Oldowan&

Acheulean

Are we the only species that make and use tools?

• Crows fashion hooks from leaves and fish for bugs (Corballis, 2002)

• Chimps fishing for termites e.g. Goodall 1963 (Gombe chimps)

• Bonobos use rocks and pieces of wood to hammer open nuts

• Vultures use stones to open eggs

Are we the only species that make and use tools?

Are we the only species that make and use tools?

Are we the only species that make and use tools?

From: Davidson, I & McGrew, W.C. (2005). Stone tools and the uniqueness of human culture. J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. (N.S.) 11, 793-817

Paleolithic ChronologyPaleolithic Chronology•Basal Paleolithic: 3.4 mya – 1.75 mya•Lower Paleolithic: 1.75 mya – 250 kya•Middle Paleolithic: 250 kya – 40 kya•Upper Paleolithic: 40 kya –18 kya•Epipaleolithic: 18 kya –12 kya•Mesolithic: starts & ends at different times in different places.

•Neolithic: starts & ends at different times in different places.

Oldowan tools

• Earliest tool use…Leakey et al. at Olduvai gorge in 1960s..hence “Oldowan” tool industry

Leakey Family

Meave Leakey

Louis Leakey

Richard Leakey

Mary Leakey

Louise Leakey

Partially Excavated DepositsPartially Excavated Deposits

Archaeological BoneArchaeological Bone

Oldowan tools

•…originally attributed to “Zinjanthropus”, (now known as Paranthropus boisei

Oldowan tools

•then thought to be the product of Homo habilis

• although Homo rudolfensis in Ethiopia may be older (2.5. to 2.6 million years ago) and may have also used tools

Oldowan tools

•Then they were assigned to an Australopitchecine known as Australopithecus garhi

Oldowan tools

•New studies indicate the oldest Oldowan tools were made by Australopithecus afarensis at about 3.4 mya.

A. afarensis, 3.4 myaNature, 2010

Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco

Nature, 2010

Some key sites:

Ounda Gona, Ethiopia, 2.6 million years ago:core-flake tools and cutmarked bones (equid, bovid); highly selective raw material use

Kada Gona, Ethiopia, 2.52-2.60 MYA - core-flake tools

Bouri, Ethopia, 2.5 MYA - cut marked animal bones, Omo, Shungura, Ethiopia

Oldowan Industry

Oldowan Tool Typology:

Toth, Nicholas. 1985. The Oldowan Reassessed: A Close Look at Early Stone Artifacts. Journal of Archaeological Science. 12, 101-120.

• were our ancestors scavengers? carnivore tooth marks on bones…

from Johanson & Edgar (2001). From Lucy to Language. New York: Nevraumont Publishing,

Oldowan tools

• Oldowan tools may suggest something about the cognitive capacities of their creators. For example. according to Toth & Schick (In Gibson and Toth, 1994) Tools, Language etc.):

• the ability to recognise the correct angles on stone cores for flaking

• good hand-eye coordination for hammering etc.

• strong power grip as well as precision grips? Bimanual coordination?

• they seemed to transport their tools..carried appropriate flints etc. a considerable distance from their source. Tools often found in great concentrations in a single site, etc.

Oldowan tools

• hard hammer percussion crucial for creation of flake and core tools…

• grip capabilities plus stress resistance in fossil hominins might indicate crude tool use…

• A. africanus? 2.4 to 3 m.y.a.?

Panger et al. (2002)

Oldowan tools

Oldowan technology probably not a major breakthrough beyond the capacities of other ape-like species

Kanzi has learned to make stone tools (Toth et al. 1993)

Acheulean

Science, 2013

Discovery: St Acheul

1859

Present

Acheulean Handaxes

Acheulean tools

• more sophisticated: bifacial hand axes, cleavers, picks etc.

• around 1.8 million years ago? 400 ky after the appearance of H.ergaster

•spread to Middle East, Europe, India and Indonesia.

Acheulean

It was the dominant technology for the vast majority of human history.

Their distinctive oval and pear-shaped handaxes have been found over a wide area and some examples attained a very high level of sophistication suggesting that the roots of human art, economy and social organization arose as a result of their development.

Acheulean: predetermination of the shape!

Use

Use-wear analysis on Acheulean tools suggests there was generally no specialization in the different types created and that they were multi-use implements.

Functions included cutting animal carcasses as well as scraping and cutting hides when necessary. Some tools may have been better suited to digging roots or butchering animals than others however. A large and carefully crafted handaxes may have served a social as well as functional purpose.

Alternative theories include a use for ovate hand-axes as a kind of hunting discus to be hurled at prey. Puzzlingly, there are also examples of sites where hundreds of hand-axes, many impractically large and also apparently unused, have been found in close association together.

Acheulian Handaxe Cache

Recently, it has been suggested that the Acheulean tool users adopted the handaxe as a social artifact, meaning that it embodied something beyond its function of a butchery or wood cutting tool.

Knowing how to create and use these tools would have been a valuable skill and the more elaborate ones suggest that they played a role in their owners' identity and their interactions with others.

This would help explain the apparent over-sophistication of some examples which may represent a "historically accrued social significance".

One theory goes further and suggests that some special hand-axes were made and displayed by males in search of mate, using a large, well-made hand-axe to demonstrate that they possessed sufficient strength and skill to pass on to their offspring. Once they had attracted a female at a group gathering, it is suggested that they would discard their axes, perhaps explaining why so many are found together.

Symbolism

Cleaver

Hallam L. Movius

The Movius Line is a theoretical line drawn across northern India first proposed by the American archaeologist Hallam L. Movius in 1948 to demonstrate a technological difference between the early prehistoric tool technologies of the east and west of the Old World.

Movius Line

Exceptions

Exceptions

Bae et al, 2012