On Identifying Stone Tool Production Techniques: An Experimental and Statistical Assessment of Pressure Versus Soft Hammer Percussion Flake Form

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Briggs Buchanan ◽  
Veronica Mraz ◽  
Metin I. Eren
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Minimal Loss ◽  
Production Techniques ◽  
Replication Experiment ◽  
Discriminant Analyses

Identifying stone tool production techniques in the archaeological record can inform on prehistoric economy, time budgets, shared cultural practices, and the spatiotemporal occurrence of technological innovations and adaptations. The pressure flaking technique is one such innovation that appears on every continent Homo sapiens colonized. Pressure flaking has long been associated with the ability of flintknappers to produce small, regularly shaped flakes that were used to maintain particular edge shapes and resharpen dull tool edges with minimal loss of raw material. Despite the importance of pressure flaking, a method for supporting the identification of pressure flakes in the archaeological record is lacking. Here, we present a stone tool replication experiment that statistically compares flakes derived from bifacial pressure flaking and soft hammer percussion flaking. Our analyses show that pressure flakes are on average lighter, shorter, narrower, and thicker than soft hammer percussion flakes. Discriminant analyses indicate that pressure flakes can be correctly classified at a rate of 70 percent in a mixed sample. Furthermore, our findings validate the assumption that pressure flakes are less variable in form compared to soft hammer percussion flakes. Based on our results, we suggest quantitatively reevaluating the presence of pressure flaking in the global archaeological record.

scholarly journals Archaeology and the origins of human cumulative culture: a case study from the earliest Oldowan at Gona, Ethiopia.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietrich Stout
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Experimental Models ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Learning Mechanisms ◽  
Cumulative Culture ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Replication Experiment ◽  
Technological Analysis

Homo sapiens’ capacity for the inter-generational accumulation of complex technologies, practices, and beliefs is central to contemporary accounts of human distinctiveness. However, the actual antiquity and evolutionary origins of cumulative culture are not known. Here we propose and exemplify a research program for studying the origins of cumulative culture using archaeological evidence. Our step-wise approach disentangles assessment of the observed fidelity of behavior reproduction from inferences regarding required learning mechanisms (e.g. teaching, imitation) and the explanation of larger-scale patterns of change. It is empirically grounded in technological analysis of artifact assemblages using well-validated experimental models. We demonstrate with a case study using a tool-making replication experiment to assess evidence of behavior copying across three 2.6 million-year-old Oldowan sites from Gona, Ethiopia. Results fail to reveal any effects of raw material size, shape, quality, or reduction intensity that could explain the observed details of inter-site technological variation in terms of individual learning across different local conditions. This supports the view that relatively detailed copying of tool-making methods was already a feature of Oldowan technological reproduction ~2.6 mya. We conclude with a discussion of prospects and implications for further research on the evolution of human cumulative culture.

scholarly journals Explanations of variability in Middle Stone Age stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use in Eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Blinkhorn ◽  
M. Grove
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Population History ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Assemblage Composition

AbstractThe Middle Stone Age (MSA) corresponds to a critical phase in human evolution, overlapping with the earliest emergence of Homo sapiens as well as the expansions of these populations across and beyond Africa. Within the context of growing recognition for a complex and structured population history across the continent, Eastern Africa remains a critical region to explore patterns of behavioural variability due to the large number of well-dated archaeological assemblages compared to other regions. Quantitative studies of the Eastern African MSA record have indicated patterns of behavioural variation across space, time and from different environmental contexts. Here, we examine the nature of these patterns through the use of matrix correlation statistics, exploring whether differences in assemblage composition and raw material use correlate to differences between one another, assemblage age, distance in space, and the geographic and environmental characteristics of the landscapes surrounding MSA sites. Assemblage composition and raw material use correlate most strongly with one another, with site type as well as geographic and environmental variables also identified as having significant correlations to the former, and distance in time and space correlating more strongly with the latter. By combining time and space into a single variable, we are able to show the strong relationship this has with differences in stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use, with significance for exploring the impacts of processes of cultural inheritance on variability in the MSA. A significant, independent role for terrain roughness for explaining variability in stone tool assemblages highlights the importance of considering the impacts of mobility on structuring the archaeological record of the MSA of Eastern Africa.

scholarly journals Manual restrictions on Palaeolithic technological behaviours

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair J.M. Key ◽  
Christopher J. Dunmore
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Pressure Data ◽  
Soft Or ◽  
Significant Relationships ◽  
Manual Pressure ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Production Techniques

The causes of technological innovation in the Palaeolithic archaeological record are central to understanding Plio-Pleistocene hominin behaviour and temporal trends in artefact variation. Palaeolithic archaeologists frequently investigate the Oldowan-Acheulean transition and technological developments during the subsequent million years of the Acheulean technocomplex. Here, we approach the question of why innovative stone tool production techniques occur in the Lower Palaeolithic archaeological record from an experimental biomechanical and evolutionary perspective. Nine experienced flintknappers reproduced Oldowan flake tools, ‘early Acheulean’ handaxes, and ‘late Acheulean’ handaxes while pressure data were collected from their non-dominant (core-holding) hands. For each flake removal or platform preparation event performed, the percussor used, the stage of reduction, the core securing technique utilised, and the relative success of flake removals were recorded. Results indicate that more heavily reduced, intensively shaped handaxes with greater volumetric controls do not necessarily require significantly greater manual pressure than Oldowan flake tools or earlier ‘rougher’ handaxe forms. Platform preparation events do, however, require significantly greater pressure relative to either soft or hard hammer flake detachments. No significant relationships were identified between flaking success and pressure variation. Our results suggest that the preparation of flake platforms, a technological behaviour associated with the production of late Acheulean handaxes, could plausibly have been restricted prior to the emergence of more forceful precision-manipulative capabilities than those required for earlier lithic technologies.

scholarly journals Changes in Raw Material Selection and Use at 400,000 Years bp: A Novel, Symbolic Relationship between Humans and Their World. Discussing Technological, Social and Cognitive Arguments

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-336
Author(s):  
Francesca Romagnoli
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cognitive Complexity ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Functional Value ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Raw Material Selection

Approximately 400,000 years bp, novel technological behaviours appeared in the archaeological record, attested by evidence of the exploitation of previously unused resources and the production of new tools. I have reviewed such innovations, and I discuss them in the frame of the anthropological, palaeoneurological, genetic and behavioural changes that appeared in the Middle Pleistocene. I propose that at this chronology humans started to see the resources as ‘other-than-human’ sentient co-dwellers. The technological innovations expressed this novel cognitive complexity and the possible new things–things, human–things and environment–things relationships. Artefacts and technologies acquired multiple semiotic meanings that were strongly interconnected with the functional value. Ethnoarchaeological evidence suggested the possible symbolic acting beyond these innovations in material culture. This perspective has relevant implications in the archaeology of the ancient Palaeolithic. It suggests the need for a new view of material culture, one that goes beyond the classical list approach in the definition of modern symbolic mediated behaviour. Further, it allows one to overcome the traditional juxtaposition between ancient cultures and Homo sapiens in terms of complexity. The evidence discussed in this paper suggests that the ontological hypothesis could change our view of Middle Pleistocene hominids and the origin and definition of modern behaviour, and test the archaeological visibility of cognition in prehistory.

scholarly journals Elephant bones for the Middle Pleistocene toolmaker

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256090
Author(s):  
Paola Villa ◽  
Giovanni Boschian ◽  
Luca Pollarolo ◽  
Daniela Saccà ◽  
Fabrizio Marra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Bone Tools ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Taphonomic Analysis

The use of bone as raw material for implements is documented since the Early Pleistocene. Throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene bone tool shaping was done by percussion flaking, the same technique used for knapping stone artifacts, although bone shaping was rare compared to stone tool flaking. Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and expedient, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium size animals. Only Upper Paleolithic bone tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or breaking of bone to produce the kind of fragments required for different kinds of tools. Our technological and taphonomic analysis of the bone assemblage of Castel di Guido, a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy, now dated by 40Ar/39Ar to about 400 ka, shows that this general idea is inexact. In spite of the fact that the number of bone bifaces at the site had been largely overestimated in previous publications, the number of verified, human-made bone tools is 98. This is the highest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids published so far. Moreover the Castel di Guido bone assemblage is characterized by systematic production of standardized blanks (elephant diaphysis fragments) and clear diversity of tool types. Bone smoothers and intermediate pieces prove that some features of Aurignacian technology have roots that go beyond the late Mousterian, back to the Middle Pleistocene. Clearly the Castel di Guido hominids had done the first step in the process of increasing complexity of bone technology. We discuss the reasons why this innovation was not developed. The analysis of the lithic industry is done for comparison with the bone industry.

scholarly journals Preliminary Archaeopetrological Study of the Lithic Industry From the l’Hort de la Boquera Rock Shelter (Margalef de Montsant, Tarragona, Spain): Applying Mineralogical and Geochemical Techniques

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 23-33
Author(s):  
Mar Rey-Solé ◽  
Maria Pilar García-Argüelles ◽  
Jordi Nadal ◽  
Xavier Mangado ◽  
Anders Scherstén ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Inductively Coupled Plasma ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
X Ray Diffraction ◽  
Inductively Coupled ◽  
Study Results ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Plasma Mass Spectrometry

The l’Hort de la Boquera site is located in the northeastern part of Iberia and its stone tool assemblage includes up to 25,000 flint artefacts. This is the first approach to the analysis of the raw material through an archaeopetrological study. Results were obtained by use of mineralogi¬cal techniques: macroscopic and petrographic analysis, Scanning Electronic Microscopy (SEM), Micro-Raman and X-Ray diffraction (XRD); additionally, Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry was applied. It has been possible to discriminate at least four flint categories, the ‘Evaporitic flint type’ (with two local subvarieties – ‘Common evaporitic’ and ‘Garnet’ varieties) that comes from local outcrops of the Ulldemolins Complex, and two flint types that had their origin further afield: the ‘Charophyta flint type’ (coming from the Torrente de Cinca Unit) and the ‘Dark flint type’ (from the La Serra Llarga Formation).These results make this study the most comprehensive analysis of raw materials that has been carried out in the area so far

scholarly journals Long and short revolutions towards the Neolithic in western Anatolia and Aegean

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 68-83
Author(s):  
Barbara Horejs
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
Material Procurement ◽  
Similarities And Differences

This paper provides an overview of our current knowledge about the transformation towards the Neolithic in western Anatolia and the Aegean, and offers a narrative for their interpretation. Within the longue durée perspective of the long revolution in the Near East, the first millennia of the Holocene of the Aegean and western Anatolia are contrasted with each other. Economic strategies, environmental conditions, technologies, raw material procurement and cultural practices in the Aegean Mesolithic and the Pre-Neolithic times in western Anatolia are analysed to classify potential similarities and differences. The evidence of new cultural and symbolic practices, eco-nomies, and technologies in the seventh millennium is discussed as the paradox of a short revolu-tion embedded in a long-term process of interaction, knowledge-transfer and adaptation, setting the scene for the Neolithic pioneers establishing a new social life.

Mode 3 Technologies and the Evolution of Modern Humans

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Foley ◽  
Marta Mirazón Lahr
Keyword(s):  
Strong Association ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Biological Models ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Archaeological Interpretation ◽  
Mode 3 ◽  
Tool Technology

The origins and evolution of modern humans has been the dominant interest in palaeoanthropology for the last decade, and much archaeological interpretation has been structured around the various issues associated with whether humans have a recent African origin or a more ancient one. While the archaeological record has been used to support or refute various aspects of the theories, and to provide a behavioural framework for different biological models, there has been little attempt to employ the evidence of stone tool technology to unravel phylogenetic relationships. Here we examine the evidence that the evolution of modern humans is integrally related to the development of the Upper Palaeolithic and similar technologies, and conclude that there is only a weak relationship. In contrast there is a strong association between the evolution and spread of modern humans and Grahame Clark's Mode 3 technologies (the Middle Stone Age/Palaeolithic). The implications of this for the evolution of Neanderthals, the multiple pattern of human dispersals, and the nature of cognitive evolution, are considered.

scholarly journals Procurement and mobility during the Late Pleistocene: Characterising the stone-tool assemblage of the Picamoixons site (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula)

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Soto
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ne Iberian Peninsula

The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14th to 11th millennium BP (calibrated). This study involves a petrographic characterisation of the stone-tool assemblage in order to establish: 1) the procurement areas, 2) the raw materials management strategies and 3) the mobility radius and territorial sizes of the hunter-gatherers groups that occupied the site. The method applied comprises in a multiscale analysis that includes systematic prospection, the petrographic characterisation of geological and archaeological samples, an analysis of the chert types represented in the knapping sequence, and the definition of the mobility axes and areas frequented according to lithic procurement.A petrographic analysis of the chert in the prospected area led to the definition of nine macroscopic varieties related to five types (Vilaplana, Morera, Maset, Vilella and Tossa cherts), related to Lower and Upper Muschelkalk (Triassic), Lutetian, Bartonian (Palaeocene) and Sannonian (Oligocene) deposits.The study of the knapping sequences indicates the main exploitation of Bartonian cherts (Tossa type), and the use of Lutetian cherts (Maset and Morera types) for configuring retouched tools. The exploitation of the remaining raw material types identified is considered sporadic and opportunistic.Defining the procurement areas enabled the mobility radius to be assessed as between 3 and 30 km, highlighting the importance of the fluvial basins as natural movement pathways. The results indicate that the main procurement territory was 16 km2 in area, associable with a forager radius. The most remote procurement distances suggest a maximum exploitation area of 260 km2, defining an intra-regional range. This range presents parallelisms with various contemporaneous hunter-gatherers groups in Western Europe, suggesting a progressive mobility reduction dynamic during the Late Pleistocene-Initial Holocene.

scholarly journals Raw material optimization and stone tool engineering in the Early Stone Age of Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (162) ◽  
pp. 20190377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alastair Key ◽  
Tomos Proffitt ◽  
Ignacio de la Torre
Keyword(s):  
Functional Performance ◽  
Material Selection ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Cutting Tools ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Olduvai Gorge ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Material Optimization ◽  
Early Stone Age

For more than 1.8 million years hominins at Olduvai Gorge were faced with a choice: whether to use lavas, quartzite or chert to produce stone tools. All are available locally and all are suitable for stone tool production. Using controlled cutting tests and fracture mechanics theory we examine raw material selection decisions throughout Olduvai's Early Stone Age. We quantify the force, work and material deformation required by each stone type when cutting, before using these data to compare edge sharpness and durability. Significant differences are identified, confirming performance to depend on raw material choice. When combined with artefact data, we demonstrate that Early Stone Age hominins optimized raw material choices based on functional performance characteristics. Doing so flexibly: choosing raw materials dependent on their sharpness and durability, alongside a tool's loading potential and anticipated use-life. In this way, we demonstrate that early lithic artefacts at Olduvai Gorge were engineered to be functionally optimized cutting tools.

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