An earlier origin for the Acheulian

@article{Lepre2011AnEO,
  title={An earlier origin for the Acheulian},
  author={Christopher J. Lepre and H{\'e}l{\`e}ne Roche and Dennis V. Kent and Sonia Harmand and Rhonda L. Quinn and Jean-Philippe Brugal and P. Texier and Arnaud Lenoble and Craig S. Feibel},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2011},
  volume={477},
  pages={82-85}
}
The Acheulian is one of the first defined prehistoric techno-complexes and is characterized by shaped bifacial stone tools. It probably originated in Africa, spreading to Europe and Asia perhaps as early as ∼1 million years (Myr) ago. The origin of the Acheulian is thought to have closely coincided with major changes in human brain evolution, allowing for further technological developments. Nonetheless, the emergence of the Acheulian remains unclear because well-dated sites older than 1.4 Myr… 
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349 Citations

The Origin of The Acheulean: The 1.7 Million-Year-Old Site of FLK West, Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
TLDR
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The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia
TLDR
A newly established chronometric calibration is provided for the Acheulean assemblages of the Konso Formation, southern Ethiopia, which span the time period ∼1.75 to <1.0 Ma, paralleling the emergence of Homo erectus-like hominid morphology.
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The Acheulean emerged in East Africa in association with a new species, Homo erectus
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TLDR
Findings reveal a climatically-mediated later Acheulean expansion into a poorly known region, amplifying the documented diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominin behaviour across the Old World and elaborating the terminal archaic landscape encountered by the authors' species as they dispersed out of Africa.
The Transition to the Acheulean in East Africa: an Assessment of Paradigms and Evidence from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
The origin of the Acheulean constitutes a key aspect of current research in the archaeology of human evolution. Olduvai Gorge is one of the main sites in Africa in the study of the transition from…
Before the Acheulean in East Africa: An Overview of the Oldowan Lithic Assemblages
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The Acheulean Assemblages of Asia: A Review
Acheulean assemblages—defined by the presence of handaxes and cleavers—are found across much of Asia. The best known are from the Levant and India and date from the Early Pleistocene. Although…
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