With National Science Foundation support Mr. J.S. Reti will analyze artifact assemblages from two important human evolutionary sites: Koobi Fora, Northern Kenya and Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Both Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge are renowned for their stone tool and fossil assemblages from the earliest recognized stone tool industry, known as the Oldowan. Though research into early human behavior via stone (lithic) artifacts has a long history, traditional analytical methods have focused on the potential functional utility of these artifacts, often without substantiated or quantified evidence. Other research has classified these lithic implements into cultural groups, thus making an explicit statement regarding how stone tools are behaviorally related.
This project seeks to quantify and statistically identify the behaviors utilized by Oldowan-producing hominins to produce Oldowan lithic artifacts. Identification of specific production behaviors will allow for direct comparisons between Oldowan assemblages to determine if early human populations were practicing behaviorally uniform strategies to make stone tools or if there were divergent behaviors, which might be interpreted as early cultural differences. In order to assess what behaviors are necessary to make early stone tools, Oldowan artifacts will be replicated by the researcher and each lithic flake that is removed will have an empirically determined technological behavior associated with it. The author has experimentally identified five prerequisite behaviors associated with Oldowan stone tool production and these behaviors will form the foundation for behavioral comparisons. Replicated assemblages are measured on twelve technological features and statistically analyzed to determine which features reliably separate flakes produced via different behaviors. Archaeological assemblages from Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge can then be measured against the known replicated assemblages so as to determine if similar and/or different behaviors were utilized to produce them. Significantly, this research is the first to directly compare the Oldowan assemblages of Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge. Comparison will yield important information as to specific cultural differences between early humans and will provide insight as to how these populations differentially addressed adaptive problems concerning technology.
This research will have broader impacts on both archaeological and educational communities. Archaeologically, this project will construct a methodology, termed Behavioral Lithic Analysis, which will provide a foundation for data sharing and site comparison for archaeologists. Educationally, this project will train undergraduate students in lithic analytical techniques and provide a training opportunity for several Kenyan and Tanzanian graduate students. The raw material collection phase of this research will overlap with an archaeological field school in Kenya and will provide specific instruction to students regarding early hominin procurement strategies and production techniques.
This NSF funded research investigates if early humans, presumably the first species of our genus, Homo habilis, produced stone tools using the same behaviors across large expanses of space at 1.8 million years ago. Determining if these stone-tool producing hominins were making these early stone tools, known at the Oldowan, in similar ways, will allow for us to explain how technological strategies were maintained across landscapes or whether there was divergence of behavior. Divergence of technological behaviors at 1.8 million years ago might be construed as early evidence of cultural differences among humans and thus has significant impact on how we might view the human cultural past. NSF funding allowed for raw materials to be collected from the East African archaeological sites of Koobi Fora, Kenya and Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. These materials are the same materials that early humans used to make stone tools in these regions. Materials were transported to Rutgers University and experimentally broken into stone tools using methods similar to those used in the Oldowan. Each flake produced was recorded as having specific behaviors associated with it and then measured to see if these behaviors manifest in different relative shapes of the flakes. These experimental flakes were then statistically compared to archaeological flakes associated with the Oldowan of East Africa. Results demonstrate that hominins were not only making stone tools in different ways at Olduvai Gorge and Koobi Fora, but that hominins were making stone tools differently within each of these sites as well. This has major impact in how we perceive the behaviors of hominins within the Oldowan and how we might reconstruct how the technological behaviors of modern humans evolved. An important aspect of this research is the development of a new methodology within the study of stone tools (lithic analysis). This methodology is called Behavioral Lithic Analysis (BLA) and allows for archaeologists to use experimental assemblages to statistically analyze archaeological behaviors associated with how stone tools were physically produced. The application of BLA to the Oldowan is a necessary first step since the Oldowan is the earliest identified stone tool industry, and thus presumably the simplest technology. Now that BLA has been applied to the Oldowan, other Oldowan assemblages can easily be added to the database or later time periods, such as the Developed Oldowan or the Acheulean, can be studied so as to determine how the production of stone tools changed over time. This is an exciting avenue of research since reliance on technology and manipulation of one’s environment is a trademark of humanity. Understanding how technology and technological strategies changed during these early periods of evolution within our own genus, Homo, helps us to understand what pressures and adaptive responses to pressures, led to the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens. The stone tool collection that was experimentally created for this research program is the largest experimental collection to date and is publicly available for research. Others interested in early human technological behavior are welcome to contact the author for academic access to these collections.
