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have not been subjected to the same sorts of challenges directed at the eoliths discovered in Europe is hinted at in the following statement made by Mary Leakey (1971, p. 280): “evidence for the manufacture of tools by means of using one tool as an instrument to make another is one of the most important criteria in deciding whether any particular taxon has reached the status of man. . . . If evidence of toolmaking is not counted as a decisive factor for the human status it is difficult to see what alternative can be used for determining at what point it had been reached. Evolutionary changes must have been so gradual that it will never be possible for the threshold to be recognised on the evidence of fossil bones alone. This would be true even if a far more complete evolutionary sequence of material were available for study: with the scanty and often incomplete material that has survived it is clearly out of the question. An arbitrary definition based on cranial capacity is also of doubtful value, since the significance of cranial capacity is closely linked with stature or body size, of which we have little precise information in respect of early hominids.”

Scientists almost unanimously accept the idea that the genus Homo arose in Africa, developing from the australopithecine hominids around 2 million years ago. The strong need for stone tools as corroborating evidence of humanlike status may thus explain, at least in part, the extremely lenient treatment of the Oldowan industry. If they were not accepted as tools, that would greatly detract from the status of the African hominids as human ancestors.

In her report on Olduvai Gorge, Mary Leakey identified, besides the choppers previously mentioned, several other types of implements, which, from her descriptions, appear to correspond to the eoliths found in Europe. She described “various fragments of no particular form but generally angular, which bear a minimum of flaking and some evidence of utilisation” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6).

Another category of Oldowan tools was scrapers of various types. Leakey described the heavy-duty scrapers of Bed II, which were fashioned from quartzite flakes, as follows: “Many of the heavy-duty scrapers are impossible to assign to any particular type and consist merely of amorphous pieces of lava, quartz, or quartzite, with at least one flat surface from which steep trimming has been carried out along one edge” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). About “discoidal scrapers,” Leakey wrote: “the tools are seldom entirely symmetrical and they are usually trimmed on only part of the circumference” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). These scrapers conform to the descriptions of the eoliths discovered on the Kent Plateau of England.

Another type similar to a common variety of eolith was the nosed scraper. About this type of tool, Leakey stated: “There is a median projection on the working edge, either bluntly pointed, rounded, or occasionally spatulate, flanked on either side by a trimmed notch or, more rarely, by straight convergent trimmed edges” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). Hollow scrapers, with a broad curved indentation on one side of the stone forming the working edge, are another type common both to the Eolithic and Oldowan assemblages. Leakey described this type as follows: “Specimens in which the notch is unquestionably prepared are relatively scarce in both the heavyand light-duty groups, although light-duty flakes and other fragments with notches apparently caused by utilisation are common” (M. Leakey 1971, p. 6). In other words, on these Oldowan specimens, as in the case of eoliths, the working edge of the stone had simply been modified by slight chipping or use.

One of the more remarkable coincidences of form may be found in the presence of tools called awls or borers in both Eolithic and Oldowan assemblages. Of the awls in the Developed Oldowan, Mary Leakey (1971, p. 7) stated: “They are characterized by short, rather thick, pointed projections, generally at the distal ends of flakes, but sometimes on a lateral edge. In the majority, the points are formed by a