Status: 1 Treffer • Seite 1 von 1 • 10 Artikel pro Seite
2026-04-10 16:32:03 • ID: 2414
History of Excavations at the Beni Fouda basin in Algeria
The Oldowan in the Beni Fouda basin at El Hanech is documented by informative photographs, that highlight the findings of the early excavations.
They showed some of the famous Polyhedrons, that were found in situ and some crude Bifaces, without stratigraphic context.
Even during the 1950s it was clear that the “pebble tools” were very old and comparable to the archaeological record at Oldoway Bed I.
Early Discoveries during the late 19th Century until the 1940s identified the area of scientific interest following road works near El-Eulma. Investigations by Auguste Pomel in 1895 and 1897 unearthed vertebrate fossils (such as mastodons and elephants) that he definitively assigned to the Villafranchian (Early Pleistocene) period.
Camille Arambourg started excavations at Ain Hanech site in 1947. His work unearthed a vast collection of fossils and, crucially, stone artifacts of Oldowan-like (Mode I) technology.
This was the first time that an early Pleistocene fauna was found associated with Lower
Palaeolithic artifacts, especially polyhedrons, subspheroids and spheroids, those artifactuality was generally accepted, in North Africa.
Modern Systematic Investigations (1992–Present) are linked to Mohamed Sahnouni who launched a long-term multidisciplinary project to resolve long-standing questions about the site's stratigraphy, age, and hominin behavior.
El-Kherba was discovered in the 1990s. It is a lateral extension of Ain Hanech, located roughly 400 meters to the south. This site provided additional Oldowan tools and well-preserved animal fossils with cutmarks, dated to approximately 1.8 million years ago .
New excavations at Ain Boucherit since 2006, just 500m from Ain Hanech, have uncovered even older archaeological layers. In 2018, Sahnouni and colleagues published evidence of Oldowan artifacts and cutmarked bones from two levels:
•AB-Lw (Lower Level): Estimated at 2.44 Ma.
•AB-Up (Upper Level): Estimated at 1.92 Ma.
These findings definitively push the evidence for hominin presence in North Africa back by roughly 600 k.a., making Ain Boucherit the oldest archaeological site in the region.
The stratified Acheulean at the site is unquestionably the oldest in North Africa.
Maybe the Ain Hanech Handaxes from Balouts 1955 publication are of similar age, but this is unproven at the moment.
Suggested Readings:
Lionel Balout: Préhistoire de L'afrique Du Nord - Essai de Chronologie, Paris 1955 .
Manuel Beyin, D.K. Wright, J. Wilkins and D.I. Olszewski (Eds): Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa, Berlin Heidelberg New York 2023.
Mathieu Duval, Mohamed Sahnouni et al. The Plio-Pleistocene sequence of Oued Boucherit (Algeria): A unique chronologically-constrained archaeological and palaeontological record in North Africa, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 271, 2021, 107116.
Djillali Hadjouis (2012): Camille Arambourg: un paléontologue, de l'Algérie à l'Afrique profunde, Harmattan.
Mohamed Sahnouni (1998): The Lower Palaeolithic of the Maghreb
Excavations and analyses at Ain Hanech, Algeria, BAR International Series 689.
Resources and images in full resolution:
- Image: 2026-04-10_IMG_9846.jpeg
- Image: 2026-04-10_IMG_9845.jpeg