Group-specific archaeological signatures of stone tool use in wild macaques

Stone tools in the prehistoric record are the most abundant source of evidence for understanding early hominin technological and cultural variation. The field of primate archaeology is well placed to improve our scientific knowledge by using the tool behaviours of living primates as models to test hypotheses related to the adoption of tools by early stone-age hominins. Previously we have shown that diversity in stone tool behaviour between neighbouring groups of long-tailed macaques (Macaca-fascicularis) could be explained by ecological and environmental circumstances (Luncz et al., 2017b). Here however, we report archaeological evidence, which shows that the selection and reuse of tools cannot entirely be explained by ecological diversity. These results suggest that tool-use may develop differently within species of old-world monkeys, and that the evidence of material culture can differ within the same timeframe at local geographic scales and in spite of shared environmental and ecological settings.

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Problems in the Stone Age of South-east Asia Revisited

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society ◽

10.1017/s0079497x00000050 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 73 ◽

pp. 39-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

T. E. G. Reynolds

Keyword(s):

Tropical Forests ◽

Tool Use ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Homo Erectus ◽

Stone Tool ◽

South East Asia ◽

Stone Age ◽

Modern Humans ◽

The World ◽

Out Of Africa

In the 13 years since ‘Problems in the Stone Age of Southeast Asia’ was published, there has been a number of significant developments. There remains a lack of early cultural material despite the possibility that first occupation of the area may date back as far as 1.8 Myrs. It seems that the first hominins in the region were essentially ‘alithic’ in their adaptation, making the reconstruction of their behaviour extremely difficult. There is also a question as to which hominin was first ‘Out of Africa’ and into Asia and a suggestion that Homo erectus is, in fact, an Asian species that may have migrated west. This has important implications for interpretations of the significance of the so-called ‘Movius Line’. By the time stone tool use does appear regularly in the record, modern humans are present but it is still hard to identify the kinds of directional changes that are associated with the Late Pleistocene elsewhere in the world. The question of when humans were able to exploit tropical forests in the region is also one that recent work explores. The recent discoveries from Flores of stone tools that appear to pre-date the arrival of modern humans, and a possibly associated ‘dwarf’ hominin, Homo floresiensis, all require re-appraisal of the nature of human activity in the region.

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The Prehistory of Hawai‘i

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199925070.013.027 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Patrick V. Kirch

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Environmental Gradients ◽

Hawaiian Islands ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Cultural Variation ◽

Sociopolitical Complexity ◽

Monumental Architecture ◽

Specialized Production ◽

The World ◽

Divine Kingship

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated inhabited archipelago in the world. Initially colonized around A.D. 1000, the environmental gradients of rainfall and island-age have influenced subsequent cultural variation and differentiation in the islands. Settlements are typically dispersed hamlets and integrated within agricultural facilities such as irrigated pondfields and dryland field systems. Populations were politically organized in idealized pie-shaped units or ahupua`a that typically encompass a cross-section of island resources. Material culture , including fishhooks, stone tools, and religious temples, is broadly similar within these units, but there is also much evidence for elite control of specialized production in some areas. The Hawaiian Islands are the archetypal chiefdom society, although based on changes in demography, monumental architecture (heiau) and royal centers, intensive agriculture, and divine kingship, the population had likely crossed the threshold of sociopolitical complexity to that of an archaic state prior to the arrival of Europeans in 1778.

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Habitual Stone-Tool Aided Extractive Foraging in White-Faced Capuchins, Cebus Capucinus

10.1101/351619 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Brendan J Barrett ◽

Claudio M Monteza-moreno ◽

Tamara DOGANDŽIĆ ◽

Nicolas Zwyns ◽

Alicia IBÁÑEZ ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tool Use ◽

National Park ◽

Resource Limitation ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Cebus Capucinus ◽

Hermit Crabs ◽

Stone Tool ◽

Extractive Foraging ◽

First Case ◽

One Year

ABSTRACTHabitual reliance on tool use is a marked behavioral difference between wild robust (genus Sapajus) and gracile (genus Cebus) capuchin monkeys. Despite being well studied and having a rich repertoire of social and extractive foraging traditions, Cebus sp have rarely been observed engaging in tool use and have never been reported to use stone tools. In contrast, habitual tool use and stone-tool use by Sapajus is widespread. We discuss factors which might explain these differences in patterns of tool use between Cebus and Sapajus. We then report the first case of habitual stone-tool use in a gracile capuchin: a population of white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator) in Coiba National Park, Panama who habitually rely on hammerstone and anvil tool use to access structurally protected food items in coastal areas including Terminalia catappa seeds, hermit crabs, marine snails, terrestrial crabs, and other items. This behavior has persisted on one island in Coiba National Park since at least 2004. From one year of camera trapping, we found that stone tool use is strongly male-biased. Of the 205 unique camera-trap-days where tool use was recorded, adult females were never observed to use stone-tools, although they were frequently recorded at the sites and engaged in scrounging behavior. Stone-tool use occurs year-round in this population, and over half of all identifiable individuals were observed participating. At the most active tool use site, 83.2% of days where capuchins were sighted corresponded with tool use. Capuchins inhabiting the Coiba archipelago are highly terrestrial, under decreased predation pressure and potentially experience resource limitation compared to mainland populations– three conditions considered important for the evolution of stone tool use. White-faced capuchin tool use in Coiba National Park thus offers unique opportunities to explore the ecological drivers and evolutionary underpinnings of stone tool use in a comparative within- and between-species context.

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Stone Tools

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199218714.013.0023 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Rodney Harrison

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Material Culture ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Stone Tool ◽

History Of Archaeology ◽

Culture Studies ◽

Old World ◽

Material Culture Studies ◽

History Of

The focus of this article is stone tools. The history of stone tool research is linked integrally to the history of archaeology and the study of the human past, and many of the early developments in archaeology were connected with the study of stone artefacts. The identification of stone tools as objects of prehistoric human manufacture was central to the development of nineteenth-century models of prehistoric change, and especially the Three Age system for Old World prehistory. This article draws on concepts derived from interdisciplinary material culture studies to consider the role of the artefact after being discarded. It suggests that it is impossible to understand the meaning or efficacy of stone tools without understanding their ‘afterlives’ following abandonment. This article aims to complement contemporary metrical studies of the identification of stone tools and the description of their production. A brief history of the stone tools is explained and this concludes the article.

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

Journal of The Royal Society Interface ◽

10.1098/rsif.2019.0377 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (162) ◽

pp. 20190377 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

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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There Is More than One Way to Crack an Oyster: Identifying Variation in Burmese Long-Tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis aurea) Stone-Tool Use

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0124733 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. e0124733 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Amanda Tan ◽

Say Hoon Tan ◽

Dhaval Vyas ◽

Suchinda Malaivijitnond ◽

Michael D. Gumert

Keyword(s):

Tool Use ◽

Macaca Fascicularis ◽

Stone Tool

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Production and use of percussive stone tools in the Early Stone Age: Experimental approach to the lithic record of Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Journal of Archaeological Science Reports ◽

10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.03.005 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 367-383 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Policarpo Sánchez Yustos ◽

Fernando Diez-Martín ◽

Isabel M. Díaz ◽

Javier Duque ◽

Cristina Fraile ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Experimental Approach ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Olduvai Gorge ◽

Stone Age ◽

Early Stone Age

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Habitual stone-tool-aided extractive foraging in white-faced capuchins, Cebus capucinus

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.181002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (8) ◽

pp. 181002 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Brendan J. Barrett ◽

Claudio M. Monteza-Moreno ◽

Tamara Dogandžić ◽

Nicolas Zwyns ◽

Alicia Ibáñez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Tool Use ◽

National Park ◽

Resource Limitation ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Cebus Capucinus ◽

Hermit Crabs ◽

Stone Tool ◽

Extractive Foraging ◽

Marine Snails ◽

First Case

Habitual reliance on tool use is a marked behavioural difference between wild robust (genus Sapajus ) and gracile (genus Cebus ) capuchin monkeys. Despite being well studied and having a rich repertoire of social and extractive foraging traditions, Cebus sp. rarely use tools and have never been observed using stone tools. By contrast, habitual tool use by Sapajus is widespread. We review theory and discuss factors which might explain these differences in patterns of tool use between Cebus and Sapajus . We then report the first case of habitual stone tool use in a gracile capuchin: a population of white-faced capuchins ( Cebus capucinus imitator ) in Coiba National Park, Panama who habitually rely on hammerstone and anvil tool use to access structurally protected food items in coastal areas including Terminalia catappa seeds, hermit crabs, marine snails, terrestrial crabs and other items. This behaviour has persisted on one island in Coiba National Park since at least 2004. From 1 year of camera trapping, we found that stone tool use is strongly male-biased. Of the 205 camera trap days where tool use was recorded, adult females were never observed to use stone tools, although they were frequently recorded at the sites and engaged in scrounging behaviour. Stone tool use occurs year-round in this population; over half of all identifiable individuals were observed participating. At the most active tool use site, 83.2% of days where capuchins were sighted corresponded with tool use. Capuchins inhabiting the Coiba archipelago are highly terrestrial, under decreased predation pressure and potentially experience resource limitation compared to mainland populations—three conditions considered important for the evolution of stone tool use. White-faced capuchin tool use in Coiba National Park thus offers unique opportunities to explore the ecological drivers and evolutionary underpinnings of stone tool use in a comparative within- and between-species context.

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Aesthetic sense and social cognition: a story from the Early Stone Age

Synthese ◽

10.1007/s11229-019-02476-3 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Greg Currie ◽

Xuanqi Zhu

Keyword(s):

Social Cognition ◽

Stone Tool ◽

Stone Age ◽

Regular Feature ◽

Aesthetic Responses ◽

Aesthetic Sense ◽

Early Stone Age

AbstractHuman aesthetic practices show a sensitivity to the ways that the appearance of an artefact manifests skills and other qualities of the maker. We investigate a possible origin for this kind of sensibility, locating it in the need for co-ordination of skill-transmission in the Acheulean stone tool culture. We argue that our narrative supports the idea that Acheulean agents were aesthetic agents. In line with this we offer what may seem an absurd comparison: between the Acheulean and the Quattrocento. In making it we display some hidden complexity in human aesthetic responses to an artefact. We conclude with a brief review of rival explanations—biological and/or cultural—of how this skills-based sensibility became a regular feature of human aesthetic practices.

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Operationalizing niche construction theory with stone tools

10.31235/osf.io/yk5cd ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Radu Iovita ◽

david braun ◽

Matthew Douglass ◽

Simon Holdaway ◽

Sam C. Lin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Behavioral Ecology ◽

Tool Use ◽

Niche Construction ◽

Stone Tools ◽

Stone Tool ◽

Archaeological Record ◽

Extended Phenotype ◽

Niche Construction Theory ◽

Dual Inheritance Theory ◽

Dual Inheritance

One of the greatest difficulties with evolutionary approaches in the study of stone tools (lithics) has been finding a mechanism for tying culture and biology in a way that preserves human agency and operates at scales that are visible in the archaeological record. The concept of niche construction, whereby organisms actively construct their environments and change the conditions for selection, could provide a solution to this problem. In this review, we evaluate the utility of niche construction theory (NCT) for stone tool archaeology. We apply NCT to lithics both as part of the ‘extended phenotype’ and as residuals or precipitates of other niche-constructing activities, suggesting ways in which archaeologists can employ niche construction feedbacks to generate testable hypotheses about stone tool use. Finally, we compare NCT to other prominent evolutionary approaches, such as human behavioral ecology and dual-inheritance theory, concluding that NCT has several advantages.

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