Unlocking the secrets from earlier hominin technology
By: 
Dr Rosa Moll
Date: 
Thu, 16/05/2024 - 09:45
Branch: 
Northern


Displays of stone tools from the remote past in museums are usually pretty dull affairs. Museum staff may try hard to make them interesting, but it is difficult work to get beyond a chronological line-up of tool types, with maybe a bit of information on the hominins that made them thrown in to try to give life to the contexts in which they were made and used.
 
In her lively presentation, Dr Moll gave us a quite different picture. As a post-doctoral researcher at Wits University who specializes in the Earlier and Middle Stone Age of South Africa and Tanzania, she was well qualified to talk on the subject, and her passion for her research area was evident. She focused largely on the Earlier Stone Age stone tool sequence from 3.3 million years ago, when, on present evidence, the earliest stone tools were produced.
 
Dr Moll provided clear insight into how stone tool industries and technocomplexes are named and defined, and also what they meant in the evolution of hominins. Important in this is an understanding of the cognitive and physical competencies needed for different reduction and retouch strategies. This was well explained, with images of examples shown throughout the talk with fact and humour.


Production techniques of Lomekwian tools

The earliest stone tool technocomplex so far discovered is known as the Lomekwian, after the type site in Kenya. It dates from 3.3 million years ago, and is associated with Australopithecus afarensis. This industry is defined by the presence of cores, flakes, anvils, hammerstones and worked cobbles.
 
The Oldowan industry, at 2.2 to 1.7 million years ago, provides evidence for the selection of specific raw materials to make tools, and for the habitual flaking of stone to make simple tools with little retouch. The Acheulean industry follows, spanning the period from 1.76 mya to 300,000 years ago, with tools of this kind found across Africa, Europe and Asia.
 
During this time tools became more standardized in form and were often symmetrical. They are termed handaxes, cleavers and picks. Dr Moll clearly described the process of creating Acheulean tools. It was a complicated and skilled procedure, involving many stages and an advanced understanding of fracture patterns in different rock types. She showed us illustrations of tools from her research at Sterkfontein in South African and EF-HR in Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. She used these examples to explain the stone tool knapper’s understanding of the material, the order of removals, platform production and rotation of the tool during manufacture.



Images showing analytical techniques on tools from Sterkfontein and EF-HR

Dr Moll went on to discuss analysis of cut marks on bone and other objects to research how tools were used. These markings can show what tool edges looked like, how tools were held and what they were used for (cutting and scraping, for example). Going a step further, she spoke about the relationship between art and the making of stone tools. Artistic, ritual and symbolic purposes may have played a role in determining how tools were made. The pursuit of symmetry and the choice of raw materials for engraving designs rather than simply for functional purposes may have been important in some cases. 
 
Dr Moll also demonstrated how stone tools can provide much detail into the lifeways of our hominin ancestors. She reminded us too of research into tool manufacture and use by other extant primates such as chimpanzees and orangutans, and how this tool use compares – and challenges – how we think of learning and tool manufacture among our early ancestors.


Chimpanzee using a hammerstone and anvil (bipolar technique) to break open a nut

Altogether the talk gave fascinating new takes on what most of the audience had probably thought of before as a rather mundane subject.

Report by Tammy Hodgskiss and John Wright
Photographs provided by Rosa Moll