Fingerprinting of Quartzitic Outcrops at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

The African Early Stone Age record, including that of Olduvai Gorge, reveals widespread evidence for hominin exploitation of quartzose lithic raw materials such as quartzite. However, few studies have sought to characterize these rock types grounded on the assumption that they are not amenable for provenance studies. Through the use of macroscopic, petrographic, and EDXRF analysis, we characterize source material from five quartzitic outcrops belonging to the Mozambique Belt adjacent to Olduvai Gorge. Our results show that certain macroscopic varieties strictly occur at some outcrops while petrographic analyses reveal that accessory minerals may be outcrop-specific pending a greater sample size. Statistical interrogation of the geochemical data through linear correlations, ANOVA tests, and PCA, show that there are inter- and intra-outcrop differences, and elemental concentrations characteristic of certain outcrops. This multi-scalar approach provides a reproducible classificatory framework for future characterization studies and archaeological testing at Olduvai Gorge to shed light on hominin palaeoenvironmental exploitation and palaeoecological behavior.