Dungo IV is an archaeological site on the Atlantic coast of Angola. It is one of the few coastal Earlier Stone Age sites in southern Africa with clear evidence of geological age, dating to around 600,000 years ago.

The toolmakers at this site used beach cobbles of quartz, a challenging stone type for knapping. They focused on small to medium-sized tools with sharp edges, and did not make many of the large handaxes at other sites of this time.

The findings from this site help show that hominins integrated coastal landscapes into their territories well before 120,000 years ago, the time when so much attention has been given to modern human coastal adaptations in South Africa.

Image: Isis Mesfin and coworkers (2023)