Abstract
Percussive technology continues to play an increasingly important role in understanding the evolution of tool use. Comparing the archaeological record with extractive foraging behaviors in nonhuman primates has focused on percussive implements as a key to investigating the origins of lithic technology. Despite this, archaeological approaches towards percussive tools have been obscured by a lack of standardized methodologies. Central to this issue have been the use of qualitative, non-diagnostic techniques to identify percussive tools from archaeological contexts. Here we describe a new morphometric method for distinguishing anthropogenically-generated damage patterns on percussive tools from naturally damaged river cobbles. We employ a geomatic approach through the use of three-dimensional scanning and geographical information systems software to statistically quantify the identification process in percussive technology research. This will strengthen current technological analyses of percussive tools in archaeological frameworks and open new avenues for translating behavioral inferences of early hominins from percussive damage patterns.
Highlights
Percussive technology is a near ubiquitous feature of the archaeological record and comprises one of the longest-standing traditions of tool use in human evolution
The Hot Spot analysis (Getis-Ord*) function highlighted areas on scan meshes with statistically significant clusters of high and low elevation. This corresponded to areas that we had identified as experimentally produced anthropogenic damage and natural abrasion on stone surfaces (Fig. 3)
Statistical quantification of percussive damage creates an opportunity to identify and analyze behavioral events preserved on Plio-Pleistocene percussive implements
Summary
Percussive technology is a near ubiquitous feature of the archaeological record and comprises one of the longest-standing traditions of tool use in human evolution. Based on the pervasive nature of percussive elements amongst almost all primates that use tools extensively [34], recent research has suggested that the oldest technological assemblages are likely to include percussive implements [21, 27, 32]. The use of these tools may have originated during the time of the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and the humans [27, 33]. While questions surrounding the presence or absence of tool using-behaviors in extant primate species and fossil hominins have yet to be solved, the commonality of percussive tool-use in different lineages of primates indicates the possibility of convergent adaptations
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