Hostname: page-component-65f69f4695-k2rjg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-26T11:52:39.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hominin Stone Flaking and the Emergence of ‘Top-down’ Design in Human Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2020

Mark W. Moore Open the ORCID record for Mark W. Moore [Opens in a new window]
Mark W. Moore*
Affiliation:
Stone Tools and Cognition Hub, Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia Email: mmoore2@une.edu.au
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The philosopher Daniel Dennett argues that complex structures in the natural and cultural worlds emerge from two types of design. Bottom-up design involves the rote action of a simple algorithm in an environment constrained by physical laws. Top-down design involves deliberation and planning, and is unique to modern humans. Identifying the emergence of top-down design in the hominin lineage is an important research challenge, and the archaeological record of stone technology is our best evidence for it. A current view is that artefact types and flaking methods increased in complexity from 3.3 to c. 0.3 million years ago, reflecting improving capacities at spatial cognition and working memory, culminating in top-down design perhaps as early as 1.75 million years ago. Recent experimental work, however, has shown that a simple ‘remove flake’ algorithm constrained by the laws of fracture mechanics—a form of bottom-up design—can produce stone tool attributes thought to be evidence of top-down design. Here, these models are reviewed and critiqued in light of the new experimental evidence. A revised working memory-based model, focusing on the recursive aspects of stone flaking, is proposed.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 647 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ambrose, S.H., 2001. Paleolithic technology and human evolution. Science 291, 1748–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ananthaswamy, A., 2017. That's a termite colony between your ears. New Scientist 11 February, 42–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beyene, Y., Katoh, S., WoldeGabriel, G., et al. ., 2013. The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 110(5), 1584–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boëda, E., 1994. Le concept Levallois: Variabilité des méthodes. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Boëda, E., 1995. Levallois: a volumetric construction, methods, a technique, in The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology, eds Dibble, H.L. & Bar-Yosef, O.. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press, 41–68.Google Scholar
Braun, D. R., Aldeias, V., Archer, W., et al. ., 2019. Earliest known Oldowan artifacts at >2.58 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, highlight early technological diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 116(24), 11712–17.Google ScholarPubMed
Brooks, A.S., Nevell, L., Yellen, J.E. & Hartman, G., 2006. Projectile technologies of the African MSA: implications for modern human origins, in Transitions Before the Transition, eds Hovers, E. & Kuhn, S.L.. New York (NY): Springer, 233–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byers, A.M., 1999. Communication and material culture: Pleistocene tools as action cues. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9, 23–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, J., 2012. The identity model: a theory to access visual display and hominin cognition within the Palaeolithic. Human Origins 1, 24–40.Google Scholar
Coolidge, F.L. & Wynn, T., 2004. A cognitive and neuropsychological perspective on the Châtelperronian. Journal of Anthropological Research 60, 55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coolidge, F.L. & Wynn, T., 2005. Working memory, its executive functions, and the emergence of modern thinking. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 15(1), 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corballis, M.C., 2011. The Recursive Mind. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cotterell, B. & Kamminga, J., 1987. The formation of flakes. American Antiquity 52, 675–708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, I., 2002. The finished artefact fallacy: Acheulean hand-axes and language origins, in The Transition to Language, ed. Wray, A.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 180–203.Google Scholar
Davidson, I., 2010. The colonization of Australia and its adjacent islands and the evolution of modern cognition. Current Anthropology 51, S177–S189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, I. & McGrew, W., 2005. Stone tools and the uniqueness of human culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11, 793–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, R., 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. New York (NY): W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
de Beaune, S.A., 2004. The invention of technology. Current Anthropology 45, 139–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de la Torre, I., Mora, R., Domíngez-Rodrigo, M., de Luque, L. & Alcalá, L., 2003. The Oldowan Industry of Peninj and its bearing on the reconstruction of the technological skills of Lower Pleistocene hominids. Journal of Human Evolution 44, 203–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Delanges, A. & Roche, H., 2005. Late Pliocene hominid knapping skills: the case of Lokalalei 2C, West Turkana, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 48, 435–72.Google Scholar
Dennett, D., 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York (NY): Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Dennett, D., 2017. From Bacteria to Bach and Back. New York (NY): W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Dibble, H.L. & Whittaker, J.C., 1981. New experimental evidence on the relation between percussion flaking and flake variation. Journal of Archaeological Science 8, 283–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunbar, R.I.M., 2008. Mind the gap: or why humans are not just great apes. Proceedings of the British Academy 154, 403–23.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R., 2017. Cognitive and network constraints in real life and literature, in Maths Meets Myths: Quantitative approaches to ancient narratives, eds Kenna, R., MacCarron, M. & MacCarron, P.. Cham: Springer, 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkel, M. & Barkai, R., 2018. The Acheulean handaxe technological persistence: a case of preferred cultural conservatism? Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 194, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gowlett, J., 2006. The elements of design form in Acheulian bifaces: modes, modalities, rules and language, in Axe Age: Acheulian toolmaking from quarry to discard, eds Goren-Inbar, N. & Sharon, G.. London: Equinox, 203–22.Google Scholar
Gowlett, J., Gable, C. & Dunbar, R., 2012. Human evolution and the archaeology of the social brain. Current Anthropology 53, 693–722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gumert, M.D., Kluck, M. & Malaivijitnond, S., 2009. The physical characteristics and usage patterns of stone axe and pounding hammers used by long-tailed macaques in the Andaman Sea region of Thailand. American Journal of Primatology 71, 594–608.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harmand, S., Lewis, J., Feibel, C.S., et al. ., 2015. 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521, 310–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W.T., 2002. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298(5598), 1569–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haward, F.N., 1914. The problem of the eoliths. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society of East Anglia 1, 347–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. & McElreath, R., 2006. Dual-inheritance theory: the evolution of human cultural capacities and cultural evolution, in Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, eds Dunbar, R. & Barrett, L.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198568308.013.0038Google Scholar
Hodgson, D., 2015. The symmetry of Acheulean handaxes and cognitive evolution. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 2, 204–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, G.L., 1977. Olorgesailie: Archaeological studies of a Middle Pleistocene lake basin in Kenya. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuman, K., 2001. An Acheulean factory site with prepared core technology near Taung, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 56, 8–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leakey, M.D., 1971. Olduvai Gorge, Vol 3. Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960–1963. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mannu, M. & Ottoni, E.B., 2009. The enhanced tool-kit of two groups of wild bearded capuchin monkeys in the Caatinga: tool-making, associative use, and secondary tools. American Journal of Primatology 71, 242–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Monnier, G.F., 2006. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization in Western Europe: an evaluation. Current Anthropology 47, 709–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M.W., 2010. ‘Grammars of action’ and stone flaking design space, in Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition, eds Nowell, A. & Davidson, I.. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado, 13–43.Google Scholar
Moore, M.W., 2011. The design space of stone flaking: implications for cognitive evolution. World Archaeology 43, 702–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M.W., 2019. Flake-making and the ‘cognitive Rubicon’: insights from stone-knapping experiments, in Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive archaeology and the evolution of the human mind, eds Overmann, K.A. & Coolidge, F.L.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 179–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M.W. & Perston, Y., 2016. Experimental insights into the cognitive significance of early stone tools. PLoS One 11, e0158803.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morgan, T.J.H., Uomini, N.T., Rendell, L.E., et al. ., 2015. Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language. Nature Communications 6(6029). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7029CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nowell, A. & Davidson, I. (eds), 2010. Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition. Boulder (CO): University Press of Colorado.Google Scholar
O'Connor, A., 2003. Geology, archaeology, and ‘the raging vortex of the “eolith” controversy’. Proceedings of the Geological Association 114, 255–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overmann, K.A. & Coolidge, F.L. (eds), 2019. Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive archaeology and the evolution of the human mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelegrin, J., 1993. A framework for analysing prehistoric stone tool manufacture and a tentative application to some early stone industries, in The Use of Tools by Human and Nonhuman Primates, eds Berthelet, A. & Chavaillon, J.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 302–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pelegrin, J., 2005. Remarks about archaeological techniques and methods of knapping: elements of a cognitive approach to stone knapping, in Stone Knapping: The necessary conditions for a uniquely hominin behaviour, eds Roux, V. & Bril, B.. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 23–33.Google Scholar
Proffitt, T., Luncz, L.V., Falótico, T., Ottoni, E.B, de la Torre, I. & Haslam, M., 2016. Wild monkeys flake stone tools. Nature 539, 85–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rogers, N., Killcross, S. & Curnoe, D., 2016. Hunting for evidence of cognitive planning: archaeological signatures versus psychological realities. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 5, 225–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roux, V. & Bril, B. (eds), 2005. Stone Knapping: The necessary conditions for a uniquely hominin behaviour. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Sahnouni, M., Semaw, S. & Rogers, M., 2013. The African Acheulean, in The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology, eds Mitchell, P. & Lane, P.J.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199569885.013.0022Google Scholar
Schlanger, N., 1996. Understanding Levallois: lithic technology and cognitive archaeology. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 6, 231–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semaw, S., Rogers, M. & Stout, D., 2009. The Oldowan-Acheulean transition: is there a ‘Developed Oldowan’ artefact tradition?, in Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions, eds Camps, M. & Chauhan, P.. New York (NY): Springer, 173–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharon, G. & Beaumont, P., 2006. Victoria West: a highly standardized prepared core technology, in Axe Age: Acheulian toolmaking from quarry to discard, eds Goren-Inbar, N. & Sharon, G.. London: Equinox, 181–99.Google Scholar
Sharon, G. & Goren-Inbar, N., 1999. Soft percussor use at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov Acheulean site? Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society 28, 55–79.Google Scholar
Shermer, M., 2006. Why Darwin Matters: The case against intelligent design. New York (NY): Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Shipton, C., 2010. Imitation and shared intentionality in the Acheulean. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20, 197–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, F., 1988. Prologue to a scientific forgery: the eolithic movement from Abbeville to Piltdown, in Bones, Bodies, Behaviour: Essays on biological anthropology, ed. Stocking, G.W.. Madison (WI): University of Wisconsin Press, 84–116.Google Scholar
Stout, D., Apel, J., Commander, J. & Roberts, M., 2014. Late Acheulean technology and cognition at Boxgrove, UK. Journal of Archaeological Science 41, 576–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tostevin, G., 2019. Content matters: the materiality of cultural transmission and the intersection of Paleolithic archaeology with cultural evolutionary theory, in Beyond the Meme: Articulating dynamic structures in evolution, eds Love, A.C. & Wimsatt, W.C.. Minneapolis (MN): University of Minnesota Press, 311–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toth, N., 1985. The Oldowan reassessed: a close look at early stone artifacts. Journal of Archaeological Science 12, 101–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toth, N., Schick, K. & Semaw S., S., 2006. A comparative study of the stone tool-making skills of Pan, Australopithecus, and Homo sapiens, in The Oldowan: Case studies into the earliest Stone Age, eds Toth, N. & Schick, K.. Gosport: Stone Age Institute Press, 55–222.Google Scholar
Toth, N, Schick, K.D., Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., Sevcik, R.A. & Rumbaugh, D.M., 1993. Pan the tool-maker: investigations into the stone tool-making and tool-using capabilities of a bonobo (Pan paniscus). Journal of Archaeological Science 20, 81–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Peer, P., 1992. The Levallois Reduction Strategy. Madison (WI): Prehistory Press.Google Scholar
van der Leeuw, S.E., 2000. Making tools from stone and clay, in Australian Archaeologist: Collected papers in honour of Jim Allen, eds Anderson, A. & Murray, T.. Canberra: Australian National University, 69–88.Google Scholar
Visalberghi, E., Fragaszy, D.M., Ottoni, E.B., Izar, P., de Oliveira, M.G. & Andrade, F.R.D., 2007. Characteristics of hammer stones and anvils used by wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Cebus libidinosus) to crack open palm nuts. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132, 426–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Warren, S.H., 1914. The experimental investigation of flint fracture and its application to problems of human implements. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 44, 412–50.Google Scholar
Weeks, L., Cable, C.M., Franke, K.A., et al. , 2018. Saruq al-Hadid: a persistent temporary place in late prehistoric Arabia. World Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2018.1491324CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, M. & Foulds, F., 2018. Symmetry is its own reward: on the character and significance of Acheulean handaxe symmetry in the Middle Pleistocene. Antiquity 92, 304–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whittaker, J.C., 2004. American Flintknappers: Stone Age art in the age of computers. Austin (TX): University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Wright, R.V.S., 1978. Imitative learning of a flaked stone technology: the case of an orangutan, in Human Evolution, Biosocial Perspectives, eds Washburn, S.L. & McCown, E.R.. Menlo Park (CA): Benjamin Cummings, 215–36.Google Scholar
Wynn, T., 1981. The intelligence of Oldowan hominids. Journal of Human Evolution 10, 529–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, T., 1985. Piaget, stone tools, and the evolution of human intelligence. World Archaeology 17, 32–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, T., 1989. The Evolution of Spatial Competence. Urbana (IL): University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Wynn, T., 1995. Handaxe enigmas. World Archaeology 27, 10–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, T., 2002. Archaeology and cognitive evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25, 389–438.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, T. & Coolidge, F.L., 2004. The expert Neandertal mind. Journal of Human Evolution 46, 467–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, T. & Coolidge, F.L., 2010. Beyond symbolism and language: an introduction to supplement 1, working memory. Current Anthropology 51, S5–S16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, T. & Coolidge, F.L., 2016. Archaeological insights into hominin cognitive evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 25, 200–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wynn, T., Hernandez-Aguilar, R.A., Marchant, L.F. & McGrew, W.C., 2011. ‘An ape's view of the Oldowan’ revisited. Evolutionary Anthropology 20, 181–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, M. & Edis, T. (eds), 2004. Why Intelligent Design Fails: A scientific critique of the new creationism. New Brunswick (NJ): Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar