Stone Tool Technology Research Articles

Making the Invisible Stratigraphy Visible: A Grid-Based, Multi-Proxy Geoarchaeological Study of Umhlatuzana Rockshelter, South Africa

Umhlatuzana rockshelter is an archaeological site with an occupational record covering the Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and Iron Age. The presence of both Middle and Later Stone Age assemblages makes Umhlatuzana the ideal location for the study of the MSA–LSA transition (20–40 ka) in southern Africa. This transitional period is characterized by important modifications in stone tool technology, from prepared core technology to a toolkit based on microlith production. These changes are argued to have occurred in response to changes in climate and environment leading up to the Last Glacial Maximum. The deposits bearing the transitional assemblages at Umhlatuzana rockshelter appear homogeneous with no visible stratigraphic boundaries. This study integrates geoarchaeological techniques in order to explore fine-resolution geochemical differentiations of the sediments that are macroscopically invisible, and that will provide insight into (post-)depositional processes over time. Samples were systematically retrieved from the western profile of the site following a grid-based sampling strategy and analyzed for pH, elemental composition (XRF), and Magnetic Susceptibility. Additionally, the results were integrated with preliminary micromorphological observations. Our study reveals a steady, gradual change in the geochemistry of the deposits throughout the Pleistocene, related to a combination of environmental change and occupation intensity. We suggest that the part of the sequence reported to bear Middle to Later Stone Age transitional industries is characterized by wetter environmental conditions compared to the underlying deposits. Additionally, we support results from previous studies that excluded large scale post-depositional movement of the sedimentary sequence. Our study offers a successful multi-proxy approach to systematically sample and study archaeological deposits at the macro and micro scale, integrating a variety of geoarchaeological techniques. The approach provides insight into the depositional and post-depositional history of the site, and allows for questions of stratigraphic integrity, anthropogenic input, preservation, and environmental change to be addressed.

Clovis Technology is not Unique to Clovis

ABSTRACT We previously showed that stone-tool technological attributes thought to be unique to the Clovis period were present in a radiocarbon and OSL dated middle Holocene-age stratum at Goodson Shelter, Oklahoma (Eren et al. 2018a. “Is Clovis Technology Unique to Clovis?” PaleoAmerica 4:202–228). Consequently, we argued that technological attributes alone should not be used to assign assemblages to Clovis times. Huckell, Haynes, and Holliday (2019. “Comments on the Lithic Technology and Geochronology of the Goodson Rock Shelter.” PaleoAmerica 6:131–134) proposed two alternative hypotheses: that material we identified as Clovis-like was not, or that it was Clovis but had been mixed with younger deposits. They called for more information on the Clovis-like assemblage at Goodson, and additional dating of the site's lowest deposits. We provide that information, which confirms that stone-tool technologies ostensibly unique to Clovis were indeed in use in the middle Holocene.

Diverse stone artefacts around Lake Woods, Central Northern Territory, Australia

Lake Woods is a large freshwater body on the northern edge of Australia’s arid zone where research since the late 1960s has suggested late Pleistocene, later Holocene, and recent human occupations. We report on surface collections and test excavations undertaken at four sites on the western side of the lake basin in 2019. Each site produced a distinctive lithic assemblage, characterised by different types of shaped and retouched lithics and grindstones. Some material matches the ethnographic descriptions of W. Murgatroyd and R. Paton of local stone tool technology. Our work also confirms the hypothesis of M. Smith that there was later Holocene occupation in the area; and is not inconsistent with the hypothesis of J. Bowler that there was a late Pleistocene occupation around the lake, but definitive evidence of this remains ambiguous. Grindstones occur at all sites, indicating that the harvesting of grass seeds was consistently an important subsistence component for people living by the lake. Distinctive lithic types are found at Lake Woods that are characteristic either of tropical northern Australia or arid southern Australia, suggesting the lake was an inter-regional locus for human activity and a potential zone of interaction between different groups at various times in the past.

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition at Panga ya Saidi, in the tropical coastal forest of eastern Africa

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition is a critical period of human behavioral change that has been variously argued to pertain to the emergence of modern cognition, substantial population growth, and major dispersals of Homo sapiens within and beyond Africa. However, there is little consensus about when the transition occurred, the geographic patterning of its emergence, or even how it is manifested in the stone tool technology that is used to define it. Here, we examine a long sequence of lithic technological change at the cave site of Panga ya Saidi, Kenya, that spans the Middle and Later Stone Age and includes human occupations in each of the last five Marine Isotope Stages. In addition to the stone artifact technology, Panga ya Saidi preserves osseous and shell artifacts, enabling broader considerations of the covariation between different spheres of material culture. Several environmental proxies contextualize the artifactual record of human behavior at Panga ya Saidi. We compare technological change between the Middle and Later Stone Age with on-site paleoenvironmental manifestations of wider climatic fluctuations in the Late Pleistocene. The principal distinguishing feature of Middle from Later Stone Age technology at Panga ya Saidi is the preference for fine-grained stone, coupled with the creation of small flakes (miniaturization). Our review of the Middle to Later Stone Age transition elsewhere in eastern Africa and across the continent suggests that this broader distinction between the two periods is in fact widespread. We suggest that the Later Stone Age represents new short use-life and multicomponent ways of using stone tools, in which edge sharpness was prioritized over durability.

Prey Size Decline as a Unifying Ecological Selecting Agent in Pleistocene Human Evolution

We hypothesize that megafauna extinctions throughout the Pleistocene, that led to a progressive decline in large prey availability, were a primary selecting agent in key evolutionary and cultural changes in human prehistory. The Pleistocene human past is characterized by a series of transformations that include the evolution of new physiological traits and the adoption, assimilation, and replacement of cultural and behavioral patterns. Some changes, such as brain expansion, use of fire, developments in stone-tool technologies, or the scale of resource intensification, were uncharacteristically progressive. We previously hypothesized that humans specialized in acquiring large prey because of their higher foraging efficiency, high biomass density, higher fat content, and the use of less complex tools for their acquisition. Here, we argue that the need to mitigate the additional energetic cost of acquiring progressively smaller prey may have been an ecological selecting agent in fundamental adaptive modes demonstrated in the Paleolithic archaeological record. We describe several potential associations between prey size decline and specific evolutionary and cultural changes that might have been driven by the need to adapt to increased energetic demands while hunting and processing smaller and smaller game.

Nubian Levallois technology associated with southernmost Neanderthals

Neanderthals occurred widely across north Eurasian landscapes, but between ~ 70 and 50 thousand years ago (ka) they expanded southwards into the Levant, which had previously been inhabited by Homo sapiens. Palaeoanthropological research in the first half of the twentieth century demonstrated alternate occupations of the Levant by Neanderthal and Homo sapiens populations, yet key early findings have largely been overlooked in later studies. Here, we present the results of new examinations of both the fossil and archaeological collections from Shukbah Cave, located in the Palestinian West Bank, presenting new quantitative analyses of a hominin lower first molar and associated stone tool assemblage. The hominin tooth shows clear Neanderthal affinities, making it the southernmost known fossil specimen of this population/species. The associated Middle Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage is dominated by Levallois reduction methods, including the presence of Nubian Levallois points and cores. This is the first direct association between Neanderthals and Nubian Levallois technology, demonstrating that this stone tool technology should not be considered an exclusive marker of Homo sapiens.

Plant foods, stone tools and food preparation in prehistoric Europe: An integrative approach in the context of ERC funded project PLANTCULT

The transformation of food ingredients into meals corresponds to complex choices resulting from the interplay of environmental and cultural factors: available ingredients, technologies of transformation, cultural perceptions of food, as well as taste and food taboos. Project PLANTCULT (ERC Consolidator Grant, GA 682529) aims to investigate prehistoric culinary cultures from the Aegean to Central Europe by focusing on plant foods and associated food preparation technologies spanning the Neolithic through to the Iron Age. Our paper offers an overview of the lines of investigation pursued within the project to address plant food preparation and related stone tool technologies. The wide range of plant foods from the area under investigation (ground cereals, breads, beer, pressed grapes, split pulses, etc.) suggests great variability of culinary preparations. Yet, little is known of the transformation technologies involved (e.g., pounding, grinding, and boiling). Changes in size and shape of grinding stones over time have been associated with efficiency of grinding, specific culinary practices and socioeconomic organisation. Informed by ethnography and experimental data, as well as ancient texts, PLANTCULT integrates archaeobotanical food remains and associated equipment to address these issues. We utilize a multifaceted approach including the study of both published archaeological data and original assemblages from key sites. We aim to develop methods for understanding the interaction of tool type, use-wear formation and associated plant micro- and macro- remains in the archaeological record. Our experimental program aims to generate (a) reference material for the identification of plant processing in the archaeological record and (b) ingredients for the preparation of experimental plant foods, which hold a key role to unlocking the recipes of prehistory. Plant processing technologies are thus investigated across space and through time, in an attempt to explore the dynamic role of culinary transformation of plant ingredients into shaping social and cultural identities in prehistoric Europe.

Metal-Age maritime culture at Jareng Bori rockshelter, Pantar Island, eastern Indonesia

The archaeological record of Wallacea remains exceptionally fragmentary. This is especially the case for late Holocene human occupation of the region when lifestyle and culture in marginal island environments is relatively unknown. Here we report on the archaeology of Jareng Bori rockshelter, a Metal-Age site spanning c. 1800 cal. BP up to the late historic period and situated on the eastern coast of Pantar Island in the Lesser Sunda Islands of eastern Indonesia. We use osteoarchaeological (human and vertebrate remains), invertebrate zooarchaeological (crustacean and molluscan remains), technological (lithics, shell, and pottery) and chemical sourcing (obsidian and metal) datasets to discuss networking, migration, and human subsistence strategies during this recent period of history. While some communities were no doubt living in open village settlements where they were producing pottery, the data indicate that aspects of maritime life-ways continued much as in earlier Pleistocene settlements, with people using rockshelters like Jareng Bori to pursue a range of subsistence activities focused on the shoreline. Shellfishing of rocky and reef intertidal species and fishing for mostly small herbivorous and omnivorous fishes was practised, while domestic animals only appear in the late historic period. Wider regional cultural interactions and networking are epitomized by obsidian exchange, dental modification practices, and pottery decorations, while lithic analyses indicates continuity of stone tool technology up until recent times.

The Middle Stone Age occupations of Tiémassas, coastal West Africa, between 62 and 25 thousand years ago

Chronometrically dated Pleistocene records of human occupations of West Africa are rare but offer critical information with which to explore patterns of human origins and adaptation both within the region and more widely across the continent. A number of Middle Stone Age sites are known from the larger river valleys of West Africa, but recent work at the site of Tiémassas has highlighted the presence of Late Pleistocene occupations of the West African coastline. Tiémassas is the westernmost Middle Stone Age site known from Africa, and is located at the interface of Sudanian savannahs, Guinean forest-savannah mosaics and mangrove habitats. Research in the 20th century identified rich collections of MSA stone tools at the site, and our earlier excavations at Tiémassas have constrained an occupation to ca. 44 thousand years ago. Here, we present the results of further chronological dating and detailed analyses of lithic assemblages from new excavations at the site. We synthesize these new findings with the wider suite of evidence from the site to characterize MSA occupations of the West African coast to between 62 and 25 thousand years ago. Our results suggest considerable technological continuity in stone tool technologies at Tiémassas. Despite the immediate proximity of the coastline, there is little evidence at present to suggest direct engagement with coastal resources by MSA populations. Rather, the ecotonal position of the site, alongside more diffuse benefits of its coastal position, may have provided an attractive context for Middle Stone Age occupation.

Sandstone Ground Stone Technology: a Multi-level Use Wear and Residue Approach to Investigate the Function of Pounding and Grinding Tools

Ground stone tool (GST) technology includes artefacts utilized in pounding or grinding activities and characterized by long life cycles and multiple uses. The introduction of such technology dates back to early prehistory, and for this reason, it is used as prime evidence for tackling a wide range of archaeological questions such as the origins of technology, patterns of daily subsistence and lifeways. In this paper, we contribute to the field of study of GSTs by discussing the application of a novel multi-level analytical approach combining use wear and residue observations at low and high magnification with residue spatial distribution investigated using GIS. We aim to assess the potential of a combined use wear and residue approach to (1) discriminate specific gestures and worked materials on sandstone GSTs and (2) understand the potential of residue distributions for reconstructing ancient GST functions and, more specifically, the role of GSTs recovered at Mesolithic sites of the Danube Gorges region in the Central Balkans. We identified diagnostic surface modifications associated with the use of GSTs in different activities involving both animal and plant materials. Morphological characteristics of residues have been described under reflected and transmitted light and characterized using biochemical staining. Finally, we mapped residues across the utilized surfaces of experimental tools to link patterns of residue spatial distribution to specific materials and gestures. We expect our methodological approach will be taken up by other researchers in order to produce comparable datasets on GSTs and improve our understanding of their ancient functional biographies.

A multivariate perspective on lithic technological organization at Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (EeRl4), British Columbia

The management of lithic raw materials is a significant concern to anthropological archaeologists interested in hunter-gatherer socio-economies. A wide range of studies have implicated quarry distance, work needs, occupational longevity, and consumer population to variation in tactics for reduction, use, and maintenance of chipped stone tools. Fewer studies have examined socio-political factors in the organization of stone tool technology. This study examines the interactive effects of population, occupational longevity, favored prey, and socio-political complexity on the tactics by which lithic raw materials were managed in a long-lived winter pithouse in North America’s interior Pacific Northwest. Results of bivariate and multivariate analyses implicate variability in toolstone economies as related to different classes of lithic items. Lithic cores and flake tools were more extensively reduced in contexts of productive subsistence economies, high populations, long winter occupations, and material wealth-based inequality. Bifaces were produced and maintained in relation to needs associated with intensity of deer hunting. The creation and maintenance of slate tools was affected at least in part by the intensity of salmon fishing. Combined, these data suggest that the organization of lithic tool technology responded to multiple factors across the lifespan of the house.

Hot debate: Identifying heat treatment in Australian archaeology using science and modern indigenous knowledge

The deliberate heat treatment of lithic material for stone tools is a critical and hotly debated subject in human evolution and archaeology, representing a major technological innovation. This engineering of material has proven hard to demonstrate with archaeological data, although experimental data back early records from southern Africa. There is scant evidence of heat treatment from records representing early modern human migrations out of Africa and along the migration routes through Sunda to Sahul. The long cultural sequences found in Australian archaeology, have rarely been assessed for heat treatment, although it was practised in recent times by Indigenous peoples. Using modern Indigenous knowledge and a comprehensive review of the latest heat treatment identification methods, we assess a Pleistocene to Holocene record spanning some 47,000 years, for signals of deliberate heat treatment. We find unambiguous evidence for heat treatment to occur only in the mid to late Holocene, corresponding to a time of significant change. We discuss these findings concerning stone tool technology as an adaptive response to changing environmental, economic and social contexts. Our unique approach offers global relevance to the study of deliberate heat treatment in prehistory and engages with global debates on technological organization theory.

Minimal Tools, Maximum Meat: A Pilot Experiment to Butcher an Elephant Foot and Make Elephant Bone Tools Using Lower Paleolithic Stone Tool Technology

ABSTRACT This article presents a pilot experiment conducted to better understand how Middle Pleistocene hominins might have processed and exploited elephants using simple stone and bone tools. The experiment was conducted in three phases: (1) production of small, flake-based stone tools, (2) butchery of the lower hind-leg of an Indian elephant, and (3) manufacture of bone tools from the tibia. The experiment shows it is possible to cut through elephant skin in under four minutes using small chipped-stone flakes; disarticulating the astragalus from the tibia is relatively easy, whereas disarticulating the astragalus from the other tarsals is difficult; breaking open an elephant tibia is possible in two minutes; the tibia of the elephant used in the experiment lacked a hollow marrow cavity; extraction of the large fatty cushion encased in the metatarsals and phalanges required several hours; and elephant bone tools are useful for retouching lithic materials of differing quality.

On identifying Palaeolithic single occupation episodes: archaeostratigraphic and technological approaches to the Neanderthal lithic record of stratigraphic unit xa of El Salt (Alcoi, eastern Iberia)

Within the framework of archaeological palimpsest dissection, stratigraphic association of lithic remains with hearths and other archaeological materials in undisturbed Neanderthal contexts allows us to seek patterns in lithic and faunal assemblage composition, assess the degree of time averaging within assemblages and investigate the spatial distribution of archaeological remains. So far, the European Neanderthal record shows variability in such spatial parameters, not only among different geographic regions but also across time. This approach has been employed to draw conclusions about the main features of Neanderthal occupations from in situ archaeological contexts within individual site sequences. As contribution to this topic, we present new results from our ongoing archaeostratigraphic investigation of stratigraphic unit xa from El Salt (Alcoi, Alacant, eastern Iberia). Our previous study, based on stratigraphic analysis of the lithic record consisting of raw material units, yielded several micropalimpsests within unit xa. Here, we carry out further technological and spatial analysis of the micropalimpsest units. The results obtained from it suggest that we may be able, in specific cases, to recognise indicators of diachrony within the context of these archaeostratigraphic units. This confirms the existence of a micropalimpsest, and suggests that we have the chance to find analytical frames that are even closer to the human temporal scale than the AU. This should be the target of future interdisciplinary behavioural study of El Salt unit xa. This work illustrates the potential of a spatial and archaeostratigraphic approach to stone tool technology and brings to light the importance of archaeological palimpsest dissection as a first step for behavioural analysis in Palaeolithic research.

Theory of mind as a proxy for Palaeolithic language ability

Abstract Symbolic artefacts have long been archaeology’s primary contribution to tracing the origin and subsequent development of human language. But the identification and interpretation of symbolic behaviour poses numerous interpretive problems, particularly before the Upper Palaeolithic where clearly referential forms of symbolic material are rare. As an alternative, theory of mind is presented here, detailing its intimate relationship with language and likely coevolution, alongside the factors which make it a more effective proxy. As a cognitive ability that grades in complexity and predicts linguistic skill in modern cognition, theory of mind also has the potential to denote specific syntactic and semantic features of language such as word reference, mental state verbs and complementation. The potential to detect theory of mind in the archaeological record is considered here, such as within the cultural transmission of stone tool technology and forms of complex social learning like imitation and teaching in early hominin technologies.

Early Holocene Cultural Diversity in Central America: Comment on Prufer et al. (2019) “Linking Late Paleoindian Stone Tool Technologies and Populations in North, Central and South America”

ABSTRACTA recent publication by Keith Prufer and colleagues based on new data from southern Belize defines a “Lowe complex” and seeks to relate these finds to Late Paleoindian technologies in North and South America. This review corrects some parts of the record as presented by Prufer et al.

The Use of Bone in Stone Tool Technology: Retouchers from Veternica and Vindija (Croatia)

The Use of Bone in Stone Tool Technology: Retouchers from Veternica and Vindija (Croatia)

Learner-driven innovation in the stone tool technology of early Homo sapiens.

Current perspectives of stone tool technology tend to emphasize homogeneity in tool forms and core reduction strategies across time and space. This homogeneity is understood to represent shared cultural traditions that are passed down through the generations. This represents a top-down perspective on how and why stone tools are manufactured that largely restricts technological agency to experts, adults and teachers. However, just as bottom-up processes driven by children and youth influence technological innovation today, they are likely to have played a role in the past. This paper considers evidence from the archaeological record of early Homo sapiens' lithic technology in Africa that may attest to our long history of bottom-up social learning processes and learner-driven innovation. This evidence includes the role of emulative social learning in generating assemblages with diverse reduction strategies, a high degree of technological fragmentation across southern Africa during some time periods, and technological convergence through the Pleistocene. Counter to some perspectives on the uniqueness of our species, our ability to learn independently, to 'break the rules' and to play, as opposed to conforming to top-down influences, may also account for our technological success.

A Glimpse into Advances in Archaeological Research in North-Central Uruguay

The Tacuarembo Department of north-central Uruguay, and especially in the middle portion of the Negro River, has produced a rich and diverse archaeological record, mostly characterized by significant evidence of stone tool remains. The evidence comprises one of the largest collections of artifacts witnessing early human occupation in the region during the terminal Pleistocene about 11,000 - 10,000 uncalibrated radiocarbon years ago. As part of a long-term research program aimed at exploring and understanding diverse aspects of the regional archaeological process, mainly focusing on the earliest people who colonized the New World, as well as to deepen and expand knowledge on diverse aspects of the Late Pleistocene and post-Pleistocene stone tool technologies employed by the prehistoric people living in this part of southeastern South America. Systematic research enabled numerous field and laboratory activities to be conducted. To build a chronostratigraphic framework for the regional archaeological process, various dating methods were used. Furthermore, diverse technological analyses on lithic artifacts facilitated recognition of the existence of unreported techniques and reduction strategies employed by the prehistoric inhabitants. By this way this paper summarizes the observations and results obtained during the most recent field and laboratory investigation carried out in Tacuarembo by offering a glimpse into the use of diverse scientific disciplines and approaches that may help to deepen various topics concerning the regional prehistoric past. The archaeological excavations as well as the variety of dating methods used have allowed us to understand the chronology and certain aspects of the site formation process revealing important depositional gaps and hiatuses of several thousand years in the dated sedimentary deposit. The new technological investigations have permitted more detailed knowledge to be collected regarding diverse topics related to the reduction systems existing in the area since the terminal Pleistocene. Indeed, the Paleoindian remains add new finds to the record of the early colonizers living in Tacuarembo during the last millennium of the Pleistocene. Also, the identification of clear turtle-back Levallois-like cores agrees with earlier finds in other locations in southeastern South America and yielded excellent examples of the employment of the flaking strategy by the prehistoric populations living in Tacuarembo. From the experimental lithic technology perspective, modern reproductions of the stone tools afforded an understanding of various aspects of the reduction sequences and technical features of their analogs from the past.

The Paleolithic in the Nihewan Basin, China: Evolutionary history of an Early to Late Pleistocene record in Eastern Asia.

The Nihewan Basin of China preserves one of the most important successions of Paleolithic archeological sites in Eurasia. Stratified archeological sites and mammalian fossils, first reported in the 1920s, continue to be recovered in large-scale excavation projects. Here, we review key findings from archeological excavations in the Nihewan Basin ranging from ~1.66 Ma to 11.7 ka. We place particular emphasis on changes in stone tool technology over the long term. Though Pleistocene lithic industries from East Asia are often described as simple in character, re-evaluation of the stone tool evidence from the Nihewan Basin demonstrates significant, though periodic, innovations and variability in manufacturing techniques through time, indicating adaptive and technological flexibility on the part of hominins. Synthesis of paleoenvironmental and archeological data indicate changes in hominin occupation frequency in the Nihewan Basin, with chronological gaps suggesting that continuous presence in high, seasonal latitudes was not possible prior to the Late Pleistocene.