Abstract
The Oldowan Industrial Complex has long been thought to have been static, with limited internal variability, embracing techno-complexes essentially focused on small-to-medium flake production. The flakes were rarely modified by retouch to produce small tools, which do not show any standardized pattern. Usually, the manufacture of small standardized tools has been interpreted as a more complex behavior emerging with the Acheulean technology. Here we report on the ~1.7 Ma Oldowan assemblages from Garba IVE-F at Melka Kunture in the Ethiopian highland. This industry is structured by technical criteria shared by the other East African Oldowan assemblages. However, there is also evidence of a specific technical process never recorded before, i.e. the systematic production of standardized small pointed tools strictly linked to the obsidian exploitation. Standardization and raw material selection in the manufacture of small tools disappear at Melka Kunture during the Lower Pleistocene Acheulean. This proves that 1) the emergence of a certain degree of standardization in tool-kits does not reflect in itself a major step in cultural evolution; and that 2) the Oldowan knappers, when driven by functional needs and supported by a highly suitable raw material, were occasionally able to develop specific technical solutions. The small tool production at ~1.7 Ma, at a time when the Acheulean was already emerging elsewhere in East Africa, adds to the growing amount of evidence of Oldowan techno-economic variability and flexibility, further challenging the view that early stone knapping was static over hundreds of thousands of years.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Oldowan has long been thought to have been static, with limited internal variability, embracing techno-complexes characterized by percussion materials, cobble tools and unmodified flakes [1,2,3,4].PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0145101 December 21, 2015Oldowan Obsidian Standardized Small ToolsSince the 1990s, new discoveries and new research based on technological analysis of lithic collections brought this view into question [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
We report on the ~1.7 Ma Oldowan assemblages from Garba IVE-F at Melka Kunture in the Ethiopian highland
The small tool production at ~1.7 Ma, at a time when the Acheulean was already emerging elsewhere in East Africa, adds to the growing amount of evidence of Oldowan techno-economic variability and flexibility, further challenging the view that early stone knapping was static over hundreds of thousands of years
Summary
The Oldowan has long been thought to have been static, with limited internal variability, embracing techno-complexes characterized by percussion materials, cobble tools and unmodified flakes [1,2,3,4].PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0145101 December 21, 2015Oldowan Obsidian Standardized Small ToolsSince the 1990s, new discoveries and new research based on technological analysis of lithic collections brought this view into question [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The new studies found that Oldowan artifacts display 1) good knowledge of the physical mechanisms involved in conchoidal fractures; 2) controlled percussive motion; 3) an understanding of how the suitability of raw materials for knapping varies; 4) adaptation to matrix geometry for different purposes; and 5) a variety of flaking methods. They argued that much of the observed inter-site variability was due to the quality, knapping suitability, size and shape of the raw materials used [9,16,17,18,19]
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