Melka Wakena

Melka Wakena is a prehistoric site complex in the highlands of Ethiopia, located along the banks of the Wabe River/artificial reservoir, that was discovered in 2013 and has been under investigation of a Hebrew University-led international team of researchers and students, led by Prof. Erella Hovers and Dr. Tegenu Gossa, since 2015.

The site complex includes 13 archaeological and paleontological localities, ranging in time between 1.6 million years (possibly even earlier) and ca. 800 thousand years ago, located in paleo-landscape of volcanic (ash falls and ignimbrite flows) and fluviovolcanic (various conglomerates and ash flows) deposits. Being one of less than a handful of known sites in the Ethiopian highlands, this cluster of sites is important for testing emerging scenarios about hominin adaptation within and outside the African Rift Valley, tracking movemens of human populations and material cultural innovations between the two ecologically-distinct regions of eastern Africa, and understanding the true biodiversity of the African Early Pleistocene as a backdrop to hominin cultural and biological evolution. scientists working on lithic technology, structural geology and geochronology, stable isotopes and biomarkers, macro and microscopic use wear, paleontology and archaeozoology.

The archaeological occurrences tested to date in Melka Wakena are attributed, based on their lithic assemblages, to the Acheulian techno-complex. The sites differ in their chronologies, depositional contexts and site functions, reflecting various landscape aspects and shifts in decision-making criteria and organizational strategies through time. To better understand the relationship between culture and ecological setting, the interdisciplinary work at the site-complex addresses lithic technology, structural geology and geochronology, high-resolution archaeology, stable isotopes and biomarkers, macro- and microscopic use wear, paleontology and archaeozoology.

Publications

Resom, A., Asrat, A., Gossa, T., Hovers, E., 2018. Petrogenesis and depositional history of felsic pyroclastic rocks from the Melka Wakena archaeological site-complex in South central Ethiopia. J. Afr. Earth Sci. 142, 93-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2018.03.003

Hovers, E., Gossa, T., Asrat, A., Niespolo, E.M., Resom, A., Renne, P.R., Ekshtain, R., Herzlinger, G., Ketema, N., Martínez-Navarro, B., 2021. The expansion of the Acheulian to the Southeastern Ethiopian Highlands: Insights from the new early Pleistocene site-complex of Melka Wakena. Quaternary Science Reviews 253, 106763. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106763

Gossa, T., Hovers, E., 2022. Continuity and change in lithic techno-economy of the early Acheulian on the Ethiopian highland: A case study from locality MW2, the Melka Wakena site-complex. PLOS ONE 17, e0277029. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277029

Martínez-Navarro, B., Gossa, T., Carotenuto, F. et al. The earliest Ethiopian wolf: implications for the species evolution and its future survival. Communications Biology 6, 530 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04908-w