Purposeful tool use in early lithic technologies

Insights into early lithic technologies from ethnography.

Oldowan lithic assemblages are often portrayed as a product of the need to obtain sharp flakes for cutting into animal carcases. However, ethnographic and experimental research indicates that the optimal way to produce flakes for such butchering purposes is via bipolar reduction of small cryptocrystalline pebbles rather than from larger crystalline cores resembling choppers. Ethnographic observ...

Smith Creek Lithic Tool Analysis

Lithic Landscapes: Early Human Impact from Stone Tool Production on the Central Saharan Environment

Humans have had a major impact on the environment. This has been particularly intense in the last millennium but has been noticeable since the development of food production and the associated higher population densities in the last 10,000 years. The use of fire and over-exploitation of large mammals has also been recognized as having an effect on the world's ecology, going back perhaps 100,000...

Fossil evidence for early hominid tool use.

Although several Plio-Pleistocene hominids are found in association with stone and bone tools, it has been generally assumed that at any one time the hominid with the largest brain was the toolmaker. Fossils recovered over the last decade suggest that early hominids subsequent to 2.5 million years ago all might have used tools and occupied "cultural" niches. A test for humanlike precision grasp...

Children in Archaeological Lithic Analysis

One assumption that persists in the field of archaeology is that it is easier to observe children within historic sites through toys or burials than it is to observe children within a prehistoric setting through lithic production. The purpose of this paper is to examine the current position of children within the prehistoric archaeological literature and to provide case studies of research that...