Oldowan

Cutmark frequencies are often cited in discussions of Oldowan hominid behavior, yet their interpretation remains enigmatic. To strengthen inferences derived from cutmark data, we conducted experiments with Turkana butchers. We test two hypotheses: (1) cutmark frequency is related to the amount of meat present, and (2) cutmark frequency is related to the size of the bone/carcass being butchered. Hypothesis 1 is not supported, while hypothesis 2 is supported. We document a positive correlation between bone/carcass size and cutmark frequency. We therefore advocate treating bones/ carcasses of different sizes as analytically discrete units.

Some of the biggest questions in human evolution are why we have such large brains and how our ancestors acquired language and exceptional intelligence. Our extreme reliance on technology has set us humans and our ancestors apart from other primates for more than three million years. It is widely thought that tools from the distant past may hold the clues to answering these questions because they represent all that is left of ancient minds at work. This study addresses these questions by using brain imaging technology to determine which areas of the brain of modern-day humans become most active as they make two types of tools from the past, one from as early as 2.6 million years ago (Ma) known as the Oldowan industry, and the other from 1.75 Ma known as the early Acheulian industry. Because it remains unclear whether early humans possessed language this far back in the past, an instructor taught half of the participants in this study to make stone tools with language, while the other half learned by nonverbal imitation. The analysis of the resulting brain imaging data revealed that Acheulian toolmaking requires higher-order conceptualization than Oldowan toolmaking. Selection for individuals who could store and manipulate more information and therefore make the most productive Acheulian tools may have been the prime reason for the evolution of large brain size in humans. The complex cognition that evolved as a result of such technology likely provided the framework on which language could build.

In 1984 in the course of the investigations carried out by the joint Soviet-Yemeni Interdisciplinary expedition in the Republic of Yemen, Hadramaut province the multilayer stratified cave site Al-Guza was discovered. The site has yielded rich and significant stone industry of the Oldowan type. This brochure give an opportunity of general acquaintance with an extraordinary archaeological monument.

The origin of the genus Homo in Africa signals the beginning of the shift from increasingly bipedal apes to primitive, large-brained, stone tool-making, meat-eaters that traveled far and wide. This early part of the human genus is represented by three species: Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Homo erectus. H. habilis is known for retaining primitive features that link it to australopiths and for being the first stone tool makers. Little is known about H. rudolfensis except that it had a relatively large brain and large teeth compared to H. habilis and that it overlapped in time and space with other early Homo. Our understanding of the paleobiology and evolution of the larger-brained H. erectus is enhanced due to its rich fossil record. H. erectus was the first obligate, fully committed biped, and with a body adapted for modern striding locomotion, it was also the first in the human lineage to disperse outside of Africa. The early members of the genus Homo are the first to tip the scale from the more apish side of our evolutionary history toward the more human one.

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 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 toolkits
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.

The MS for this paper is already on Academia.edu
This paper goes back to some first principles about what culture might be and how it can be investigated in order to ask questions about the Last Common Ancestor and the role of stone tools in changing the nature of culture. In doing so it considers the relations between learned behavior , tradition , culture, cumulative culture , and cultures: I juxtapose models used by ROCEEH with an alternative model that shows how creatures which can be argued to have such behaviors, and thus the behaviors are related to each other through time and across the animal world.

Lithic artifacts and animal bones form the bulk of the material remains of the Paleolithic. This has led archeologists to interpret these two types of finds as tethered components of subsistence systems. Differences observed through time and space in the lithic repertoire were considered as functional adjustments, designed to maximize gains from a diverse faunal resource base. While we do not challenge the general notion that lithic artifacts were used (also) for exploiting faunal (and other) resources, we note that significant lithic technological breakthroughs, clearly directed towards higher efficiency of procurement of faunal resources (e.g., hafting, projectile weapons), are few and far-apart in the evolution of material culture. Based on case studies from the Levantine Middle Paleolithic (MP), we question the degree to which fauna-based subsistence determined lithic variability. Current research focus on functional relationship between lithics and fauna may preclude consideration of other causes for lithic typo-technological diversity. These may include technological traditions, differences in cultural transmission processes, or the level of within-and between-group connectivity, various combinations of which may have operated in the MP.

Anticipatory cognition, that is, the ability to mentally represent future needs, is a uniquely human trait
that has arisen along the hominid line. We argue for the co-evolution of early anticipatory cognition and the
Oldowan cultural niche. Following Plummer (2004), we identify the niche as consisting of stone tool
manufacture, of transports over long ranges of tools as well as food and of the use of accumulation spots. Our
main argument is that this niche promoted the selection for anticipatory cognition, in particular planning for
future goals. Once established, anticipatory cognition opened up for further cultural developments, such as long
ranging migration, division of labour, and advanced co-operation and communication, all of which one find
evidence for in Homo ergaster/erectus.

Based on a comprehensive Master Matrix tables for over 550 archaeological sites across the five regions of the Southern Route and over 530 bibliographical references (see Online Support Materials), this review provides evidence to support the hypothesis that there was not merely one period of global dispersal of symbolic behavior out-of-Africa, across the so-called Southern Route, but three: Classic Oldowan (Mode 1) technology and symbolic behavior; Middle Acheulian (Mode 2) technology and symbolic behavior; Mid-Middle Paleolithic (Mode 3) technology and symbolic behavior.  A corollary is that a review of published archaeology suggests that Neanderthals had a richer repertoire of symbolic behaviors than out-of-Africa mid-Middle Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens.

This article reconsiders the early hominid
‘‘lithic niche’’ by examining the social implications of
stone artifact making. I reject the idea that making tools for
use is an adequate explanation of the elaborate artifact
forms of the Lower Palaeolithic, or a sufficient cause for
long-term trends in hominid technology. I then advance an
alternative mechanism founded on the claim that competency
in making stone artifacts requires extended learning,
and that excellence in artifact making is attained only by
highly skilled individuals who have been taught and
practiced for extensive periods. Consequently both competency
and expertise in knapping comes at a high learning
cost for both the individual learner and the social group to
which they belong. Those high intrinsic costs of learning
created contexts in which groups selected cost-reducing
forms of social learning and teaching, and in which specialization
could develop. Artifacts and their manufacturing
processes probably acquired functions as social
signals—as honest signals of valuable capacities. The
magnification of these signals, through competition
between knappers and through inspiring later craftspeople,
may account for a substantial amount of the accumulated
elaboration visible in the archaeological record. Consequently
lithic artifacts operated as material symbols from
an early time in hominid evolution.

Stone tools emerged at least 2.5 mya in Africa and were manufactured continuously by early Homo species through the emergence of cognitively modern Homo sapiens. Aspects of hominin cognitive evolution, reflected in hominin intentions, may therefore be preserved in this durable aspect of the archaeological record. Stoneworking design space is cellular in structure and two levels of hominin intentions are apparent in modifying stone: the intention to remove a single flake and the higher-order intentions reflected in the ways that flakes are combined to produce effects. Archaeologists have traditionally interpreted early hominin intentions using the higher-order skills and experiences of modern knappers as analogues, an approach that is epistemologically flawed. Further, the tightly constrained structure of design space could have led early hominins inadvertently to produce what appear to be highly-designed tools or tool attributes in the absence of an intention to do so. Controlled experimental research is necessary to provide an empirical baseline for identifying higher-order intentions in the archaeological record.

After 800,000 years of making simple Oldowan tools, early humans began manufacturing Acheulian handaxes around 1.75 million years ago. This advance is hypothesized to reflect an evolutionary change in hominin cognition and language abilities. We used a neuroarchaeology approach to investigate this hypothesis, recording brain activity using functional near-infrared spectroscopy as modern human participants learned to make Oldowan and Acheulian stone tools in either a verbal or nonverbal training context. Here we show that Acheulian tool production requires the integration of visual, auditory and sensorimotor information in the middle and superior temporal cortex, the guidance of visual working memory representations in the ventral precentral gyrus, and higher-order action planning via the supplementary motor area, activating a brain network that is also involved in modern piano playing. The right analogue to Broca’s area—which has linked tool manufacture and language in prior work1,2—was only engaged during verbal training. Acheulian toolmaking, therefore, may have more evolutionary ties to playing Mozart than quoting Shakespeare.

By understanding feature that are produced after smashing a stone with human intention vis- à-vis natural smashing (which occur naturally without human intention to knap), by understanding how materials were selected and involvement of intelligent mind to shape and control flakes, also by archaeological observation through associating Oldowan tools and fauna remains with cut marks and other marks which were left through uses of Oldowan tools; and by understanding each tools and its uses. I can honestly say that Oldowan Technology was more than smashing stone. When we say it was only about smashing stones, we miss the other point of it. Oldowan Technology was probably the first and the oldest sophisticated technology that dates 2.5 million of years ago. Not only about smashing but the involvement of an intelligent mind is very interesting.

Traditional lithic artifact analyses have provided information regarding hominin ranging behaviors, raw material preferences, and the potential for functionality.  However, there is currently no standard method for determining how hominins produced lithic artifacts.  This dissertation research provides the first quantitative measure of flake production techniques and applies these measures to the Oldowan of Koobi Fora, Kenya and Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania.  Four Oldowan production behaviors are identified and are used to define what has been called the “least effort approach” to flake production in the Oldowan.  Behaviorally informative measurements are taken on whole flakes and size standardized using their geometric mean.  In order to attribute each archaeological flake to a production behavior, large experimental assemblages are created using native raw materials from Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge (n = 3,651 flakes and 443 cores).  Each experimentally produced flake has empirically known production behaviors associated with it.  A multivariate classification algorithm is constructed to determine a classification tree of best fit for the experimental flakes such that each flake is assigned a particular production behavior.  Archaeological flakes are assessed via this classification algorithm and then compared to the experimental expectations for distribution of production behaviors.
The application of Oldowan archaeological assemblages to this process demonstrates that the null hypothesis that a least effort manufacturing strategy was employed at Koobi Fora cannot be rejected, but this null hypothesis can be rejected for subsets of quartzite and basalt flakes at Olduvai Gorge.  Hominins at both localities demonstrate an understanding of raw material economics, but at Olduvai Gorge these hominins demonstrate a consistent ability to produce flakes in a more efficient way than a least effort approach predicts.  Hominins at Olduvai Gorge consistently transport quartzite flakes to the site locations, while they consistently transport basalt cores to the sites.  Koobi Fora hominins also demonstrate the ability to transport raw materials, but do not produce flakes outside of least effort expectations.  Due to these differences in stone tool production strategies and lithic transport behaviors, this research argues that distinct cultural differences between hominin populations are quantifiably evident as early as the Oldowan.

This dissertation presents taphonomic analyses of human- and carnivore-modified bone assemblages in order to elucidate the timing of hominin access to carcass resources in the African Early Pleistocene. One of the defining adaptations of the genus Homo is the routine incorporation of animal tissue into the diet with the aid of tools. As a nutritionally dense food source, the addition of meat to the diet is often associated with important changes in the morphology and behavior of early hominins. Yet the ecological and behavioral implications of meat consumption for hominins are not well understood. This study tests competing hypotheses of hominin carcass acquisition and hominin-carnivore competition through a comparative study of carnivore- and hominin-induced modifications in the zooarchaeological assemblages from Kanjera South, Kenya (ca. 2 Ma) and FLK I Level 22 (FLK Zinj), Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (ca. 1.84 Ma). Patterns of bone preservation and the distribution of bone surface modifications from these two sites are analyzed within a comparative framework of new and existing taphonomic models. The new taphonomic models presented here include the largest modern bone assemblages documenting large felid and canid bone damage to date. A GIS image analysis method is used to analyze patterns of bone damage in experimental and archaeological assemblages. The GIS method originally described by Marean et al. (2001) is expanded here to incorporate ArcGIS Spatial Analyst tools, and this method is applied for the first time to analyze patterns of hominin and carnivore damage. Results of these analyses suggest hominins at both Kanjera South and FLK Zinj had early access to carcasses. At both sites, small and medium bovid carcasses may have been obtained through hunting, while remains of larger carcasses may have been obtained through active scavenging. Despite the evidence for early carcass access at both sites, overall frequencies of both hominin and carnivore modifications are lower at Kanjera South compared to FLK Zinj, suggesting differing competitive regimes at the two sites and potentially signaling differing behavioral strategies.

Книга посвящена исследованию одного из древнейших археологических памятников каменного века на территории Евразии – стоянки эпохи олдована Мухкай II, слой 80 (Северо-Восточный Кавказ). Будучи частью многослойного памятника Мухкай II, она представляет собой одно из ярких свидетельств
деятельности древних Homo. Благодаря сохранности культурных отложений, богатству археологического и фаунистического материала стоянка в слое 80 – редкий для археологии раннего палеолита комплекс. В книге подробно анализируются стратиграфия, пространственная структура стоянки, тафономическиусловия захоронения культурных остатков, технология обработки и типологикаменного инвентаря. Рассмотрены также вопросы хронологии, функционального типа стоянки и ее культурно-исторической принадлежности среди памятников раннего палеолита Африки и Евразии. Книга предназначена для археологов, историков, палеогеографов, палеонтологов и для всех интересующихся древнейшей историей человечества.

These are the first results of field studies on the stratified location of the Lower Paleolithic at Golovchyntsi-1 in the upper reaches of the Southern Bug. The archaeological site belongs to the group of Lower Paleolithic Medzhybizh parking. Stone tools are defined as Oldowan (Mode 1). The preliminary stratigraphic dating for the first and second horizons are Shyrokyn Age (OIS 24-31 (0.9-1.3 million years)).

Early Stone Age artifacts have long been assumed to reflect the material record of communities whose members possessed the ability to transmit ideas, behaviors, and technologies from individual to individual through high-fidelity transmission (i.e., involving teaching and/or imita

HOMINID DISPERSAL INTO EUROPE AROUND THE MATUYAMA/BRUNHES BOUNDARY: ORIGIN AND SIGNIFICANCE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION

A review of the European Lower Palaeolithic record shows three human dispersal episodes. The second one is dated between OIS25/OIS24-OIS19/OIS18. It is recorded by lithic assemblages and human remains that point to an eastern Asian origin. This paper reviews this hominid dispersal,
related to the Galerian faunal event. Also we analyse the most feasible migratory routes, and the reasons of its abrupt ending. The phylogenetic relationships of these populations are also proposed, putting their context into the human evolutionary sequences of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene.

La revisión del registro inferopaleolítico europeo permite identificar tres episodios de poblamiento. El segundo de los mismos, datado entre OIS25/OIS24-OIS19/OIS18, ofrece industrias líticas y fósiles humanos que indican un posible origen esteasiático. Se ofrece una síntesis sobre este
episodio de dispersión, relacionado con el reemplazo de faunas galerienses. Se analizan las posibles vías migratorias que siguió y los motivos que pudieron ocasionar su interrupción. También se plantean las relaciones filogenéticas de estas poblaciones, insertándolas en el marco evolutivo del
Pleistoceno inferior y medio.

These are the first results of field studies on the stratified location of the Lower Paleolithic at Golovchyntsi-1 in the upper reaches of the Southern Bug. The archaeological site belongs to the group of Lower Paleolithic Medzhybizh parking. Stone tools are defined as Oldowan (Mode 1). The preliminary stratigraphic dating for the first and second horizons are Shyrokyn Age (OIS 24-31 (0.9-1.3 million years)).

El objetivo de este texto es resumir el conocimiento actual en relación con la industria de piedra más antigua de la humanidad (Olduvayense).
Se reflexiona sobre las causas de su aparición en el continente africano, qué tipo de homínido habría estado implicado en su factura
y cuáles son las características básicas de su sistema de producción. Del mismo modo, se valora finalmente la sustitución en África de este primer
tecnocomplejo de la humanidad por otro cognitiva y técnicamente más avanzado (Achelense).
ABSTRACT
The aim of this text is to summarise current knowledge on the Oldowan, Humanity´s earliest stone technology. We reflect on the causes
for its beginning in the African continent, and we consider what kind of hominid could be responsible for its manufacture. We also explain
what the main characteristics of its production scheme are. In the same way, we would like to reflect on the substitution in Africa of this first
human industrial complex by the Acheulian, a more developed one from both a cognitive and a technical point of view.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Achelense. Género Homo. Homínidos. Innovación. Olduvayense.
KEY WORDS: Acheulean. Genus Homo. Hominids. Innovation. Oldowan.

El objetivo de este texto es resumir el conocimiento actual en relación con la industria de piedra más antigua de la humanidad (Olduvayense).
Se reflexiona sobre las causas de su aparición en el continente africano, qué tipo de homínido habría estado implicado en su factura
y cuáles son las características básicas de su sistema de producción. Del mismo modo, se valora finalmente la sustitución en África de este primer
tecnocomplejo de la humanidad por otro cognitiva y técnicamente más avanzado (Achelense).
ABSTRACT
The aim of this text is to summarise current knowledge on the Oldowan, Humanity´s earliest stone technology. We reflect on the causes
for its beginning in the African continent, and we consider what kind of hominid could be responsible for its manufacture. We also explain
what the main characteristics of its production scheme are. In the same way, we would like to reflect on the substitution in Africa of this first
human industrial complex by the Acheulian, a more developed one from both a cognitive and a technical point of view.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Achelense. Género Homo. Homínidos. Innovación. Olduvayense.
KEY WORDS: Acheulean. Genus Homo. Hominids. Innovation. Oldowan.

This paper was written to study the development of stone tools technology throughout the Paleolithic. It finds the technology developed with the simplest discoveries being made first and more complex discoveries being made later. The chemical structure and the properties of the raw materials determined that stone tools could be useful to humans and over time people learnt to make better and better stone tools. The improvements occurred in an order that was necessary and inevitable, with later improvements building upon earlier improvements, and is an illustration of how increasing human knowledge changes technology and human social and cultural history.