Abstract Faunal change at the Early–Middle Pleistocene boundary in Europe has long been a topic for discussion. However, analyses of large mammal turnover at this time in Africa have been lacking, largely because of the low number of sites dated to this interval. Recent work, particularly in the last 10 years, has resulted in a much larger published sample of sites and we synthesize these data in this paper. In our multivariate (TWINSPAN) analyses of African and Levantine large mammal faunas we found that localities were subdivided by geographic regions, not by age. There were some small-scale changes with the appearance or extinction of particular taxa, but there was no large-scale turnover such as that seen in Europe. The Levant was included as a possible route for faunal interchange with east Africa, but no similarities were found between these areas. It therefore appears that the modern zoogeographic separation of the Levant and north Africa into the Palaearctic region and sub-Saharan Africa into the African region can be traced back to at least the Early–Middle Pleistocene boundary.

Abstract Some of the more important evidence is reviewed for the archaeology of hominin colonization associated with the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition. This is done by reference to the nature of migration ‘out of Africa’ before the interval of transition, across the transition itself, and then after it. Technologically assisted behaviour may not have been so important in the colonization process, behaviour and biology being the primary factors that led to the success of a migrating species. While climate change and especially shifts in local aridity would have been experienced and possibly remembered by localized hominin groups, the Acheulean behavioural repertoire did not change much across Africa and Europe over a million years of time. It merely adapted to local conditions. The Acheulean was a generalized hand-held processing technology for a generalized hominin.