The oldowan reassessed: A close look at early stone artifacts

Early Stone Age assemblages called “Oldowan” and early “Developed Oldowan” are discussed, based on the results of a long-term study of Plio-Pleistocene sites at Koobi Fora, Kenya and an extensive experimental research program of replicating and using early stone artifact forms. Five major conclusions are drawn from this investigation: (1) many Oldowan core forms (“core-tools”) are probably simple by-products of flake manufacture rather than representations of stylistic norms; (2) flakes and retouched flakes - were essential tools in Oldowan technology, particularly for activities involving cutting; (3) this simple technology does not necessarily reflect the cognitive abilities of the early hominids that manufactured the stone artifacts; (4) there is evidence to show that Oldowan technology can be viewed as a simple curated one, in which raw material was intentionally carried from place to place for future use; (5) early hominid populations that made and used stone implements were not necessarily dependent upon them for their survival.     

Stone technology at the Middle Pleistocene site of Mata Menge,Flores, Indonesia

The stone technology from Mata Menge on Flores, Indonesia, is described, providing the first detailed analysis of the largest stone artefact assemblage from a stratified and securely dated Middle Pleistocene site in Southeast Asia. Technological analysis indicates a reduction sequence based on the centripetal, or “radial”, reduction of transported blanks. The implications for early hominin behaviour on Flores are considered.     

Oldowan reduction sequences: methodological considerations

Transport of resources is a major feature of Oldowan hominin technological adaptations. Comparisons between different Oldowan localities often employ measures of transport that are based on artefact attributes as proxies for the intensity of raw material utilization. The Technological Flake Category system [Toth, N., 1985. Oldowan reassessed: a close look at early stone artifacts, Journal of Archaeological Science 12, pp. 101–120] has been used extensively to infer the relative intensity of lithic reduction within Oldowan assemblages. Here we use a large experimental sample to test the relationship between a flake's stage in a reduction sequence and various quantitative attributes. We demonstrate how many previously described attributes are affected by initial core size. We then develop a multiple linear regression model that incorporates several variables to predict the placement of a flake within a generalized reduction sequence. The model is then applied to Oldowan assemblages in the Koobi Fora Formation which explores the strengths and weaknesses of different methods of investigating reduction intensity on an assemblage level.     

中国磨制石器起源的南北差异

磨制石器的起源是学界关心的问题之一,本文试图探讨中国早期磨制石器的主要种类、发展阶段及南北差异的原因,以期揭示磨制石器起源的内在机制。磨制石器的起源与生业经济紧密相关,中国旧石器向新石器过渡阶段对于植物资源的利用促使了中国磨制石器的起源。由于中国南北环境的差异,对于植物资源的利用种类和利用方式有所区别,因此导致中国南北磨制石器种类的不同。     

Lithic Modes A–I: A New Framework for Describing Global-Scale Variation in Stone Tool Technology Illustrated with Evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant

Grahame Clark’s framework for describing stone tool assemblages in terms of five technological “modes” enjoys wide use in European, African, and Asian prehistory. With greater usage and increases in the global archaeological database for prehistory, problems and weaknesses of Clark’s framework have become apparent. This paper reviews these problems and proposes an updated framework, modes A–I, for describing variability in stone tool production strategies. The value of this new framework for prehistory is illustrated using data from the East Mediterranean Levant.     

Core Use-Life Distributions in Lithic Assemblages as a Means for Reconstructing Behavioral Patterns

Artifacts with varying use-lives have different discard rates and hence are represented unequally among archaeological assemblages. As such, the ability to gauge the use-lives of artifacts is important for understanding the formation of archaeological assemblage variability. In lithic artifacts, use-life can be expressed as the extraction of utility, or work potential, from existing stone volume. Using experimental data and generalized linear modeling, this study develops models of artifact use-life on cores in the form of reduction intensity. We then apply these models to two archaeological case studies to (a) reconstruct the reduction intensities of archaeological cores and (b) investigate the survivorship curves of these archaeological cores across the reduction continuum using the Weibull function. Results indicate variation in core reduction and maintenance with respect to raw material properties and place use history and implicate evolutionary differences between Early Stone Age hominins and Holocene modern humans.     

London Stone: Stone of Brutus or Fetish Stone—Making the Myth

The remnant of once-famous “London Stone” stands almost unnoticed today in Cannon Street, in the City of London. Speculation about its origin began as early as the sixteenth century. This paper considers in particular the identification of the Stone as London's talisman (a view embodied in an invented “ancient saying” that linked it to the city's legendary Trojan foundation), or as a prehistoric “fetish stone” set up when London was first settled. The mythologising of London Stone continues, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it is regarded by some as an essential element in London's indefinable “sacred geometry.”     

Raw material quality and Oldowan hominin toolstone preferences: evidence from Kanjera South,Kenya

The role of raw material quality in Oldowan technology has not been fully explored. There are numerous studies suggesting Oldowan hominins preferred certain types of stone for artifact manufacture. Previous studies of the artifact assemblage from the early Pliocene Oldowan locality of Kanjera South (South Rachuonyo District, Kenya) show that raw material selection and transport was an important aspect of Late Pliocene hominin adaptations. Yet the exact properties of stones that hominins were selecting remain enigmatic. Two potentially important features of artifact raw material are durability and fracture predictability. We investigate fracture predictability through mechanical tests of stone and investigations of the affect of stone properties on fracture patterns in archaeological collections. We investigate stone durability with actualistic studies of edge attrition combined with further mechanical tests of various lithologies. Oldowan hominins at Kanjera appear to have selected raw materials based on their durability. The ability for a stone to fracture consistently does not appear to be as important in hominin toolstone preference as previously assumed. Hominins that produced the assemblages at Kanjera South appear to have incorporated an extensive understanding of various attributes of raw material in the transport and production of stone artifacts. When combined with previous research on the transport patterns at Kanjera, the results of this study provide evidence for a more complex raw material acquisition strategy than has previously been suggested for Late Pliocene Oldowan hominins.     

Defining and measuring reduction in unifacial stone tools

Observations pertaining to particular stages of the lithic chaîne opératoire, or reconstructions of the entire operational sequence at a particular site, can be used to develop a detailed understanding of past human cognitive capabilities, technological sophistication, mobility, and land use. The “reduction sequence” is a specific stage of the chaîne opératoire that many archaeologists have attempted to measure. Many of these attempts fail to recognize that “reduction” is a three-dimensional process, and thus should be measured with an appropriate three-dimensional unit: volume. This paper presents a new methodology for measuring and defining reduction in unifacial stone tools that reconstructs the original volume of a modified blank, allowing a realistic percentage of volume loss to be calculated. This new method is fast, precise, and very accurate.     

Chipped Stone Debitage,Material Selection,and Expedient Tool Production in Southeast Michigan

Abstract

This article summarizes the results of exploratory analyses on material sources and debitage attributes from chipped stone artifacts at sites identified and sampled by the Eastern Michigan University Field School along the Huron River Valley in southeast Michigan. Several hypotheses are tested with chipped stone debitage assemblages from 35 prehistoric sites to better understand material selection, expedient versus formal tool manufacturing, and the influence of material availability and mobility in chipped stone processing within the region. The distribution of debitage attributes (reduction stage, technology, condition, and size) are first compared by material source and quality. Then, the distributions of materials and debitage attributes are compared among small limited-use sites and two early Late Woodland small settlements. The results indicate a heavy reliance on poorer quality local cherts, and a focus on expedient tool manufacturing with both the local poorer quality and the nonlocal higher quality sources. There were no major differences in debitage assemblages between the limited use sites and the settlements.     

Wardens of Civilisation: The Political Ecology of Australian Far-Right Civilisationism

The notion of a superior “civilisation” has been a hallmark of the politics of Western institutions and fringe white supremacists alike. Known ideologically as “civilisationism”, it has occupied a prominent position in the ideology of the Australian far-right. Paying tribute to their settler-colonial origins, the far-right has consistently promoted “white civilisation”, even inspiring terrorist attacks. Despite this propensity for violence, far-right civilisationism remains largely unexplored. Through investigating a dataset of Australian far-right content, this paper reveals civilisationism as a significant part of their ideology, an ideology which relies on the idealisation of European technologies and environments to render Indigenous land and people uncivilised. A critical narrative analysis of the data illustrates the ways that these ecological factors are drawn into narrative to articulate Australian far-right civilisationism, an ideology inseparable from the political ecology of European history and colonialism, that today represents a particularly virulent version of its legacy.     

The Latest Instalment in the Whig Interpretation of Australian Education History: Catherine Byrne's JORH Article “Free,Compulsory and (not) Secular”

The original meaning of the term “secular” in the “free compulsory and secular” nineteenth‐century Australian public education acts is often contested, and has recently become part of a contemporary debate about the presence of confessional religion in state schools. I outline four different interpretations expressed in Australian education history writing, then review the recent Journal of Religious History article “Free, Compulsory and (not) Secular” by Catherine Byrne, arguing that it belongs to the secular liberal or “Whig” interpretation of the meaning of “secular” in the acts. The article is critiqued for forcing sources to conform to an overly rhetorical narrative device: a polarised structure valorising Victorian legislator George Higinbotham, and demonising New South Wales legislator Sir Henry Parkes. The article is also criticised for sub‐optimal source‐work, lack of awareness of the corpus of Australian education history, and overt contemporary policy agendas. I also suggest that the larger “Whig” interpretation of “secular” as part of a liberal progress narrative, underemphasises a religious hermeneutic and a critical theory hermeneutic: that a Protestant consensus about state schooling and “secular” in the Public Education Acts was also a deeply sectarian device for excluding Catholics from a dominant social settlement, just one part of a systemically divided and prejudicial culture.     

Major Fallacies Surrounding Stone Artifacts and Assemblages

While lithic objects can potentially inform us about past adaptations and behaviors, it is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of all of the various processes that influence what we recover from the archaeological record. We argue here that many assumptions used by archaeologists to derive behavioral inferences through the definition, conceptualization, and interpretation of both individual stone artifact forms and groups of artifacts identified as assemblages do not fit squarely with what we have learned from both ethnographic sources and analyses of archaeological materials. We discuss this in terms of two fallacies. The first is the fallacy of the “desired end product” in stone artifact manufacture, which also includes our ability to recognize such end products. The second fallacy has to do with the notions that lithic assemblages represent simple accumulations of contemporary behaviors and the degree to which the composition of the depositional units we study reliably match the kinds of activities that took place. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a comprehensive set of new methodologies and theoretical perspectives to solve these problems, our goal here is to stress the importance of rethinking some of our most basic assumptions regarding the nature of lithic objects and how they become part of the archaeological record. Such a revision is needed if we want to be able to develop research questions that can be addressed with the data we have available to us.     

Carbon and Cash in Climate Assemblages: The Making of a New Global Citizenship

Climate instruments such as REDD+ (Reducing Emissions by Deforestation and Degradation) promise a win–win proposition as villagers in Africa are paid for their efforts to conserve forests and sequester carbon. REDD+ assembles divergent interests at different scales—from bureaucrats to individual villagers. We argue that climate assemblages are shifting the space of the political by regulating practices that previously had local and national provenance. They are producing “state‐like” effects that touch deeply on citizenship. Villagers are drawn into a shifting REDD+ assemblage and subject to new identifications as entrepreneurs and responsible environmental citizens, meant to look after a new global commons. We shift the discussion to deal seriously with questions of a “global” citizenship, not in its utopian sense, but by bringing into light the dark side of global citizenship already in practice in environmental governance. Forests and peoples are in practice made global—we must conceptualize the rights of this “global” citizenship     

The Epipaleolithic (Iberomaurusian) from Grotte des Contrebandiers,Morocco

First identified 100 years ago, the Iberomaurusian is an Epipaleolithic industry that was described from a number of sites across western North Africa. One of these is Grotte des Contrebandiers (Smugglers’ Cave) in Morocco, where Abbé Jean Roche recovered Iberomaurusian materials in excavations in the late 1950s. Although the lithics were published in the early 1960s, subsequent changes in methods and in assessing the interpretive potential of lithic assemblages necessitated a restudy of these collections from Contrebandiers. This study led to a better understanding of the lithic types present and of the use of particular stone raw materials. Iberomaurusians emphasized lithic strategies that maximized use of fine-grained stone to the extent that pièces esquillées should be, among others, a defining criterion for this lithic industry.     

福蒂斯丘与英法封建君主制比较

福蒂斯丘爵士是15世纪英国的法学家和政治理论家,他最早研究了中世纪末英国的君主制类型及其与其他君主制的区别。他的特殊经历使其首次提出英国实行的是"政治且王室的统治",以区别于法国的"王室的统治"。上述两种类型的封建君主制在形成过程和统治方式上大相径庭,统治结果也截然分明,两者的优劣判若两途。福蒂斯丘有关"政治且王室的统治"的理论不仅揭示了中世纪末英国封建君主制的类型,对宪政理论的发展也具有奠基意义。     

福蒂斯丘与英法封建君主制比较

福蒂斯丘爵士是15世纪英国的法学家和政治理论家,他最早研究了中世纪末英国的君主制类型及其与其他君主制的区别。他的特殊经历使其首次提出英国实行的是"政治且王室的统治",以区别于法国的"王室的统治"。上述两种类型的封建君主制在形成过程和统治方式上大相径庭,统治结果也截然分明,两者的优劣判若两途。福蒂斯丘有关"政治且王室的统治"的理论不仅揭示了中世纪末英国封建君主制的类型,对宪政理论的发展也具有奠基意义。     

Return of the Whig: Reviewing Historiographies of the Meaning of “Secular” in the Australian Colonial Public Instruction Acts

The term “secular” in the Colonial Australian public instruction acts was always controversial. Recent policy debates seek to draw a connection between its original intent and removing religion from schools, notably Marion Maddox's Taking God to School (2014), and Catherine Byrne's “Free, Compulsory and (Not) Secular” (2013). The issue resurfaced recently in a NSW Teachers' Federation Research Paper (Waight, 2022), and in Gross and Rutland's Special Religious Education in Australia and Its Value to Contemporary Society (2021). I propose that while this is a valid public policy issue, any originalist argument actually relies upon a singular historiographical argument, namely a “Whig” historiography. However, across historians the meaning of “secular” has actually been evaluated through four different historiographies: a “Whig” progress narrative; economic materialism; critical theory; and a religious/nationalist approach. Maddox, Byrne and Waight's approaches can be characterised within a “Whig” approach to Australian education history, originally found in “The Melbourne School” of Austin and Gregory, and the textbooks of Barcan. Its revival presents a good opportunity to survey the topic of education historiography, assess the “Whig” argument, and to propose that religious/nationalist historiography provides a more accurate interpretation of the original intent of the term “secular.”     

The Tywerrenge as an Artefact of Rule: The (Post) Colonial Life of a Secret/Sacred Aboriginal Object

In this article, I examine an Aboriginal ritual object, the secret/sacred tywerrenge which in many respects lies at the heart of Central Australian Aboriginal religious belief. Given its ritual power, the tywerrenge has always held a special place in the administrative rationalities of both colonial and post-colonial authorities. For certain missionaries, the tywerrenge was seen as an object to be eliminated as it constituted an impediment to Aboriginal “salvation”. For early anthropologists such as Baldwin Spencer, they offered material evidence supporting social evolutionist theories regarding the “staged” transformation of “primitive” religious beliefs into science. More recently, tywerrenge have been subject to an intensive regime of inspection and evaluation by government authorities, museums, and land councils. Indeed, they have come to play a significant role in the enforcement of Australian law under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act since the possession of a tywerrenge can decide the ownership of traditional lands. In short, these religious objects—and the beliefs associated with them—have been co-opted and employed by a variety of authorities in order to achieve a range of governmental ends. In this sense, tywerrenge have been transformed into instruments of colonial and post-colonial rule.     

Special Studies: The Pre-Chavín Stone Sculpture of Casma and Pacopampa

Abstract

In a recent article, “Early Carving From Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke, Casma Valley, Peru,” Thomas Pozorski and Shelia Pozorski (Journal of Field Archaeology 15 [1988] 114–119) describe an important stone sculpture discovered in their 1987 excavations of Huaca A at Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke, Casma Valley, Peru. They argued that it was the oldest securely-dated sculpture in Peru based on a radiocarbon date of 1565 b.c. (unrecalibrated), and deemed it unique on the basis of comparisons with the corpus of early stone sculptures from Peru. The dual purpose of this short contribution is to: 1) suggest that on the basis of radiocarbon measurements available it cannot be demonstrated that the Huaca A sculpture is older than the hundreds of stone sculptures from Cerro Sechin in Casma; and 2) draw attention to some intriguing similarities between the Huaca A sculpture and a stone carving from Pacopampa in the Chotano Valley of the Peruvian highlands. These two points highlight the inadequacy of our understanding of the origins of stone sculpture in Peru.