Bone tools from Beds II–IV, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and implications for the origins and evolution of bone technology

Abstract

The advent of bone technology in Africa is often associated with behavioral modernity that began sometime in the Middle Stone Age. Yet, small numbers of bone tools are known from Early Pleistocene sites in East and South Africa, complicating our understanding of the evolutionary significance of osseous technologies. These early bone tools vary geographically, with those in South Africa indicating use in foraging activities such as termite extraction and those in East Africa intentionally shaped in a manner similar to lithic tool manufacture, leading some to infer multiple hominin species were responsible for bone technology in these regions, with Paranthropus robustus assumed to be the maker of South African bone tools and Homo erectus responsible for those in East Africa. Here, we present on an assemblage of 52 supposed bone tools primarily from beds III and IV, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, that was excavated by Mary Leakey in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but was only partially published and was never studied in detail from a taphonomic perspective. The majority of the sites from which the tools were recovered were deposited when only H. erectus is known to have existed in the region, potentially allowing a direct link between this fossil hominin and bone technology. Our analysis confirms at least six bone tools in the assemblage, the majority of which are intentionally flaked large mammal bones. However, one of the tools is a preform of the oldest barbed bone point known to exist anywhere in the world and pushes back the initial appearance of this technology by 700 kyr.

A worked bone assemblage from 120,000–90,000 year old deposits at Contrebandiers Cave, Atlantic Coast, Morocco

“…In addition, bone tools shaped using methods often applied to stone—such as hammerstone percussion for flake removal—are found in Olduvai Beds I and II in Tanzania and are dated to ∼2.0–1.8 Ma ago ( Deino, 2012 ) and 1.338 ± 0.024 Ma ago ( Domínguez-Rodrigo et al., 2013 ), respectively. An additional five bone tools from Olduvai Beds II-IV likewise exhibit shaping methods conceived for stone, and one bone tool from site WK East A, Olduvai Bed IV (0.93–0.8 Ma) is a preform of a barbed point that was likely shaped through scraping ( Pante et al., 2020 ). A bifacially flaked handaxe made on the bone fragment of a large mammal was discovered in Acheulean contexts dated to 1.4 Ma from Konso, Ethiopia ( Sano et al., 2020 ), and bone tools shaped through hammerstone percussion also appear in Acheulean contexts ( Saccà, 2012 ) dated to ∼327–260 ka ago ( Michel et al., 2008 ) during the Middle Pleistocene in Italy.…”

New evidence of bone tool use by Early Pleistocene hominins from Cooper’s D, Bloubank Valley, South Africa

“…The results of this comprehensive taphonomic analysis will be published elsewhere (Hanon et al, in prep.). This led us to identify 12 possible bone tools featuring morphological characters matching, to some extent, those published by Backwell andd'Errico (2001, 2004) and Pante et al (2020). These pieces were photographed with a Dino-Lite AD7013MTL digital microscope (20-100x magnification) and an Olympus SZX 16 multifocal microscope coupled to a digital camera (7-115x magnification).…”

“…More debated issues concern the first use of bone modified with techniques generally applied to stone such as knapping (Backwell and d'Errico, 2004;Zutovski and Barkai, 2016;Doyon et al, 2020;Pante et al, 2020;Porraz et al, 2020), and the use of minimally modified bone fragments. Ever since the discovery of the species Australopithecus africanus, referred to then as A. prometheus, Dart (1949Dart ( , 1957Dart ( , 1959aDart ( , b, 1960Dart ( , 1961aDart ( , b, 1962 proposed that this hominin was able to use bone as a tool.…”

A 115,000-year-old expedient bone technology at Lingjing, Henan, China

“…Specifically, it signals when animal skeletal element utility expanded to include the manufacture of implements in addition to their primary role for consumption, fat use or fuel. Earliest examples of osseous tools include bone digging implements from Southern Africa, an innovation attributed to Australopithecus robustus living in this region some 2.0–1.5 Myr ago as well as bone fragments bearing evidence of intentional flaking, battering and abrasion from Olduvai Beds I and II, East Africa, likely used by early members of our genus, Homo , in hide-working, butchery, digging, knapping, and hunting activities between ~1.8–1.0 Myr [ 6 – 10 ]. In the Southeast Asian Pacific Islands, shell scrapers were found at Trinil, Java [ 11 ], in a formation linked to Homo erectus occupation some 450 kyr (thousand years ago).…”