An archaeological team from Stony Brook University in the United States discovered traces of Lomekwi by chance in July 2011, and made substantial progress four years after in-depth excavations.

In July 2011, a team of archeologists led by Sonia Harmand and Jason Lewis of Stony Brook University, United States, were heading to a site near Lake Turkana, Kenya near where Kenyanthropus platyops fossils had previously been found.

[2] Harmand presented her findings at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society on April 14, 2015[1] and published the full announcement and results on the cover of Nature on May 21, 2015.

Based on the buried artifacts' stratigraphic position (in undisturbed sediment) relative to two layers of volcanic ash and known magnetic reversals, Harmand and her team dated the tools to 3.3 million years ago.

The date predates the genus Homo by 500,000 years, suggesting this tool making was undertaken by Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus (which was found near Lomekwi 3).

[7][8] George Washington University anthropologist Alison Brooks said the tools "could not have been created by natural forces ... the dating evidence is fairly solid.

[7] A Paleoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged, who was responsible for the earlier research suggesting Australopithecus had made tools, also backed Harmand's conclusions.