Discoveries in late 20th-century paleoanthropology strongly support an early Out of Africa model. Well-dated sites like Dmanisi and Atapuerca, at Europe’s eastern and western gateways, have provided significant human remains and evidence of early activity. Subsequent findings have filled chronological gaps, confirming that between 1 and 1.5 million years ago, Europe was a key region for human evolution.

However, while these sites are invaluable for reconstructing early human life, many records remain scarce, fragmented, or found in low-resolution contexts, limiting broad interpretations. Two Iberian Peninsula sites stand out as exceptions: Gran Dolina TD6.2 and Pit-1 at Barranc de la Boella. These sites have yielded high-resolution data, allowing for detailed reconstructions of Early Pleistocene foraging behaviors in Europe. Additionally, lower-resolution but complementary records contribute to assembling the broader evolutionary puzzle.

A million years is an extremely vast amount of time: The time spanning the oldest evidence of our genus, found in the modern northern Ethiopian badlands, presumably documenting its first steps at around 2.8 Ma (Villmoare et al., 2015), to the earliest presence of humans in Europe, currently dated to about 1.5 Ma (Parés et al., 2006; Lozano-Fernández et al., 2015). The oldest uncontroversial archaeological record, dated to 2.6 Ma in Ethiopia (Semaw et al., 1997), which preserves a small (but evolutionarily extraordinary) package of behavioral features comprising the earliest evidence of stone tool use, of animal carcass processing, and meat-eating and, potentially, the earliest traces of central-place foraging by a primate, contains also the oldest evidence of the socio-reproductive behavior of our earliest human ancestors. All of it was labeled for its technological innovation: the Oldowan; the sometimes curated, sometimes expedient transformation of cobbles into flakes and other flaked artifacts, transported and used across substantial parts of the ecosystems to which those hominins adapted.

Teleonomic interpretations of human evolution question whether behaviors like hunting, meat-eating, food sharing, and intra-group cooperation existed in extinct hominins. This perspective assumes H. sapiens as the pinnacle of hominin evolution. However, such behaviors may not require the complex cognitive capacities of modern human brains. Early H. erectus, with brains within the lower range of modern humans and more robust, agile anatomies, may have been highly efficient foragers. Their adaptive success likely stemmed from culturally selected behaviors rather than advanced cognition alone.

The gracilization of H. sapiens may be rooted in shifts in reproductive and social behaviors rather than improvements in foraging strategies. Brain expansion in our species was likely driven by the evolution of complex communication, symbolism, and social interaction, forming the basis of modern human social networks. This alternative perspective generates testable hypotheses regarding behavior preserved in the archaeological record. Under this model, hunting emerges as a byproduct rather than a driver of early human socio-reproductive structures.

The exceptional archaeological record of Olduvai Gorge has been central to interpretations of early human behavior. However, many models rely on a progressive evolutionary framework and homologous analogies from chimpanzees and other primates, despite their anatomical and adaptive divergence from early Homo. The conflicting interpretations that arise highlight the limitations of these models, which often depict hominins with behaviors undocumented in extant mammals. Additionally, the tendency to conceptualize humans as unique has hindered our understanding of early human behavior.

We propose a different approach, focusing on ecological rather than phylogenetic comparisons. By emphasizing shared anatomical, physiological, and behavioral patterns with organisms adapted to similar environments, we provide a novel perspective on early human behavior. This comparative behavioral ecology framework offers a more empirically grounded and testable way to interpret Oldowan sites. It moves beyond anthropocentric assumptions and allows for the formulation of null hypotheses that had not been previously considered. Our approach reframes early human behavior within the broader context of ecological adaptation, providing insights that align early Homo with other similarly adapted organisms rather than isolating them from the rest of the organic world.

Debates on human behavioral evolution have largely focused on African and European records, while Asia’s contribution remains underrepresented. Despite the significance of the Asian Pleistocene fossil record, its behavioral insights have been hindered by limited taphonomic research, restricted dissemination, and shifting academic trends. Many key Chinese archaeofaunal sites, particularly in karstic contexts, contain complex palimpsests that challenge traditional taphonomic methods prone to equifinality.

Advancements in artificial intelligence and computational archaeology now offer new ways to address these challenges. Machine learning classifiers, computer vision through convolutional neural networks, and 3D deep learning architectures enable precise discrimination of bone surface modifications. These techniques refine carnivore agency identification down to the taxon level and provide mathematical certainty in agency attribution, aiding in disentangling complex palimpsests.

This study highlights key Chinese archaeofaunal records, particularly Zhoukoudian, and proposes methodological approaches to improve their resolution. By integrating these cutting-edge techniques, the Asian Pleistocene record can take a more central role in discussions on early human behavioral variability. This research aims to establish a model for applying the “new taphonomy” globally, enhancing our understanding of hominin activities and their ecological contexts.

Narratives on early human behaviour figure prominently in most popular textbooks, scientific papers, conferences, and graphic dissemination venues. When the processual New Archaeology became popular in the 1960s, the main criticism of these narratives was that they uncritically overprinted the present to the past, lacking proper evolutionary perspectives and a scientific method. Nevertheless, paradoxically, the past sixty years of mixed application of middle-range theory and processual approaches have not improved in any meaningful way our understanding of the behavioural component of the early archaeological record, despite the occasional focus on site formation, and the scientific coating provided by the use of different analytical techniques borrowed from physics and chemistry. Archaeologists have been unearthing new sites year after year and extending the archaeological record uncontroversially until at least 2.6 million years ago. We have gained knowledge of the chronologies of these new sites, of their general paleoecological contextualization, and on technical aspects that are not of general interest to the nonprofessional readership; however, in the process, the main disciplinary purpose of the archaeology of early humans has been sent to hibernate. This statement may sound far-fetched and even controversial.