RETURNThe Oldowan Tool Industry
Everyone has always assumed that the earliest stone technology would be very simple. When the Leakeys found crudely chipped stones in the long-buried lake beds at Olduvai Gorge, they were indeed nothing much to look at. The Leakeys called their early tool assemblages Oldowan, after the gorge where they were first identified. Most were broken pebbles and flakes, with flakes in the majority. Some Oldowan tools were so crude that only an expert can tell them from a naturally fractured rock, and the experts often disagree. All the Oldowan choppers and flakes strike one as extremely practical implements; many are so individual in design that they seem haphazard artifacts, not standardized in the way later Stone Age tools were. Classifying them is very difficult, for they do not fall into distinct types. The tools cannot be described as primitive since many display a sophisticated understanding of stone's potential uses in toolmaking. We now know that the Olduvai hominids were adept stone toolmakers, using angular flakes and lumps of lava to make weapons, scrapers, and cutting tools. The tools themselves probably were used to cut meat and perhaps wood. In all probability, the hominids made extensive use of simple and untrimmed flakes for many purposes. Oldowan industries have been found on several sites in East Africa dating to between about 2.5 and 1.5 million years ago. There appears to be relatively little variability between different toolkits, and the artifacts show certain common technological features:
There is a tendency to describe the Oldowan as a very simple technology. It is true that there are few formal Oldowan tool types, but the artifacts show a skilled appreciation of basic stone-flaking techniques and flaking sequences that were envisaged in the mind's eye.
For years, archaeologists have thought of the Oldowan as a static technological
stage without any perceptible change. As more sites come to light and analytic
techniques are refined, though, the Oldowan appears in a diflerent lightas
a simple, highly effective technology that grew more complex over time,
with the appearance of crude bifacial working, in which cores were flaked
on both sides.
Mary Leakey studied the Oldowan choppers
and flakes from the early hominid levels at Olduvai and divided the artifacts
into different morphological forms. Her classification remained unchallenged
until Nicholas Toth and a new generation of scholars approached early stone
technology from a more holistic perspective. The objective of their studies
is to learn as much as possible about early hominid behavior from the stone
artifacts left behind. Such research is based firmly in experimental archaeology
and middle range theory. It is founded on every aspect of technology, from
raw material acquisition through artifact manufacture and use to discarding
and incorporation of the tools into the geological record. As part of his
work, Toth became an expert stone toolmaker and carried out edge wear and
taphonomic studies on sites in East Turkana.
Toth emerged from his work with a very
diflferent view of the Oldowan. He points out that conventional approaches
to the stone artifacts are based on the idea that the makers had premeditated
artifact forms in mind. His experiments replicated thousands of Oldowan
cores and flakes and led him to argue that much of the variety in Oldowan
artifacts was, in fact, the result of flake production. Many of the choppers
from Olduvai and Koobi Fora are actually "waste," cores discarded
when as many flakes as possible had been removed from them. Toth also observes
that the size of available raw material can profoundly affect the size and
variety of choppers and flakes at an Oldowan site.
Toth's experiments with replicated tools revealed that sharp-edged flakes are far more effective for butchering animal carcasses, especially for slitting skin. Flakes, then, were of much greater importance than hitherto suspectedbut this does not mean that all choppers were just waste. Some may have served as wood-chopping and adzing tools or for breaking open bones for their marrow. Microwear studies of the few Oldowan flakes made of fine-grained materials have hinted at three possible uses: butchery and meat cutting, sawing and scraping wood, and cutting soft plant matter.
What are the implications of Toth's studies for our knowledge of early hominid
cognitive skills? Toth believes our earliest ancestors had a good sense
of the mechanics of stone tool manufacture and of the geometry of core manipulation.
They were able to find the correct acute angle needed to remove flakes by
percussion. Not even modern beginners have this ability; it takes several
hours of intensive practice tO acquire the skill. Although chimpanzees use
sticks and crack nuts with unflaked stones, they rarely carry their "artifacts"
more than a few yards. In contrast, the Koobi Fora and Olduvai hominids
carried flakes and cores over considerable distances, up to 8 miles (13
km). This behavior represents a simple form of curation, retaining
tools for future use rather than just utilizing convenient stones, as chimpanzees
do. Toth hypothesizes that the hominids tested materials in streambeds and
other locations; transported the best pieces to activity areas; and sometimes
dropped them there, carrying the rest off with them. He also points OUt
that they must have relied heavily on other raw materials, like wood and
bone, and that stone artifacts do not necessarily give an accurate picture
of early hominid cognitive abilities.
The archaeologists' traditional view of
the Oldowan considers it a "protohuman culture," with its simple
stone artifacts a first step on the long evolutionary trail to modern humanity.
Perhaps this view has been colored by analogies with modern hunter-gatherers
and by overoptimistic interpretations claiming that early hominids aimed
and threw stone missiles, shared food, and so on. Another viewpoint argues
that the Oldowan hominids were at an apelike grade of behavior, on the grounds
that all the conceptual abilities and perceptions needed to manufacture
Oldowan tools also appear in ape-manufactured tools like termite-fishing
tools and sleeping platforms. Furthermore, not only Oldowan hominids but
also chimpanzees scavenge and hunt for game, chasing down small animals,
carrying meat over considerable distances, and using "extractive technology"
to break open animal bones and nuts. Chimpanzees, like early hominids, use
the same places again and again, pounding nuts at the same locations and
carrying food to their favorite eating sites. Even if the specifics vary
in some instances and the natural environments are different, the behavioral
pattern of Oldowan hominids is generally similar to that of apes. There
are, however, two behavioral differences between apes and early hominids.
First, hominids were at an advantage in that they were bipedal, a posture
that is far more effficient for carrying objects than walking on four limbs.
Second, the Oldowan humans were adapted to savanna living, where they had
to organize and cover far larger territories in open country than their
primate relatives in the forest. In the long term, this may have resulted
in new concepts of space and spatial organization, concepts that were definitely
reflected in more complex stone tool forms after a million years ago.
It would be naive to claim that the behavior of early hominids was entirely apelike, for this means ignoring the importance of the evolution of enlarged primate brains. We can be certain that there were significant differences between nonhuman primates and hominids 2 million years ago, but these changes may not be reflected in stone artifacts. Without question, our ancestors became more and more dependent on technology. The opportunistic nature of primeval stone technology is in sharp contrast to the better designed much more standardized stone artifacts of later humans.