Shake your (Acheulean) money maker

There was a paper presented by Mimi Lam at the last AAAS meeting in Vancouver and which was covered in LiveScience last week and has bit causing something of a stir (and it spells Acheulean correctly!). While I'm always leery of relying only on press reports to make sense of unpublished papers, its abstract is available online and provides a bit more info. In a nutshell, one the arguments of the paper is that by the Middle Pleistocene, handaxes might have been used as a form of currency. I've talked about handaxes before on this blog, along with some of the debates about what drives their morphology - the focus is often on their alleged symmetry and the fact that this feature might not have been purely functional.

I wasn't at the AAAS meetings, so I didn't hear the paper. All I've read so far are the LiveScience piece, the abstract, and a very thoughtful blog post by Rosemary Joyce in which she rightly points to the at the tangled ball of conceptual yarn that money or currency represents from an anthropological standpoint. Definitely worth a thorough read.

My main concern about the study, however, has to do with the handaxes themselves. There is this notion (often repeated in archaeology textbooks) that they can be very symmetrical, and that the overall degree of symmetry in handaxes increases over time. Frankly,  I don't think we can safely assert this at all. Sure, handaxes can be symmetrical on occasion, no question there. But to my knowledge, this remains a very qualitative impression based on selected samples of handaxes, with selection operating both on the geography and age of the biface samples being observed, as well as on the fact that these samples themselves can be selected for. By this, I mean what gets considered a handaxe/biface and considered in these studies about their symmetry (and what the controls are to evaluate what is 'unnatural' symmetry in various contexts), and how that can vary across analysts and studies.

The main problem with the 'time-vectored increase in handaxe symmetry' as I see it is this: to the best of my knowledge, this hasn't been demonstrated empirically to hold true across all of the Old World. Yes, this seems like a fairly tall order. But this is the scale that is implied by this view. Based on my own biased view and experience with handaxes (and I've looked at a few), the opposite could even be said: there is no fundamental change in the degree of symmetry in handaxe assemblages over time - symmetry is a contingent variable determined by factors like blank size and shape, reduction intensity, use-life, technical skill, and maybe social considerations - the social dimensions being the hardest of all to establish objectively, let along attribute a function to. So, if this idea is not demonstrated, any interpretation of handaxe function based on symmetry is also potentially problematic.

I was talking about this with a colleague on Friday, and it struck us that a great dissertation idea would be to actually test this. What you'd need is a large-ish area with many handaxe assemblages recovered using modern excavation techniques for which a baseline chronology is known - some place like the Middle Awash River Basin, maybe. Then, you explicitly define what gets considered a handaxe, and you apply it to all these assemblages (e.g., at minimum, any piece with removals from both surfaces - this is obviously a minimalist definition, but it's given here as an example). Then, you define a way to measure symmetry and establish a baseline for what is considered 'symmetrical' or whether you're looking at symmetry as a continuous variable (ideally, you do both in order to fend off eventual critiques). Then, you get a sense of raw material constraints, site function and reduction intensity for each assemblage, in order to see whether or not any of these is a recurrent conditioner of handaxe morphology, and to factor them out if they do. In particular, you need some controls such as an evaluation of how inherently 'symmetrical' cobbles or flakes used to make handaxes are at various locales, and whether or not this is correlated to symmetry in various assemblages across the study area. Lastly, you measure symmetry on these handaxe assemblages and then, you look at trends over time. Then, you look at various measures: mean vs. median symmetry, coefficient of variation, spread of values, whether or not certain levels of symmetry are only reached after some point in time; the list goes on and on. The point is, we need to actually demonstrate this at the very least at a regional level before we can even consider taking 'increased handaxe symmetry' as the starting point for any subsequent analysis. So there - if you're a graduate student looking for a project, feel free to take this one. I can all but guarantee you that the resulting papers, whether they demonstrated one or the other conclusion, would become ridiculously highly cited.

I think that what we now know about technology (especially earlier technologies like the the Oldowan) would set the null hypothesis here as being that we shouldn't expect increasing symmetry or standardization over time. In other words, high degrees of symmetry can be present from the beginning of the Acheulean and low symmetry can occur in its latest phases. If you look at the Oldowan, the data clearly indicate that people didn't start by knocking off one flake, then a few thousand years realizing that they could knock off another one, and then another one yet more thousand years later. Quite the opposite, it seems that by the time people start regularly working stone, they get it pretty well: they know how to knock off flakes in succession, they realize that different materials flake better than other, going to some effort to get the better stuff (e.g., Stout et al. 2010). My impression is that the same is likely to be applicable to handaxe technology: once people start flaking cobbles bifacially, they also get it: they realize that you can knock flakes off both surfaces, often using one removal as the starting point for removing another one. And if they understand this, then making an object symmetrical as a result is also implicit - the question becomes why symmetry in certain case and not in others, and why this is the case

So, to go back to Lam's argument, my take on it is not so much that it's wrong (it might end up being right) that I think that we don't have nearly the archaeological resolution we need to objectively discuss the issues she tackles, especially those linked to the question of increasing handaxe symmetry over time, let alone the interpretation of such a pattern. Only when the baseline archaeological work has been conducted, can we really hope to usefully revisit the question.

Some earlier posts on the Acheulean and handaxes:


Plus-sized in the Pleistocene

Two sides to every biface

I say Acheulean, you say Acheulian


References and some suggested reading:

Machin, A. 2009. The role of the individual agent in Acheulean biface variability: A multi-factorial model. Journal of Social Archaeology 9: 35-58.

McPherron, S.P. 2000. Handaxes as a Measure of the Mental Capabilities of Early Hominids. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:655-663.

Monnier, G. 2006. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic Periodization in Western Europe: An Evaluation. Current Anthropology 47:709-744.

Nowell, A., and M.L. Chang. 2009. The Case Against Sexual Selection as an Explanation of Handaxe Morphology. PaleoAnthropology 2009: 77-88.

Stout, D., S. Semaw, M.J. Rogers, and D. Cauche. 2010. Technological variation in the earliest Oldowan from Gona, Afar, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Evolution 58: 474-491.

The final (?) word on those handaxes from Crete

While everybody was busy talking about unexpectedly old cutmarks and other Pleistocene goings-on last week, the paper by Strasser et al. (2010) describing the discovery of quartz handaxe assemblages on Crete quietly came out in Hesperia. This is a topic that was discussed at length on this blog, in several posts that generated a large amount of comments a few months back. The sticking point of all the arguments concerned the chronology of the handaxes, so without further ado, here's the money quote (Strasser et al. 2010: 185-186):

"The dating of the Palaeolithic in the Plakias region presents a considerable challenge, not least because of the long period of time that may have elapsed since the occupation of the earliest sites, during which postdepositional natural processes may have obscured the archaeological record. Additionally complicating the issue are the small number of sites, the lack of excavation, and the impact of modern development on the area, which has destroyed many sites.

Several approaches to dating were attempted, and our research on this topic continues. At Preveli 2, east of the Preveli Gorge, Palaeolithic artifacts are associated with a flight of marine terraces resulting from relatively high sea levels in the Pleistocene that were preserved by subsequent rock uplift. The lowest late Pleistocene marine terraces resulting from high stands of the sea at Preveli (14 ± 1 masl) and Schinaria (21 ± 1 masl) have 2-sigma calibrated radiocarbon ages of 45,400 ± 1,600 and 49,120 ± 2,890 years b.p., respectively, and are correlated with Marine Isotope Stages 3.3 and 3.4, both eustatic high stands. The higher terraces, at 59 and 96 masl, are unquestionably older. How much older? Assuming similar rates of rock uplift (1.4 ± 0.1 m/kyr) determined from the age-elevation relationships of the dated terraces at 14 and 21 masl, it is possible to estimate the approximate ages of the terraces associated with artifacts. This correlation provides an approximate age for the lithic artifacts. The higher terrace, at 96 masl, may belong to Marine Isotope Stage 5, possibly early 5e, ca. 110,000 b.p. Artifacts associated with the terrace at 59 masl could correlate with Marine Isotope Stage 5a, ca. 70,000 b.p. It should be stressed that these are rough approximations and these ages are probably minima that represent a terminus ante quem. If the uplift rate is changed, the terraces and the artifacts associated with them could be much older.

At Preveli 3, Preveli 7, Timeos Stavros 1, and Schinaria 5, Palaeolithic artifacts were found in outcrops of paleosols that exhibit the characteristics of the oldest maturity stage for such features, that is, Maturity Stage 6, or in geological terms, Marine Isotope Stage 6. Together these observations suggest an age of ca. 190,000–130,000 b.p. and serve as a terminus ante quem for the artifacts embedded within them. The stone tools were incorporated in the paleosols as part of a process described by Runnels and van Andel in Epirus: “the top of the Bt horizon itself would move gradually upward as a result of slow deposition, so engulfing any artifacts laid down on former land surfaces above it.” In other words, the Bt horizon, especially as much of the clay comes from eolian sources, will increase in thickness through time, slowly
engulfing clasts, such as stone tools, that were formerly in the A horizon.

In sum, the dating of the Palaeolithic sites is based on geological data derived from the study of marine terraces on the southwestern coast of Crete and our identification of paleosols, and these data place the Palaeolithic lithic artifacts firmly in the Pleistocene, ca. 130,000 b.p. or earlier. The chronology can be further refined, however, and a dating program
currently in progress may provide data for doing so." (references excised)

So, bottom line, the dating is largely indirect, but grounded by dated references points that provide a minimum age for the terraces where the handaxes were recovered. Interestingly, this indicates that these tools are, at most, 130,000 years old. Given that there do not appear to be more recent Paleolithic age (the rest of the implements reported in the paper are Mesolithic in age and techno-typology, which is an important discovery in and of itself), this implies that on current evidence, Crete was not occupied during the Late Pleistocene (ca. 130,000-10,000 BP). Why this was the case (and how an early colonization took place) is an interesting question that will need to be answered by future research.

In the meantime, here are a few take-away observations from the Strasser et al. (2010) report. First, on the basis of the drawing of the handaxes, these implements do appear to be human-made. Second, they are not isolated occurrences: the authors identified nine localities where these quartz tools were found, only three of which also yielded Mesolithic tools. This leaves open the possibility that the 'Paleolithic' sites represent task-specific components of the Mesolithic toolkit on Crete, but this is unlikely based on the association of handaxes with some of the terrace deposits described in the quote above. Third, as the authors indicate, this was not a case of a H. heidelbergensis (or a couple of them) washing onto Crete: the fact that nine sites (defined by the presence of a minimum of 20 stone tools) were found in a relatively small area indicates a somewhat sustained human presence on the southern coast of Crete. This does suggest that people got there purposefully (i.e., using some kind of watercraft), which leaves open the question of why Middle and Upper Paleolithic assemblages haven't (yet?) been found in the region or elsewhere on Crete (or any other large Mediterranean island, for that matter).

As a parting observation: one aspect of the discovery that definitely wasn't stressed in the media reports about these finds is how they were made. They were breathlessly reported as 'discovered' without much context. The authors actually set out to look for Mesolithic sites in southern Crete using a model developed for the Greek mainland that identified certain areas as having been most appealing for Mesolithic foragers. In other words, this wasn't a blind search for early stuff or simply a fortuitous discovery. Rather, it came about as the result of an explicit research design targeting some very specific questions. Good to see more of that in Paleolithic archaeology. 

References:

Strasser, T., Panagopoulou, E., Runnels, C., Murray, P., Thompson, N., Karkanas, P., McCoy, F., & Wegmann, K. (2010). Stone Age Seafaring in the Mediterranean: Evidence from the Plakias Region for Lower Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Habitation of Crete Hesperia, 79 (2), 145-190 DOI: 10.2972/hesp.79.2.145

Quartz, Cretan handaxes and Paleolithic seafaring

A couple of months ago, I posted on the recent discovery of quartz hand axes on Crete by Strasser and Runnels. That post spurred quite a bit of discussion, and I also provided some additional thoughts shortly thereafter, based on the colonization of Cyprus. Since then, we've learned that these implements will be described in detail in the June issues of the journal Hesperia, and some decent photographs of some of the implements in question were published, which provides some more convincing data to sink your teeth into. Spurred by a paper I recently read (Broodbank 2006 - free pdf here), I figured I'd post my last impressions on this discovery until the paper actually comes out.

First, here's what one of those handaxes looks like (views from the front, two sides and back of the piece):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16archeo.html

More photographs are also available in a nice slideshow provided by Boston University press release, and they give you an idea of the size of the handaxes and of how they might have been handled. The thing with quartz, however, is that it's very hard to see flaking landmarks on photographs. For what it's worth, I still think that at least that handaxe looks very rough in craftsmanship (e.g., uneven thinning, apparently no basal thinning, very sinuous edges). Although that's not too unusual for pieces on quartz, I really hope that this one's not their best looking one!

To summarize the debate a bit, Strasser, Runnels and company have found these quartz implements whose morphology is reminiscent of that of handaxes in deposits dating to ca. 130,000 years BP on Crete. This is significant because Crete appears to have remained an island detached from the European mainland for most of the Pleistocene, which implies any tool maker on the island must have originally arrived there through some form of seafaring.

The record of Lower Paleolithic finds on Mediterranean islands is largely unconvincing. As Broodbank (2006:204) states:

"Claims of Lower and Middle
Palaeolithic finds on the islands divide, as
Mussi (2001: 86) notes, into those that are
reliably documented but derive from locations
that were not insular at the time (such
as Capri [Mussi 2001: 86]), and those found
on definite palaeo-islands but that are contentious
in terms of their identification as
artefacts rather than geofacts, or whose dating
is uncertain, due to either the low diagnosticity
of the material itself, or the lack of a
scientifically dated context. A few cases, such
as a possible Lower Palaeolithic find from
Corfu (Kourtessi-Philippaki 1999: 283-84; cf.
Runnels 1995: 235 n. 48), fit both categories.
Where such claims have been subjected to rigorous
analysis, including re-examination of the
material and findspot, the conclusions have
tended to be negative."

Perhaps not insignificantly, one of the authors Broodbank cites as urging caution about accepting some of these early find uncritically is C. Runnels, who's one of the discoverers of the Cretan handaxes. Given their age, however, these implements are not really relevant to the question of a Lower Paleolithic settlement of Crete. However, they are very relevant to the question of Middle Paleolithic settlement of those landmasses. On this topic, Broodbank (2006:204-205) proposes that:

"Slightly more convincing, and therefore
intriguing, are a handful of findspots of probable
Middle Palaeolithic stone tools from
several of the smaller Greek islands, notably
in the Sporades (Efstratiou 1985: 5-6, 56-59)
and Ionian islands (Dousougli 1999; Kavvadias
1984; Kourtessi-Philliapaki 1999), but
potentially also on Melos in the Cyclades
(Chelidonio 2001). In the first and second
cases, the findspots lie close to foci of Middle
Palaeolithic activity in, respectively, Thessaly,
and Epirus/Albania/Dalmatia (Runnels
1995: 238-39; Runnels et al. 2004). In most
instances—probably all of the Sporades, save
the perhaps erroneous case of Skyros, for
which the only report is a newspaper article
written almost half a century ago (Cherry
1981: 44), plus Corfu and Lefkas in the Ionian
group—the islands concerned were almost
certainly joined to the mainland at the lower
sea levels that existed after the last interglacial
(Oxygen Isotope Stage 5e, dated to 128-
118,000 years ago). More interesting is the
case of Kephallonia (and probably conjoined
Zakynthos [Kourtessi-Phillipaki 1999: 284-
86]), where the tools, albeit not associated
with dated contexts, do seem bona fide, and
the island, although in a fault zone subject
to massive vertical movement, is likely on
bathymetric grounds to have been separated
from the mainland by one or more gaps of a
few kilometres (less than the 20 km reported
in Cherry 1990: 171). Still more surprising, but
unsupported by detailed study of material and
context, or independent dating, are the finds
from Melos, which would have been attainable
only via a chain of inter-island links, including
sea-crossings in the order of 10 km at average
Middle Palaeolithic sea level stands."

There therefore seems to be some prior evidence of potential evidence of a Middle Paleolithic on some of the Greek islands, albeit somewhat debatable and mostly found on islands relatively close to the mainland. That being the case, it may be that, if the Cretan material is shown to be unambiguous, it represents one more instance of fleeting island hopping. No matter, how fleeting, however, this behavior has profound implications for the behavior of the hominins (most likely Neanderthals) who engaged in it.

"Could it be that
the markedly indented coastline and mass of
offshore islands in the Ionian and Aegean seas
triggered a slight ‘stretching’ of behaviour?
Visits to the nearby Ionian islands from the
large base camps identified on the opposite
mainland are certainly compatible with what
we know of Neanderthal short-range mobility
(Gamble 1999: 239-43, 266), and also with
some simple propelled floating technique, but
visits as far afield as Melos are less so in
both respects. The potential implications for
the earliest Mediterranean maritime activity
and, equally, for Neanderthal cognitive and
learning abilities (Stringer and Gamble 1993;
Mithen 2005), are therefore quite substantial.
A thorough investigation of the Kephallonian
and Melian finds, combined with scientific
dating of their contexts, is clearly essential.
(Broodbank 2006:205)"

This echoes (and explains!) a lot of the press coverage that's been focused on these finds, and clearly underscores the potential significance of these stone tools. With that in mind, then, the Hesperia paper will need to clearly do the following in order for the finds to be considered credible:

1. Provide some radiometric ages of the deposits in which the tools were found;
2. Explain how the tools ended up in these deposits (i.e., are they in primary or secondary context? If secondary, where was the primary context?);
3. Discuss why quartz seems to have been the raw material of choice when there are other sources of better quality workable stone on the island, which were exploited by later occupants;
4. Present some information on the production sequences of these implements showing patterned human action;
5. Distinguish this material from later (i.e., post-agricultural) occurrences of 'rough' stone tools made on coarse-grained raw materials; and
6. Explain why a Middle Paleolithic industry should be comprised predominantly of Lower Paleolithic type implements (unless, of course, the handaxes got all the glory in the press reports and there actually is more to this assemblage).

Personally, I'd be very excited if these turned out to be credible, as it would provide further evidence of the flexibility of Middle Paleolithic hominins and force us to rethink how they engaged with their larger ecological realities. Also, it'd probably spur some new research on Paleolithic-age deposits in Mediterranean islands. This last point would be especially important, in my view, because even with the Cretan evidence, the record of Lower and Middle Paleolithci island living remains very scant, which begs for an explanation, since hominins should now be assumed to be capable of seafaring in the deep past.

References

Broodbank, C. (2006). The Origins and Early Development of Mediterranean Maritime Activity Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 19 (2) DOI: 10.1558//jmea.2006.v19i2.199

Lower-Middle Paleolithic island living?

There's a lengthy report describing some preliminary findings of Middle and perhaps even Lower Paleolithic artifacts on the Greek island of Crete that Thomas Strasser presented earlier this week. The report stresses especially that "ancient Homo species — perhaps Homo erectus — had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some of the larger islands in between."

If they're correct, Strasser's interpretations agree exactly with the results of work reported by Mortensen (2008) and which I already discussed a couple of years ago. Specifically, Mortensen argued that the implements he discovered "suggest that the first humans reached the island across the sea from Libya. That an early contact between northern Africa and southern Europe existed already during the Palaeolithic periods is a hypothesis now supported by most scholars."

Archaeoblog is skeptical about the findings, especially since no illustrations are provided that would help assess how 'Paleolithic' the implements look, while Hawks is also skeptical but suggests that fleeting human occupation may have occurred on Crete in the Middle Pleistocene as it may have on other large Mediterranean islands.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, apparently large numbers of artifacts appear to have been found, on at least four distinct terraces as well as some rockshelters. Given that the team comprises a bona fide Paleoltihic archaeologist (C. Runnels), I see no reason to challenge the human-made nature of these implements. And, by referring to the Mortensen report, the current report certainly suggests that there was some sizeable human population on Crete at least during the Late Pleistocene (i.e., after ca. 130kya). That said, based on the description in the report, the stone tools in question appear to be handaxe-like things made on quartz (I recently discussed handaxes here). Quartz can be an impractical material to work, mainly because of its coarse crystalline structure, though in some cases, it can be fine-grained enought to yield decent knapped products. In other words, the structure of quartz often limits the range of formas that can be made from it, usually restricting them to relatively 'coarse' ones similar to some Lower Paleolithic types, which may account for some of the similarities mentioned in the text. Without some good illustration and photographs of these artifacts and of the quality of the quartz used to manufacture them, it's hard to make any kind of definitive statement.

Moving to the issue of the colonization of Crete, the whole 'they came straight from Africa' model is unconvincing to me. For one thing, the Greek mainland is much closer to the island than North Africa, and lower sea levels during cold periods of the Pleistocene would have made Crete more visible and accessible from there than from, say, Lybia. For another, the amount of finds and their time-transgressive nature (that is, they were found on four terraces spanning at least 90,000 years) suggest that people permanently settled the island for long stretches of the Middle Paleolithic. Both of these observations argue for hominins arriving to the island purely by chance. The question is whether or not they reached through seafaring. If they came from Europe, complex seafaring is unlikely to have been critical, whereas if they came directly from Africa, it would have been essential.

In a recent post, I detailed how seafaring - as inferred from the colonization of islands - has been argued by some to represent evidence of 'modern human behavior' (Norton and Jin 2009). However, in that case, colonization through seafaring was demonstrated by the presence of foreign lithic raw materials at specific site. If I understand the report about the finds by Strasser's team, however, the raw material of the Cretan finds appears to be exclusively local. The report states that

... hand axes found on Crete were made from local quartz but display a style typical of ancient African artifacts.

“Hominids adapted to whatever material was available on the island for tool making,” Strasser proposes. “There could be tools made from different types of stone in other parts of Crete.”

Strasser has conducted excavations on Crete for the past 20 years. He had been searching for relatively small implements that would have been made from chunks of chert no more than 11,000 years ago. But a current team member, archaeologist Curtis Runnels of Boston University, pointed out that Stone Age folk would likely have favored quartz for their larger implements. “Once we started looking for quartz tools, everything changed,” Strasser says.

This local provisioning of raw material, in my view, argues against colonization by seafaring to a degree. Reference to the stylistic similarities of the Cretan handaxes and those from Africa is, again in my view, a non-argument, since handaxes are very similar in morphology and technology pretty much throughout the Old World (McPherron 2000).

References

McPherron, S.P. 2000. Handaxes as a Measure of the Mental Capabilities of Early Hominids. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:655-663.

Mortensen, P. 2008. Lower to Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Loutró on the south coast of Crete. Antiquity 82(317): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/mortensen/index.html.

Norton, C.J., and J.J.H. Jin. 2009. The evolution of modern human behavior in East Asia: current perspectives. Evolutionary Anthropology 18:247-260.

Surveying surveys

The most recent Project Gallery in Antiquity contains a set of three reports of new Paleolithic surface assemblages from Greece (Mortensen 2008), Iran (Jamialahmadi et al. 2008) and India (Chauan and Patnaik 2008). Mortensen presents a small lithic assemblage form the locality of Loutró, on the southern coast of Crete, which he attributes to the Lower or early Middle Paleolithic on typological grounds (note: all pictures are from the reports which I discuss sequentially in this post).

While he recognizes that a representative sample of artifacts from Loutró will only be collected through a systematic survey of the locality and the gully around it, Mortensen claims that this “might suggest that the first humans reached the island across the sea from Libya. That an early contact between northern Africa and southern Europe existed already during the Palaeolithic periods is a hypothesis now supported by most scholars.” I actually don’t think this is a widely held view, but – if these artifacts can be considered creadible – they do suggest that islands such as Crete might have been settled comparatively early on. Only time will tell.

Jamialahmadi et al. (2008) present some very preliminary results of a survey they conducted in northeast Iran to assess the abundance of its Paleolithic record. In this case, they identified 15 artifact-bearing localities near the Kashafrud and Jamrud rivers, at least two of which (Ghaleh-Gak and Polgazi) have yielded artifacts that, on typological grounds, appear Lower or Middle Paleolithic in age.

They conclude that this survey “revealed the great potential of north-eastern Iran in general and of the river Kashafrud in particular for Palaeolithic studies. Sporadic Palaeolithic finds in this region and neighbouring areas (Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) support the hypothesis that the region delimited today by the geographical boundaries of Iran has been used repeatedly in the Pleistocene period as a migratory pathway linking East with West.” Again, I’m not necessarily convinced that sporadic finds are necessarily indicative of a repeatedly used interregional human corridor, but the data are certainly suggestive of early human presence in those areas as well.

Chauan and Patnaik (2008) also report on preliminary findings of a survey in the Narmada Basin, in India. In this case, the intent of the survey is to obtain contextual information for the taxonomically and chronologically ambiguous. In contrast to the other two reports discussed here, this project “includes systematic surveys, documentation and collection of various types of specimens for geological, palynological and lithic analyses.” In other words, it should yield a representative sample of what is to be found along the Middle Narmada, and in fact “A long-term objective is to map localities using GIS for reference purpose and predictive modelling. It is clear that habitation probably occurred along the peripheral zones, closer to the Vindhyan Hills rather than in the vicinity of the main channel of the Narmada River.” Predictive modeling is basically highlighting which contextual factors (e.g., sediments, distance to river, slope, etc.) are most often associated with archaeological sites, to then target similar deposits in order to maximize the likelihood of finding sites – if this proves fruitful, some general patterns of human behavior can also begin to be outlined for the timespans under consideration here, once again the Lower and early Middle Paleolithic.

The Narmada survey also explicitly focuses on the collection of other types of archaeological evidence, including notably animal bones and dating samples.

From my perspective, this is an interesting set of reports because it illustrates well different manners in which archaeological sites all belonging to the same general periods can be encountered, a topic which we’re about to discuss in my Archaeological Methods class this term. The Loukó finds apparently represent a chance encounter, while the other two projects are bona fide surveys. Only the Narmada project appears to be systematic, however, meaning that it is organized according to regularly spaced/defined spatial units, some of which are then selected for thorough inspection to form a statistically representative sample of the region as a whole. In contrast the Iranian project appears to be a combination of a systematic and survey and chance encounters: you have an area that has reported archaeological potential, which limits your survey area, but within it, sites are encountered as one goes. My point here is not to critique the various strategies used in the identification of these three reports, but rather to emphasize how very different approaches have the potential to increase our knowledge of the archaeological record, albeit in very distinct ways.

References:

Chauhan, P. R., and R. Patnaik. 2008. The Narmada Basin Palaeoanthropology Project in central India. Antiquity 82(317): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/chauhan/index.html.

Jamialahmadi, M., H. Vahdati Nasab, and H. Fazeli Nashli. 2008. Kashafrud revisited: discovery of new Palaeolithic sites in north-eastern Iran. Antiquity 82(317): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/nasab/index.html.

Mortensen, P. 2008. Lower to Middle Palaeolithic artefacts from Loutró on the south coast of Crete. Antiquity 82(317): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/mortensen/index.html.

Volcanism at Dmanisi

A paper in press by M.-A. de Lumley and colleagues suggests that the five Lower Pleistocene hominins recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia, entered the paleoanthropological record as the result of a volcanic eruption. Here's the abstract:

"The human remains unearthed at the Lower Pleistocene site of Dmanisi (Georgia), are numerous, well preserved and show no evidence of transportation or predation. They were discovered over a small surface and correspond to at least five Homo georgicus individuals, whose age at death is regularly distributed from the teenager to the elder over 40 years old. These characteristics evoke a family group who died suddenly. Granulometry and chemical analyses of ca. 30 volcanic tephra samples prove its unicity and its primary position. Since this tephra cannot correspond to a nuée ardente, it is probable that the Dmanisi Hominids were surprised and asphyxiated, 1 810 000 years ago, by volcanic ashfalls." (de Lumley et al., in press: 1)

Not impossible, I suppose, and it has the advantage of explaining why you find five relatively well-preserved hominins in direct association with volcanic ash. As far as where the eruption itself took place, the authors state, in the abridged English version of the article, that

"The volcanic ashes were sorted during aerial transportation from the emissive point, presumably located ca. 20 km west of Dmanisi (Emliki heights in the Džavacheti Mountains). From such a distance, the ashfall does not burn, but when inhaled, it mixes with naso-bucco-pharyngeal secretions and forms a mixture that provokes suffocation by obstruction of respiratory and digestive tubes...

"In Dmanisi, the concentration of Hominids in a depression may represent a search for shelter. The ashfall, cold hence non-mortal, could have allowed the Hominids to gather in a natural depression. Tephra inhalation, mixed with natural secretions, may have led to animal and human death by obstruction of respiratory
and digestive tubes." (de Lumley et al., in press: 4)

It'd be interesting to see whether the faunal assemblages at the site reflect a similar pattern, and whether the lithic assemblages differ from most contemporary ones by their more or less 'systemic' character (sensu Schiffer 1972). That is to say, whether the stone tools differ from archaeological assemblages comprising purposefully discarded items as opposed to representing an assemblage 'frozen in use' by a volcanic eruption.

References:

de Lumley, M.-A., J.-M. Bardintzeff, P. Bienvenu, J.-B. Bilcot, G. Flamenbaum, C. Guy, M. Jullien, H. de Lumley, J.-P. Nabot, C. Perrenoud, O. Provitina, and M. Tourasse. 2008. Impact probable du volcanisme sur le décès des Hominidés de Dmanissi/Probable volcanic impact on the death of the Dmanisi Hominids. Comptes Rendus Palevol: in press; doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2007.09.002

Schiffer, M. B. 1972. Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37:156-165.

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Kids did the darndest things

Over at Afarensis, we find a brief discussion of a recent paper about the contribution of children to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic archaeological record (i.e., Stapert 2007 – available as a free pdf). Afarensis seems to agree with Stapert that there has been a generalized tendency to not think of children as important accumulators of artifacts – in this case stone implements – in periods prior to the Upper Paleolithic, which is a euphemism for “prior to the dominance of Homo sapiens in the fossil record.” Stapert’s paper is really quite thought-provoking and casts a new and in my view fairly convincing interpretive light on a wide range of published anecdotal remarks about ‘failed flints’ in Lower and Middle Paleolithic (as well as two Châtelperronian) assemblages.

I think that people are starting to come to grips with the idea of pre-Late Pleistocene kids contributing to the archaeological record (e.g., Shea 2006), even if this growing awareness has yet to translate into a systematic incorporation of children’s activities and learning in paleoanthropological interpretation. In spite of this, it’s worth wondering why archaeologists who have studied hominins that were the quintessential hunter-gatherers have taken so long to come to grips with the idea that their social structure and technological transmission mechanisms might parallel those of ethnographically-documented foragers. To take an example based on a prior post, if Neanderthals had life-histories comparable to those of modern humans, there is every reason to believe that the acquisition of essential skills for Upper and Middle Paleolithic foragers would have stretched over a significant period of time. The starting assumption should therefore be that children were important accumulators of likely often ‘odd looking’ archaeological remains.

Stapert highlights that researchers seem to have little problem invoking the activities of children to account for roughshod lithics in Upper Paleolithic assemblages but do not appear inclined to do so for Lower and Middle Paleolithic assemblages. As argued by Shea (2006:214):

“One possible reason for this is that for relatively simple knapping techniques there may be few differences between the byproducts of experienced adults and those of novice knappers. This argument is plausible for pebble-core components of Paleolithic industries, but seems less plausible for the prepared- core components (Acheulean bifaces, Levallois cores, prismatic blade cores, and foliate bifaces) that populate Paleolithic industries from 1.7 Myr onward.”

This being the case, Staper asks bluntly but rightly “is it harder to imagine children and their activities when one is dealing with species other than modern humans?” (2007:35).

I would argue that this is almost certainly one of the principal reasons since, to follow up on my earlier example, by not considering the role of Neanderthal children in interpretations of the Middle Paleolithic record, it becomes easier to cast those hominins as different. To a degree, this perspective is reflected by the following kind of circular reasoning: “Well, Neanderthal children surely didn’t play a significant role in the accumulation of that sub/species’ archaeological record. Therefore what we document archaeologically reflects adult, fully competent Neanderthal behavior. But that behavior departs in significant ways from how we expect fully competent, adult Homo sapiens knappers to structure their lithic production and lithotype management. Ergo, we have yet more evidence that Neanderthals were behaviorally distinct from Homo sapiens.”

And here, I think we get to at least some of the heart of the matter – paleoanthropologists as a whole have invested a great deal of time and energy in trying to show how pre-Homo sapiens hominins were distinct from Upper Paleolithic humans rather than attempting to understand them primarily as foraging hominins who were very successful at eking out a living in the Pleistocene Old World. While there are obviously good reasons to do so in certain regards, approaching Neanderthals and earlier hominins first and foremost as foragers independent of preconceptions of how different they must have been is often a very rewarding way of doing archaeology that opens up fruitful interpretive avenues. Of course, one must be careful to not swing the pendulum too far in that direction and become oblivious to the differences that do exist. However, at this stage of the game, I think that the advantages of a self-aware approach to Neanderthals that views them first and foremost as hunter-gatherers outweigh its disadvantages as far as reaching a thorough understanding of the lifeways of non-sapiens hominins – both adult and juvenile – is concerned.

References:

Shea, J. J. 2006. Child’s play: Reflections on the invisibility of children in the Paleolithic record. Evolutionary Anthropology 15: 212-216.

Stapert, D. 2007. Neanderthal children and their flints. Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Northwestern Europe 1(2): 16-39.

I say Acheulean, you say Acheulian

To quote one cartoon character… do you know what really grinds my gears? Seeing the word “Acheulean” written as “Acheulian”. There, I said it. The Acheulean, of course, refers to the Lower Paleolithic industry found throughout the Old World and defined by the presence of bifacially worked core-tools commonly labeled ‘handaxes’ (though see Monnier [2006] for a recent reevaluation of the term and its definition). It is one of the most investigated periods of prehistory, yet it is cursed by inconsistent spelling of its name. A search in Web of Knowledge for paper titles shows that, of paper published on that industry over the past 52 years, 90 (or 56%) contain the word ‘Acheulean’ while 71 (or 44%) use the label ‘Acheulian.’ While a majority of researchers thus appears to use what I see as the correct spelling, a non-negligible fraction nonetheless uses the alternate form.

In any case, let me outline the reasoning behind my deeply held spelling intransigence. The names of most Paleolithic industries are derived from a series of localities in France thought, in the last years of the 19^th century, to typify those industries. These sites (e.g., Saint Acheul, Le Moustier, Aurignac, La Gravette, Le Solutré and La Madeleine) gave rise to the labels we use today as loose descriptors of the kinds of stone tools we find in archaeological deposits. Since the localities were in France and selected by French prehistorians (in this case G. de Mortillet [1873]), the names they gave rise to were originally in French. In the specific case of the Lower Paleolithic industry with bifaces identified at the locality of Saint-Acheul, the French name for that industry and de facto chronological phase became Acheuléen, although the name itself admittedly slightly postdates the selection of Saint-Acheul as the type locality. Later, other languages simply adapted the French terminology, as shown in this non-exhaustive table:

Locality	Industry – French	Industry – English	Industry – Italian
Abbeville	Abbévillien	Abbevillian	Abbevilliano
Le Moustier	Moustérien	Mousterian	Musteriano
Aurignac	Aurignacien	Aurignacian	Aurignaziano
La Gravette	Gravettien	Gravettian	Gravettiano
Le Solutré	Solutréen	Solutrean	Solutreano
La Madeleine	Magdalénien	Magdalenian	Maddaleniano
Saint-Acheul	Acheuléen	??	Acheuleano
Chelles	Chelléen	Chellean	Chelleano

What emerges from this overview that when an industry name ends in “ien” in French, it corresponds to an “ian” ending in English and “iano” in Italian. Likewise, the French “éen” turns into “eano” in Italian and “ean” in English, as demonstrated by the labels “Solutrean” and “Chellean.” Few if any specialists would spell ‘Solutrean’ as ‘Solutrian;’ in fact, a search for “Solutrian” in Web of Knowledge yields a single result, as opposed to 27 hits on 'Solutrean.' That being the case, why on earth should the French Acheuléen and the Italian Acheuleano be rendered into English as Acheulian as opposed to Acheulean? This is the only exception to the pattern of name conversion just highlighted, and also one that occurs only in the English language. I’m guessing it has to do with phonological drift in the early years of the discipline, but that’s just a hunch; to the best of my knowledge ‘Acheulian’ postdates ‘Acheulean’ in press by about a decade.

I’d like to stress that this is not an issue comparable to the spelling of ‘Neanderthal’ vs. ‘Neandertal,’ for both of which some historical justification can be found. This is an issue of bending the rules of terminological translation for no good reason. So let’s hear it for Acheulean!

But I don’t want to be despotic about this, so let me try an exercise in internet democracy: Dear readers, leave me a comment or vote below to let me know whether you spell it with an “i” or with an “e”… and if you have traditionally spelled it with an “i”, does this reasoning convince you to change your wayward practices?

more at twiigs.com...

References:

Monnier, G. 2006. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization in Western Europe: An evaluation. Current Anthropology 47:709-744.

Mortillet, G. de. 1873. Classification des diverses périodes de l'Âge de la Pierre. In Congrès International d'Anthropologie et d'Archéologie Préhistoriques, 6ème session, 432–459.