Program > By author > Drespriputra Wisnuwardhana Eugenius Olafianto

The development of Pleistocene lithic technology in Central Africa needs to be investigated more deeply. In this area, sites attributed to the Earlier Stone Age (ESA) are rare despite their importance for documenting early hominins behavioral variability in Africa.

Among the few registered sites, Baboungué open air localities, is located in the Sangha River Basin, close to the town of Nola in southwestern Central African Republic, delivered ESA remains, which weregathered by Roger de Bayle des Hermens in the late 1960s.. The site delivered an assemblage of Earlier Stone Age lithic artefacts collected by Roger de Bayles des Hermens in the late 1960s and are cCurrently stored at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Institut de Paléontologie Humaine) in Paris,(France), the Baboungué lithic assemblages originated from . Ttwo identified localities, namedlocalities have been identified: Baboungué 1 and Baboungué 2. The collection comprises 90 diagnostic lithic artefacts for both localities (n=Baboungué 1=26 / Baboungué 2 =and n=74 respectively). All the lithic artefacts have been characterized and categorized by R. de Bayle des Hermens based on a their morphological and typological approachattributes: pebble tools, flakes, cores, and slab tools. In 2021, we restudiedrenewed our approach on these these assemblagestwo collections, Baboungué 1 and Baboungué 2 using updated lithic technology approaches aiming to highlight (the flaking and shaping reduction strategies), . Nevertheless, we re-usedwhile keepingand completing the the original classification of R. de Bayle des Hermens and completed it (large flake tools, trifacial shaped tools). Finally, we applied techno-functional analysis in order to highlight give new insights on the structural specificities of the shaped tools of theses assemblages.