Lithic Technology

Lithic Technology: Tools for Life

Summing It All Up

Over the course of the past several exercises, starting with the exploration of Olduvai Gorge and ending here, you have been introduced to major developments in stone tool manufacturing and use. This section will briefly sum the major points made.

First, stone tool making and use can be demonstrated to have an extreme antiquity, dating to at least 1.75 million years ago. It may be that hominids were using stone tools earlier, but beyond a certain point it is extremely difficult to distinguish intentional usewear from naturally occurring wear, especially given the time depth involved.
Second, the basic techniques of stone tool manufacturing, hammer and anvil, bipolar, and hard and soft hammer flaking; also have great antiquity. Only pressure flaking appears to develop later, but became quite common during the Middle Paleolithic and is in evidence on a wide variety of preshaped flake tools. Thus, the history of lithic technology is marked by changes in the way in which these techniques were applied rather than by marked changes in the basic techniques. After all, there are only so many ways to break a rock to make a sharp edge! The real changes occurred in the strategies for combining these techniques into increasingly efficient methods for manufacturing useful implements.
Third, through time the variety of stone tool forms increases dramatically. As we saw at Olduvai, the earliest industries consisted of only a few basic types of tools dominated by choppers, and supplemented with a variety of expediency tools such as sharp flakes that were likely the by-product of chopper manufacture. As we progress through time to the Early Acheulean the variety of tool types increases slightly. In the Middle Paleolithic, the variety of tool types is staggering. This period is typified by more highly refined tools manufactured for very specific purposes. The Upper Paleolithic continues the trend with very task-specific tools being manufactured on highly standardized blanks - blades.
Fourth, there is a trend through time for producing more cutting edge per unit of raw material. In the Chopper-Chopping Tool and Acheulean Industries, one core tool and perhaps a few usable flakes could be manufactured from a single pound of raw material. In the case of the Acheulean Handaxes, the result was a very useful multipurpose tool that would last for quite awhile, but which would eventually wear out after a few resharpenings, and which only had a few inches of usable cutting edge.

In the Middle Paleolithic, with the adoption of the Levallois and especially the Disk Core Techniques, core tools were largely replaced by flake tools made from preshaped cores. About ten times as much usable cutting edge could be produced from the same amount of material used to make an Acheulean Handaxe. The trend culminated in the Upper Paleolithic with the development of Blade Technology. Using this technique, roughly 100 times the amount of useful cutting edge could be produced from the same quantity of raw material.
Fifth, the increasing refinement of stone tools was accompanied by increases in the complexity of the process of manufacturing them and in the investment of time and energy that each tool represented. For example, a usable Acheulean Handaxe could be made with 25 well placed blows in one step. That process would probably take only a few minutes. An Upper Paleolithic blade knife would take up to 251 flake removals in nine fairly complex steps! While raw material was being used more efficiently, the tools were taking longer to manufacture because of the necessary additional steps required to use the material more efficiently. Part of this process also involved a change in the role that the stone tool played. Where initially the stone tool was the tool, in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic the stone tool was becoming just a part of a more complex compound tool adapted to a very specific task. A compound tool such as a hunting spear would have a stone point attached to a hardwood foreshaft, that was in turn socketed into a main shaft, that was in turn hooked with an atl-atl or throwing stick.

Conclusion

All of these general trends are readily apparent in the archaeological record, and are recorded by the stone tools and production debris left behind. Certainly, these phenomena are interesting in and of themselves, but their real importance lies in the fact that they are clues. Clues to fundamental changes in human behavior through time. Review the information you have been presented thus far on the evolution of the hominid line, global environmental changes during the Pleistocene, and the five trends in lithic technology just discussed. Use information from both your readings and Web exercises. Then, for each of the four major lithic technologies (Chopper-Chopping Tool, Acheulean, Levallois, and Blade) write a brief synthetic paragraph that discusses the way in which that technology correlates with hominid evolutionary changes and possible environmental adaptations. Interleave your response in your Study Guide.

Department of Anthropology, UCSB

Brian M. Fagan and George H. Michaels