Conception.doc
Über Prof.Dr. G.D. Neuhäuser, Dresdener Str.24, 35440 Linden Leihgestern
email: gdneuhaeuser @ gmx.de
Sehr geehrter Herr Neuhäuser,
Conceptions, Methods, Techniques and Traditions in the Early Palaeolithic
An Old World’s view on human’s being and human’s early history
Lutz Fiedler
It will not be discussed again tool using, tool connected insights and strategies of
animals in this paper. Behaviour of animal and human has the same basis and can
not be divided clearly at this point (Corbey 2005).
This is the case if we look at the earliest artefacts from Koobi Fora at Lake Turkana in
East Africa (2.5 to 2.6 my years old). Most of them are smashed and battered stone
fragments only characterized by more or less useful cutting edges (Bunn, Harris, Isaak
et. al. 1980). But technology developed from that period of Koobi, what can be seen in
the Early Oldowan tool kit: Artefacts were generally produced by a well defined
flaking technology (Leakey 1971).
The knowledge of this early technology spread from South Africa over East and
Northwest Africa (Sahnouni 1998 a – b) to Southern Europe (Roe 1995) and Asia
(Gabunia et. al. 1999). What was the reason for this wide distribution? Had man
virtually some kind of instinct for a special way of stone working at that time, or was it
more?
Stone tools were not produced because man had the ability for appropriate striking
techniques. Tools were produced with the clear intention to use them for foreseeable
approches. In this way they belong to the social conception of live. This means, that
all members of early human groups know what tools are, how they were
manufactured, how they have to look and for what reason they have to be produced.
This means tradition in a communicative system. Tool production, tool use, and tool
necessity were stored in memory as »pictures in the brain«. These abstract,
“neuronal” images could than be realised virtually in all similar situations of live
(Fiedler 1993, 1997, 2002 a-b).
It is not possible to state that vocal language is essential to continue such a tradition.
But thinking and acting in logical lines or steps toward a defined goal is the basis for
the grammatical structure of language (Fiedler 1993). Words can be compared with
tools. Pretty much like words tools are classified for special reasons. Desired results
of work can be managed only with the right tools in a correct, logical order of use. So
work has a special, object connected grammar (Wittgenstein 1953). To understand a
process of work means to understand what I do as well as to understand what
another person does while working. This is a way of self-awareness (or self
perception) and it is the basis for communication, too.
Oldowan tools are classified into several functional types: cutting tools, scrapers,
chopping tools, drills, anvils, and hammer stones (Leakey 1971, Leakey & Roe 1994).
The archaeologist’s typological classification, based on morphology, contains
hammer-stones, simple cores, diskoide cores, polyhedrons, spheroids, flakes,
denticulates, notched pieces, borers/drills, unifacial worked choppers, bifacial worked
chopping tools, chisel like punches, proto-bifaces, and pitted anvils. All these tools
are related to special tasks.
Most of them are to be seen in a wider range of such activities: A hammer stone
serves to produce flakes, a flake is the blank for a denticulate, a denticulate serves
as a scraper for wood working, a wooden digging stick is necessary for the group’s
supplements and subsistence. Under these the various Oldowan too types and their
relations are representing variable resp. structured working processes and they
speak for a social pattern emerging in human groups, relying on communication
about effort, time as well as participation. This is different from most tool using seen
in animal behaviour. It is a special human system of life, and it could be called protocultural.
The Oldowan stage of culture ended about 1.8 my years ago. In Bed II of the Olduvai
Gorge geological sequence it changed its character toward the Lower Acheulian (or
Early Acheulian; Leakey 1971, Leakey & Roe 1994, Stiles & Patridge 1997).
Most of the Acheulian tools have a much stronger defined shape, especially the
cleavers, hand axes (bifaces), picks, and knifes (Clark 1970). So it is possible to say
that the abstract, held in mind tool models were more complex than in Oldowan times
(Fiedler 1998 a-b, 2002).
A handaxe, for example, was not easy to realize. The producer (or another member
of his group) of such a tool had to look out for the appropriate raw material. He had to
know where in the home range it could be found. He also had to look for good
hammer stones and for bones or ivory as ‘soft’ hammers. His first work was to split
off a heavy flake (much more than 20 cm in diameter) as a blank for the final
handaxe. Prepared flakes without the former cortex of the rock are better than simple
cortex flakes. Thus, preparation normally starts before flaking off the blank (fig. 1 -2).
The experienced person who strikes off such a flake has to have a lot of control over
his work. This requires mastering of several components: the hammer stone’s weight,
the strength of the blow, the point where the hammer stone should hit the block of
rock, the angle of the striking direction, and the underground on which the struck off
flake falls down.
Working out a handaxe on a flake blank starts with heavy blows along its edge. In
this way the planned handaxe gets its first rough shape. Then the blank has to be
turned to its backside and must be flaked in the same manner. The rough out now
has a crude ovate contour. After correcting the shape with several other blows the
kind of hammer must be changed. A smaller one or a so called soft hammer of ivory
or bone is necessary. From now on the producer has to split off a series of flat and
thin flakes to form both, a sharp cutting edge around the contour and flat surfaces on
both sides of the tool (Fiedler 2007).
After completion the handaxe has an elongated ovate shape and more or less two
straight cutting edges down from the tip to the basis. Such a handaxe serves for
butcher carcasses of large game like elephants, rhinos or hippos. It can also be used
for wood working, carving, scraping and cutting. On the African Plains, where raw
material for stone tool production was rare, hand axes carried by the hunters also
have served as cores for the exploitation of light duty flakes (Fiedler 2002 a).
Millions of such elaborated Acheulian hand axes have been found in Africa, Asia and
Europe until now. The question is, why all that labour-intensive work for a simple
cutting tool? A simple, heavy sharp flake could certainly have fulfilled nearly all the
requirements of such a handaxe!
The reason for this must be cultural tradition. Some of the»pictures in the brain« have
developed more and more to determine imperative symbols: A butchering tool for big
game has to look like a real handaxe. In this way it was manufactured by fathers,
grandfathers, and all the – mythological – ancestors. In doing so, the world could be
held in an important balance. Another cultural reason is identity, because every
person who is able to fulfil the traditional tasks is a good and appropriate member of
the society. It is necessary for each individual to belong to his human group and it is
forced to do things in the right way. These facts and not technological abilities of the
early humans can explain more than one million years of the Acheulian culture.
Technological changes and innovations are seen as dangerous for man and world.
An imperative cultural pressure and feeling of safety were in balance throughout
longest period of human’s being (Fiedler 2002 a). Progress came slowly and appeared
only quiet (Clark 1991, 1999).
What was valid for hand axes can be applied to cleavers, wooden spears, fire places,
huts, hunting methods, and the social organization. All the different archaeological
findings from the Acheulian period bear witness of an extremely slow development.
Changes came late, about 400.000 years ago, when the Levallois technique become
in use in the world of the Upper Acheulian. From than on - in the Middle Palaeolithic innovations happened to be faster and faster until to the beginning of the Upper
Palaeolithic, 40.000 years ago (Fiedler 2009).
The coherence of Lower Palaeolithic groups based on two facts: their biological
relationship and their techno-social environment. This environment represents an
important system in some distance to nature, and by using systematic approaches it
allows to ‘instrumentalize’ the world around or to organize some control about
resources, i. e. exploitation of raw material, game, fire etc. In addition it has an
important impact on the group’s behaviour.
What does this mean for understanding early human being, particularly in regard to
cognition, intelligence, communication, planning, and comprehension of existence? A
well functioning techno-social system like the Acheulian have to be stored in mind by
all members of the society by means of a huge amount of connected details. These
details are specific elements of all the indivisible system: home range, animals, plants,
resources, dangers, hunting, social range, social behaviour, tool types, tool
manufacturing, tool use, fire, food preparation, food sharing, dwelling construction,
preparing of hide, clothing, transport, and so on. There are many objects and a lot of
functions or actions, to keep in mind as neuronal pictures and abstract scenarios.
Everybody has to have very similar, comparable images of these affairs, related to
the system’s function (Cassirer 1944). So it has to be communicated. The amount of
Acheulian images and their network can not be communicated without gestures,
vocals, symbols, language.
Imaginated and abstract objects or situations (like mountains, rivers, bushes or
stones for example) as well as functions (like hunting, gathering, sharing,
manufacturing for examples) are put above all real possibilities of their virtual
appearances. This gives man the distance necessary for thinking and talking about
affaires, and for planning. In the Acheulian system the abstract and symbolic tool
types, methods of manufacturing, and aims of tool production could be realised as
virtual objects and actions. In analogy to this all other abstract phenomena had their
counterpart in reality. Vocal symbols between abstraction and reality should have
existed as spoken language, too. In this way the Acheulian system was realised and
represented permanently by every individual and in the whole community. Therefore,
we cannot state that abstract or symbolic representation and the realisation of
symbols are characteristics of anatomical modern man only. It is a characteristic
ability of man since his first appearance two million years ago.
Some archaeologists hesitate to call the Acheulian a culture. They prefer to call it a
techno-complex, because of its neutrality. This means that the term culture in relation
to Palaeolithic findings is a doubtful one in science, culture seem to be a
phenomenon of recent societies, especially the own one. But the scientific view on
artefacts is a view on technology, forms and styles, what means a view on
conceptions and knowledge of ancient societies. Conceptions, methods, techniques,
symbol supported knowledge, communication, and tradition together are what we call
culture (Cassirer 1944).
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Adresse:
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