Stone toolmaking difficulty and the evolution of hominin technological skills (original) (raw)
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The origins of stone tool reduction and the transition to knapping: An experimental approach
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2015
A reassessment of many of the archaeological assemblages older than two million years has resulted in a general consensus that the earliest Oldowan artifacts were made by skilled toolmakers who had a clear understanding of the fracturing mechanics of different toolstone materials. This has led several researchers to propose a simpler lithic reduction stage that occurred prior to 2.6 Ma. Three lithic reduction techniques that are within the behavioral repertoire of our closest living relatives in the genus Pan are proposed as potential intermediate stages between the percussion behaviors of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans and the skilled knapping of the Oldowan toolmakers. These include direct and indirect projectile percussion and bipolar flaking techniques. Measures of productivity, expediency, and efficiency were obtained and compared between these three reduction techniques and novice freehand knapping in order to better understand some of the factors that influenced how early hominins with little to no understanding of lithic fracturing mechanics achieved sharp flake tools. The provisional results of this proof-of-concept experiment indicate that, of these four conditions, dropping or throwing a large hammer stone on a brittle core is the most efficient way to exploit a core, while bipolar flaking is the most expedient method; however, novice freehand knapping creates the most productive flakes with large, sharp cutting edges. Thus, the transition to knapping in the late Pliocene may have been due to a shifting emphasis on productive toolmaking over expediency or efficiency.
The Manipulative complexity of lower paleolithic stone Toolmaking
PloS one, 2010
Background: Early stone tools provide direct evidence of human cognitive and behavioral evolution that is otherwise unavailable. Proper interpretation of these data requires a robust interpretive framework linking archaeological evidence to specific behavioral and cognitive actions.
The Proceduralization of Hominin Knapping Skill: Memorizing Different Lithic Technologies
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2023
Reconstructing the technical and cognitive abilities of past hominins requires an understanding of how skills like stone toolmaking were learned and transmitted. We ask how much of the variability in the uptake of knapping skill is due to the characteristics of the knapping sequences themselves? Fundamental to skill acquisition is proceduralization, the process whereby skilful tasks are converted from declarative memories (consciously memorized facts and events) into procedural memories (sub-consciously memorized actions) via repetitive practice. From knapping footage, we time and encode each action involved in discoidal, handaxe, Levallois and prismatic blade production. The structure and complexity of these reduction sequences were quantified using k-mer analysis and Markov chains. The amount of time spent on tasks and the pattern of core rotations revealed portions of these reduction sequences that are predisposed to being converted into procedural memories. We observed two major pathways to achieve this proceduralization: either a repetitive or a predictable sequence of core rotations. Later Acheulean handaxes and Levallois knapping involved a predictable platform selection sequence, while prismatic blade knapping involved a repetitive exploitation of platforms. Technologies and the portions of their reduction sequence that lend themselves to proceduralization probably facilitated the more rapid uptake of stone toolmaking skill.
Practical Reason and Manufacturing of Lower Palaeolithic Stone Tools 1
Developments in experimental and cognitive archaeology in the last two decades, together with those of comparative psychology, allow us to determine in more detailed how the mind of hominids worked right from the beginning of human evolution. This is done through the study of the only artefacts they left behind: stone tools; and the study of great apes cognitive behavior. While all approaches acknowledge the existence of boundaries in the cognitive abilities of the great apes in respect to humans, there is a lack of agreement about which of those abilities make us really human or when they appear. Partly because of their inability to understand the nature of cognition.
Evolutionary Anthropology, 2011
The production of purposefully fractured stone tools with functional, sharp cutting edges is a uniquely derived hominin adaptation. In the long history of life on earth, only hominins have adopted this remarkably expedient and broadly effective technological strategy. In the paleontological record, flaked stone tools are irrefutable proof that hominins were present at a particular place and time. Flaked stone tools are found in contexts ranging from the Arctic to equatorial rainforests and on every continent except Antarctica. Paleolithic stone tools show complex patterns of variability, suggesting that they have been subject to the variable selective pressures that have shaped so many other aspects of hominin behavior and morphology. There is every reason to expect that insights gained from studying stone tools should provide vital and important information about the course of human evolution. And yet, one senses that archeological analyses of Paleolithic stone tools are not making as much of a contribution as they could to the major issues in human origins research.
Tools evolve: The artificial selection and evolution of Paleolithic stone tools
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2002
I claim that the increase in complexity in the (known) trace of Paleolithic stone tools can be parsimoniously explained by postulating the emergence of effective mechanisms for the social transmission of representations. I propose that Paleolithic tools, similar to more contemporary tools, were subject to a process of evolution by artificial selection based on functionality.
Lithics, 2018
We present an experimental study that considers the Middle Palaeolithic transition from an earlier, predominantly Levallois method of blade production, to a later, predominantly laminar method, and why at some sites they even co-occur. This paper explores the nature of this spatio-temporal diversity by investigating a possible functional explanation: in this case, the amount of cutting edge per artefact, and cutting edge per weight of raw material. While there have been studies that examine laminar blade cutting edge, and Levallois flake cutting edge more generally, studies have not compared these two strategies through the same experimental framework. This study also uses a hard hammer (direct hard stone) percussive method to produce the experimental dataset (the only attested percussive method for blade production used in the Middle Palaeolithic), a method that has not been employed in experimental studies thus far. Results show that the amount of cutting edge does not differ significantly between Levallois and laminar blades. However, analyses suggest that laminar-based strategies were able to produce larger numbers of smaller blade products, and that a decrease in blade size was associated with greater cutting edge per weight of blade. Future studies comparing these techniques in terms of their economisation of raw material, which analyse the entire production sequence, are recommended in order to further explore the difference in blade production strategy as a choice guided by raw material economisation.
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2022
Hafting of stone tools and the creation of composite artifacts represent major developments in the early evolution of human technologies, with implications for artifact functions, human adaptation, and cognitive capabilities. A parallel issue is that of miniaturization of stone tools, which is argued to confer certain advantages, some of which are related to hafting. Our aim in this paper is to shift the discussion of these phenomena to the issues of re-hafting or retooling. We argue that important constraints on form and production of elements in composite implements come not just from the practice of hafting, but from the practice of rejuvenating implements by replacing broken or worn elements with similar-sized pieces. We further argue that absolute dimensional variation (tolerance) is the most important factor to consider in re-hafting or retooling. In this paper, we examine the hypothesis that there was a global increase in standardization in blade production over time related to increasing emphasis on hafting and retooling. Standardization is assessed in terms of both dimensional (sd), and relative (cv) measurements. The database for the study consists of > 100 assemblages, dating from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. The data set includes a wide range of technologies ranging from comparatively simple to quite complex reduction. When the entire time range is examined, there is a decrease in blade size over time, and a parallel increase in standardization as measured by both sd and cv. However, the trend in cv is driven mainly by the late appearance of pressure blade technology; if pressure-blade technologies are excluded from the sample, there is no directional change in standardization as measured by cv. These fndings suggest that prior to the widespread adoption of pressure blade technologies, Paleolithic knappers could create artifacts with fner dimensional tolerances only by making them smaller. The demands of increasing dependence on composite tools with replaceable parts could in turn explain long-term trends towards decreasing size in some classes of artifact.
Structural continuity and technological change in Lower Pleistocene toolkits
A structural foundation has recently been laid down to describe early stone industries using a four-phase evolutionary sequence: Homogeneity, Variability, Diversity, and Multiplicity. Homogeneity refers to a hypothetical phase predating the earliest recognizable industries (>2.6 Ma) during which stones could have been used for pounding or throwing but controlled knapping was not practiced. The Variability phase, already explored in previous publications, refers to a subsequent stage wherein simple knapping strategies were discovered and tested. It precedes the innovation of shaped tools in Africa and Eurasia within largely divergent timeframes. This paper explores the Diversity phase, during which standardized shaped tools and relatively complex flake production strategies occurred. Presently, flake-core assemblages lacking configured tools are referred to as ‘Oldowan’ or ‘Mode 1’ and those with handaxes and/or cleavers are named ‘Acheulian’ or ‘Mode 2’. The model described here does not propose to replace existing terminology, but presents an alternative approach to the ways in which we perceive of technological change and explores why analogous techno-typological changes occurred diachronically in different areas of the globe where contact between populations was unlikely. The Diversity phase, characterized by technotypological expansion in stone toolkit components, translates improved hominin capacities to access resources, compete with other carnivores and widen their range of activities. This process intensified exchange between an increasingly complex lifestyles and growing cognitive capacities, leading to Multiplicity; the final phase of this conceptual model for understanding change in early human technologies.