Datasets for: Mobility strategies of early hominins in the Lower Omo Valley (2.3 Ma) reveal adaptive flexibility of Oldowan technology

The ability of early hominins to adapt to diverse landscapes and new ecological niches was a key factor in their broader expansion. However, the behavioral and cognitive prerequisites underlying this adaptability remain largely unknown. Working from the premise that resource procurement was critical to hominin dispersal, we explore the mobility-subsistence system of early Oldowan groups in the Lower Omo landscape of southern Ethiopia some 2.3 million years ago. With its extensive archaeological record and scattered lithic resources, this context provides a landscape-scale record of early hominin behavior. Multiple lines of evidence derived from a combined lithological, spatial and technological approach support the structured provisioning of quartz pebbles from non-local sources within a 10 to 20 km radius. This was supplemented by the opportunistic procurement of scarcer local raw materials along the meander belt of the paleo-Omo River. Such a mobility strategy is currently unique among stone tool technologies predating 1.8 Ma and likely represents an environment-specific adaptation. The dual ability of Oldowan groups to adapt to varied environments and lithologies may have directly facilitated their range expansion in and out of Africa from 2.0 Ma onwards.