The development of plant food processing in the Levant: insights from use-wear analysis of Early Epipalaeolithic ground stone tools - PubMed (original) (raw)

The development of plant food processing in the Levant: insights from use-wear analysis of Early Epipalaeolithic ground stone tools

Laure Dubreuil et al. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2015.

Abstract

In recent years, the study of percussive, pounding and grinding tools has provided new insights into human evolution, more particularly regarding the development of technology enabling the processing and exploitation of plant resources. Some of these studies focus on early evidence for flour production, an activity frequently perceived as an important step in the evolution of plant exploitation. The present paper investigates plant food preparation in mobile hunter-gatherer societies from the Southern Levant. The analysis consists of a use-wear study of 18 tools recovered from Ohalo II, a 23 000-year-old site in Israel showing an exceptional level of preservation. Our sample includes a slab previously interpreted as a lower implement used for producing flour, based on the presence of cereal starch residues. The use-wear data we have obtained provide crucial information about the function of this and other percussive tools at Ohalo II, as well as on investment in tool manufacture, discard strategies and evidence for plant processing in the Late Pleistocene. The use-wear analysis indicates that the production of flour was a sporadic activity at Ohalo II, predating by thousands of years the onset of routine processing of plant foods.

Keywords: South West Asia; functional analysis; ground stone tool; percussive technology; plant processing; use-wear.

© 2015 The Author(s).

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Ohalo II Locus 1 slab, view of the upward-facing surface. Starch grains were retrieved from this face [31,41].

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Macroscopic view of the pits observed on the Ohalo II Locus 1 slab. (a) General view of face 1. The square indicates the zone where photos (b) and (c) were taken.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Wear related to abrading on one extremity of the Ohalo II Locus 1 slab, macroscopic observations: (a) general view of face 1, with a square indicating the zone where abrasion wear is observed; (b) close-up on the zone with abrasion; (c) and (d) observations at low magnifications.

Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Examples of macroscopic wear observed on object 1a59 (active tool). The dotted lines indicate the limits of various wear surfaces. End 1 (on the left) shows a combination of percussion and abrasion at low magnifications, while the surface shows a smooth texture and domed morphology in cross section. Note that the darker spots correspond to natural holes. End 2 (on the right) is dominated by impact marks and the surface shows a rough texture and an irregular cross section. Limits of the area with impact marks can be seen on the top left side of the photo.

Figure 5.

Figure 5.

Use-wear indicative of utilization observed at high magnifications on the internal surface of a shallow bowl (B87d 90–1360) from Ohalo II.

Figure 6.

Figure 6.

A refitted shallow bowl from Ohalo II: (a) refit of L12-A99b (fragment no. 1) and L12-C94cd (fragment no. 2). Evidence of secondary use is found on fragment no. 2. The square indicates the zone where low magnification photos were taken. (b) Observations at low magnifications showing fragment no. 2 surface with impacts and levelling (bellow the dotted line) corresponding to a secondary phase of utilization after the tool was broken.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Mc Brearty S, Brooks A. 2000. The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation origin of modern human behavior. J. Hum. Evol. 39, 453–563. (10.1006/jhev.2000.0435) - DOI - PubMed
    1. Van Peer P, et al. 2003. The Early to Middle Stone Age transition and the emergence of modern human behaviour at site 8-B-11, Sai Island, Sudan. J. Hum. Evol. 45, 187–193. (10.1016/S0047-2484(03)00103-9) - DOI - PubMed
    1. de Beaune SA. 2004. The invention of technology. Curr. Anthropol. 45, 139–162. (10.1086/381045) - DOI
    1. Mercader J, Barton H, Gillespie J, Harris J, Khun S, Tyler R, Boesch C. 2007. 4,300-year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 3042–3048. (10.1073/pnas.0607909104) - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Carvalho S, Cunha E, Sousa C, Matsuzawa T. 2008. Chaînes opératoires and resource-exploitation strategies in chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) nut cracking. J. Hum. Evol. 55, 148–163. (10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.02.005) - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources