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Fluvio-lacustrine sediments of the Hadar and Busidima Formations along the northern Awash River (Ethiopia) archive almost three million years (3.4 to <0.6 Ma) of human evolution, including the earliest documented record of stone toolmaking at 2.5-2.6 Ma. This paper brings together sedimentologic and isotopic evidence for the paleoenvironmental context of early hominids from both formations, but with particular emphasis on the setting for the early toolmakers.

The pre-2.92 Ma record (Hadar Formation) is characterized by low-gradient fluvial, paludal, and lacustrine deposition in an undissected topography most analogous to reaches of the modern middle Awash River near Gewane. The Gona area experienced repeated deep dissection and aggradation by the Awash River, starting between 2.92 and ca. 2.7 Ma and continuing through the top of the record at <0.6 Ma (Busidima Formation). Each aggradational succession is 10-20 m in thickness and fines upward from well-rounded conglomerates at the base to capping paleosols at the top. During this period the ancestral Awash represented by these fining upward sequences was dominantly meandering and flowed northeast, as it does today. Smaller channels tributary to the axial Awash system are also extensively exposed in the Busidima Formation. Compared to the axial-system conglomerates, the tributary channels transported finer, less mature volcanic clasts mixed with abundant carbonate nodules reworked from adjacent badlands. Stone artifacts (Oldowan; 2.6-2.0 Ma) at the oldest archaeological sites are only associated with the axial Awash system, in the bedded silts or capping paleosols of the fining upward sequences. The implements were made from rounded cobbles from the channels, but manufacture and use of the tools was always away from the channel bars, on the nearby sandy banks and silt-dominated floodplains. Archaeological sites higher in the record (Acheulian; <1.7 Ma) occur in similar axial river contexts, as well as along tributary channels further removed from artifact raw material sources.

Mature paleosols in the Hadar and Busidima Formations are mostly pale to dark-brown Vertisols typified by abundant clay slickensides, pseudo-anticlinal and vertical fracturing, and carbonate nodules. Such calcic Vertisols are common in the region today, demonstrating that the paleoclimate over the past 3.4 m.y. has been semi-arid and strongly seasonal.

Carbon isotopic results from pedogenic carbonates in the Vertisols allow reconstruction of the proportion of C(3) plants (trees and shrubs) to C(4) plants (grasses) through time. The delta(13) C results from the Hadar Formation prior to 2.9 Ma range from -9.3parts per thousand to -4.1parts per thousand, indicating a dominantly forested environment but with locally substantial (average 34%) grasses on the Awash floodplain. The delta(13)C values from soil carbonate in the lower Busidima Formation (2.7-1.6 Ma) increase (-6.5parts per thousand to -2.7parts per thousand) in floodplain paleosols, indicating similar to50% average grass cover. Vertisols of the upper Busidima Formation (<1.6 Ma) formed on gently sloping alluvial fans adjacent to the Awash floodplain and display even more positive delta(13)C values, up to -1.8parts per thousand, showing that grassland dominated the margins of the active Awash floodplain.