Reply to Sahle and Gossa: Technology and geochronology at the earliest known Oldowan site at Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia

Sahle and Gossa (1) identify 2 components of our paper with which they disagree. Their concerns are based on misunderstandings of our paleomagnetic data and the published details of the Bokol Dora 1 (BD 1) artifact assemblage.The normal paleomagnetic sequence at BD 1 cannot represent the Reunion subchron [2.128 to 2.148 Ma (2)]. This would require one or more of the following scenarios: 1) The age of the Ali Toyta Tuff (ATT) is ∼0.5 My too old. There is no evidence to support this in the 40Ar/39Ar data; the 95% confidence interval places a minimum age of 2.55 Ma on the juvenile feldspar population. 2) The ATT feldspars were reworked from older eruptions and are unassociated with the vitric component. Geochemical analyses of ∼150 glass shards demonstrate that the … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: david_braun{at}gwu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1