Brittany Kling
Remains of Four Spears found in
Schoningen, Germany
• These spears were created by using stone tools to sharpen
both ends of 2-meter long spruce shafts that had been
scraped smooth.
• Associated with carcasses of horses- It appears the users of
these spears were hunters.
• Almost 400,000 years old! The oldest reliably identified
weapons ever discovered!
• Production required a series of routines and sub-routines that
were more complex than those for hand-axes
Pleistocene Climate Change
• The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2.588 million to 12,000
years BC covering the world's recent period of repeated
glaciations.
• Glaciation in the Pleistocene was a series of glacials and
interglacials, stadials and interstadials, mirroring periodic
changes in climate. The main factor at work in climate
cycling is now believed to be Milankovitch cycles. These are
periodic variations in regional solar radiation caused by the
sum of many repeating changes in the Earth's motion.
• Homo erectus came to be successful within this rapidly
changing context. We think that their ability to adapt is
due to their cognitive adaptations.
Brain Size and Brain Shape
• Rightmire, the authority on Middle Pleistocene
hominins, places pre-modern Homo into two
groups:
1. Homo erectus in Africa, Europe, and East AsiaBrain size evolved, but very slowly.
2. Homo heidelbergensis in Northern Europelarger cranial capacity and EQ, some had brain
sizes close to the modern average! (Northern
Europe-where the climatic swings of the
Pleistocene were most dramatic along with
severe environmental consequences.
Technique
• Intro of soft hammers made of wood, bone, or
antler
– When a knapper uses a soft hammer, flakes are
produced that are thinner and sharper.
• Development of platform preparation
– The knapper removed a number of small flakes from a
core edge, or crushed the core edge, or ground the
core edge in order to increase the control of the
knapping blow.
– Over time, the variety of flake tools increased, and the
number of hand axes declined.
Refinement
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Bifaces became prettier over time!”
Three dimensional symmetry
Plan, profile, and cross-secton
Symmetry more precise
Edges more linear in profile
Thinning of the bifaces produced beautiful artifacts.
Could produce twisted or “bent” plan shapes
Development of refinement appears to be gradual.This fine-tuning could cause a selection for appropriate
cognitive abilities.
Two Methods of Investigation:
Refitting and Experimental Replication
• Experimental Replication- Modern stone
knapper attempts to reconstruct the actions
necessary to produce a particular kind of flake
or core
– Same products can result from different
procedures
• Refitting- Archeologists refit flakes
– Very tedious
• Very useful in cognitive analysis
Controlled Fire and Built Shelters
• Hearths found at the German site of Bilzinsleben,
and the French sites of Terra Amata and Lazaret
• Terra Amata and Lazaret-evidence of possible
huts in the form of post molds
• Lazaret-internal pattern of remains that also
suggests an enclosure (controversial- not as
coherent as some have suggested)
• This suggests that the technology of Homo
heidelbergensis extended beyond stone tools to
include materials and knowledge in order to deal
with the cold in these higher latitude areas.
Landscape Use
• Hominins took hand axes with them from
horse remains, but discarded of them by a
water-hole, a permanent landscape to which
they returned.
• The overall pattern of temporary and re-used
locales indicates that Homo heidelbergensis
had a structured approach to landscape use,
and repeated habitual patters of action again
and again.-regular and predictable patterns
Symbols
Berekhat Ram Object
• Scratches produced by a
stone tool
• Some consider this an iconic
image of a woman.
• 2.5 cm
Mineral Pigments
• The range of colors evident
at Twin Rivers (red, yellow,
brown, black and purple)
and the effort expended
when easier pigments were
at hand suggest hominins
were interested in the
colors themselves.
Spatial Cognition
• Allocentric perception-the ability to imagine points of view not
centered on one’s own view
– To make a three-dimensional symmetry the knapper needed to control
the shape of the artifact from many different angles and perspectives,
some of which were not directly sighted.
• Spatial quantity-size is coordinate with shape-recognition abilities in
order to get congruent symmetry in hand axes
– Requires a more sophisticated coordination of the dorsal and ventral
pathways of visual processing
• Homo heidelbergensis may have been the first to have understood
space in this way, and used this intuition to guide and control their
actions.
• The ability to maintain and manipulate images and spatial relations
demonstrates usage of the visuospatial sketchpad.
Technical cognition
• The authors suggest homo heidelbergensis
were able to hold more info, and this
increased capacity had both a long-term
component (more procedures) and a working
memory component, which in turn included
developments in the visuospatial sketchpad
and attention.
Symbolic Thinking
• Evidence of pigment at Twin Rivers required
several actions of hominans.
• Invested more effort in had axe production
than was necessary for its mechanical
function.
Language
• Endocast of the Kabwe Homo heidelbergensis cranium
is well within the modern range in terms of size
• Demonstrates a modern patter of left occipital and
right frontal petalias, and the left ventral premotor
cortex (Broca’s area) is enlarged relative to the right
• Basicranium is more angled, a feature that has been
linked to lengthening of the pharynx
• Diameter of the hypoglossal canal is in modern range
(passage in cranial base through which pass the nerves
that enervate the tongue)-enlarged canal suggest
greater control of tongue
Cognitive Developments that distinguished
Homo heidelbergensis from Homo Erectus
• Spatial cognition with allocentric perception and
coordination of spatial quantity and shape
recognition
• Technical cognition with longer, more hierarchally
organized procedural routines
• Shared attention, required for technical learning
• Ability to maintain two goals simultaneously
(suggests a possible increase in working memory
capacity)
• Attentive use of indexical signaling
The End!