Project covers the Çanakkale and Balıkesir coastlines of the Aegean. It aims to reveal Palaeolithic assemblages and their connection to the surrounding islands—primarily Lesbos. In 2021, four important findspots were detected on the Çanakkale coastline, and more than 500 lithics were uncovered, exhibiting the characteristics of large cutting tools, as well as pebble and prepared core technologies. These tools attest to the presence of hominins along the Çanakkale coastline during the Lower Palaeolithic.

The Ceprano human calvarium, dated around 400,000 yr, is a well-known fossil specimen. It represents significant evidence of hominin presence in the Italian peninsula during the Middle Pleistocene and may be considered representative of an archaic variant of the widespread and polymorphic species Homo heidelbergensis. Since its discovery (March 1994), systematic surveys in the Campogrande area near Ceprano, central Italy, identified 12 localities (CG1-12) with archaeological and/or paleontological assemblages. On this basis, fieldwork was carried out at Campogrande between 2001 and 2006, including drilled cores and excavations, allowing a detailed description of the stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental context associated with the human fossil specimen and the archaeological materials. In the present paper we focus on the stratigraphy and sedimentological features of the uppermost deposits, coupled with a detailed appraisal of the available lithic assemblages that mostly belongs to overlying sediments (CG9 and CG10 localities). We conclude that the Ceprano hominin died in a floodplain environment with a low topographic gradient, where a fluvial meandering channel occurred. The archaeological materials describe a network of sites that document common behavioural features of human groups of the mid-to-late Middle Pleistocene, representing evidence of the regionalization observed across Europe after Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 12.

A better understood chronological framework for the Middle Pleistocene of Britain has enabled archaeologists to detect a number of temporally-restricted assemblage-types, based not on ‘culture historical’ schemes of typological progression but on independent dating methods and secure stratigraphic frameworks, especially river-terrace sequences. This includes a consistent pattern in the timing of Clactonian and Levalloisian industries, as well as a number of handaxe assemblage types that belong to different interglacial cycles. In other words, Derek Roe’s hunch that the apparent lack of coherent ‘cultural’ patterning was due to an inaccurate and inadequate chronological framework was correct. Some variation in handaxe shape is culturally significant. Here we focus on twisted ovate handaxes, which we have previously argued to belong predominantly to MIS 11. Recent discoveries have enabled us to refine our correlations. Twisted ovate assemblages are found in different regions of Britain in different substages of MIS 11 (East Anglia in MIS 11c and south of the Thames in MIS 11a), the Thames, and the MIS 11b cold interval separating the two occurrences. These patterns have the potential to reveal much about hominin settlement patterns, behaviour, and social networks during the Middle Pleistocene.

Excavations from 2013 to 2015 at the site of Shishan Marsh 1 (SM1) in the Azraq Basin of eastern Jordan have yielded substantial late middle Pleistocene lithic assemblages in association with faunal remains. Faunal preservation is poor, but multiple taxa have been identified, including cf. Panthera leo, Gazella sp., Bos cf. primigenius, Camelus sp., Equus spp., cf. Stephanorhinus hemitoechus, Palaeoloxodon cf. recki, and Elephas cf. hysudricus. The overall Azraq habitat may have been most similar to a savanna ecosystem, with a mixture of open grassland/shrub habitats and more closed vegetation along the wetlands margins. These taxa were drawn to the relatively lush oasis environment, where they were a dietary resource of the hominin groups exploiting the wetlands resources.

One of the unsolved ‘paradoxes’ in prehistoric archaeology is that of the gap between the considerable advances in human biological and cultural evolution during the Lower Palaeolithic period, and the over one million years of ‘stagnation’ of the Acheulean handaxe. Most of the research on this topic has focused on innovation – why it was delayed or failed to take place – while overlooking the fact that innovation had occurred in many other fields during the same period. We suggest that practical, social, and adaptive mechanisms were in force in certain areas of human behaviour and led to enhanced innovation, while conservatism was preferred in handaxe technology and use. In this study we emphasise the dependency of Acheulean groups on calories obtained from large mammals, and especially megafauna, as well as the central role of handaxes in processing large carcasses. It is our contention that the handaxe’s role in Acheulean adaptation was pivotal and it thus became fixed in human society, probably through the psychological bias towards majority imitation, which subsequently became a social norm or tradition. In brief, we suggest that the technological persistence of the Acheulean handaxe played an adaptive role that was based on a preferred cultural conservatism and led to the successful survival of Lower Palaeolithic populations over hundreds of thousands of years in the Old World.

The role played by the Arabian Peninsula in hominin dispersals out of Africa has long been debated. The DISPERSE Project has focused on south-western Arabia as a possible centre of hominin settlement and a primary stepping-stone for such dispersals. This work has led to the recent discovery, at Wadi Dabsa, of an exceptional assemblage of over 1000 lithic artefacts, including the first known giant handaxe from the Arabian Peninsula. The site and its associated artefacts provide important new evidence for hominin dispersals out of Africa, and give further insight into the giant handaxe phenomenon present within the Acheulean stone tool industry.

Bed II is a critical part of early Pleistocene Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Its deposits include transitions from humid to more arid conditions (with associated faunal changes), from Homo habilis to erectus, and from Oldowan to Acheulean technology. Bed II (~ 1.8–1.2 Ma) is stratigraphically and environmentally complex, with facies changes, faulting, and unconformities, making site-to-site correlation over the ~ 20 km of exposure difficult. Bed II tuffs are thinner, less evenly preserved, and more reworked than those of Bed I. Five marker tuffs (Tuffs IIA–IID, Bird Print Tuff (BPT)), plus local tephra, were collected from multiple sites and characterized using stratigraphic position, mineral assemblage, and electron probe microanalysis of phenocryst (feldspar, hornblende, augite, titanomagnetite) and glass (where available) composition. Lowermost Bed II tuffs are dominantly nephelinitic, Middle Bed II tuffs (BPT, Tuff IIC) have basaltic components, and upper Bed II Tuff IID is trachytic. The BPT and Tuff IID are identified widely using phenocryst compositions (high-Ca plagioclase and high-Ti hornblende, respectively), though IID was originally (Hay, 1976) misidentified as Tuff IIC at Loc 91 (SHK Annexe) in the Side Gorge. This work helps establish a high-resolution basin-wide paleolandscape context for the Oldowan–Acheulean transition and helps link hominin, faunal and archaeological records.

Geological, geomorphological, and morphotectonic studies at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov Acheulean site, Northern Jordan Valley, provide: 1) a unique opportunity to establish the ecological background of hominid behavior during the early stages of widespread human occupation; 2) crucial data for understanding the paleo-environment and the various processes that affected the area near the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site; and 3) a basis for further comprehensive research in the region.

Quaternary tectonic activity near the Acheulean archeological site has produced a complex local setting that controls the surrounding landscape. Tectonic activity formed the Benot Ya'aqov embayment, which attracted hominids and a variety of other fauna. Sediments of the Benot Ya'akov formation deposited in the embayment facilitated excellent preservation of the remnants of Acheulean hominid activities and of abundant floral and faunal remains. The formation was subsequently affected by faulting and folding. Local uplift ended the deposition of lacustrine sediments in the embayment of Hula Valley Basin and caused erosion and vertical incision of the Jordan River that resulted in the capture of the Rosh Pinna River and the exposure of the Benot Ya'akov formation. These deposits are found in different structural positions along the north–south oriented morphotectonic embayment. The outcrops contain numerous archeological sites, giving the study area an unusually high potential for future hominid discoveries.

Control of fire was a hallmark of developing human cognition and an essential technology for the colonisation of cooler latitudes. In Europe, the earliest evidence comes from recent work at the site of Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar in south-eastern Spain. Charred and calcined bone and thermally altered chert were recovered from a deep, 0.8-million-year-old sedimentary deposit. A combination of analyses indicated that these had been heated to 400–600°C, compatible with burning. Inspection of the sediment and hydroxyapatite also suggests combustion and degradation of the bone. The results provide new insight into Early Palaeolithic use of fire and its significance for human evolution.

Stratified stone tools found with elephant and hippopotamus teeth at Evron Quarry can be dated to before 780 000 years ago. The assemblage includes handaxes, but less expectedly, small stone tools in the form of flakes with notches and points. Not thought to be points for spears or arrows, these small tools are suggested to be usable for butchery. They represent an adaption of local materials that make poor handaxes—so showing an ingenious improvisation on the part of Homo erectus.

What better way to understand how to make a handaxe or cleaver than getting into an Acheulean quarry and doing it yourself. The authors experimented at Isampur Quarry in India, finding that handaxes were best produced by reducing a slab to shape, while cleavers were best made by striking large flakes. There was a good correspondence with the ancient implements, and the authors deduced that Acheulean hominins were learning and transmitting standardised manufacturing methods to each other.