Do a few tools necessarily mean a few people? A techno-morphological approach to the question of group size at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel

Herzlinger, Gadi; Goren‐Inbar, Naama

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.11.008

Cited by 24 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…It is important to note that the bifacial tool kit in Europe was not standardized at that time, while contemporaneous assemblages in East Africa at Gombore II (Ethiopia) [64, 65] or Isenya (Kenya) [37] and in the Levant at Gesher Benot Yakov (GBY) (Israël) [39, 66, 67], indicate higher standardization. This may be due to the small number of bifaces for each site in Europe, while in East Africa and the Levant, the series often contain higher numbers of bifaces.…”

Section: Discussion: What About Biface Shaping In Western Europe Betwmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The diversity in shape and shaping modes of bifaces in Western Europe at 700–600 ka also raises questions regarding group size and the number of knappers capable of making these tools (see the hypothesis of experts at GBY in the Levant from 900 ka [66, 81]). Moreover, the lack of cleavers on flakes and bifacial cleavers at Notarchirico, which are present in small quantities at la Noira, suggests the possible existence of multiple traditions in Europe due to raw material constraints, sparse non-connected groups and/or phases of colonization and depopulation between MIS 16 and 12.…”

Section: Discussion: What About Biface Shaping In Western Europe Betwmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A biface production older than 600 ka ago at Notarchirico (Southern Italy) contribution to understanding early Acheulean cognition and skills in Europe

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

For the past decade, debates on the earliest evidence of bifacial shaping in Western Europe have focused on several key issues, such as its origin (i.e., local or introduced), or on what should define the Acheulean culture. Whatever hypotheses are proposed for its origin, the onset and technological strategies for making Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), including biface production, are key issues and are often associated with other behavioural changes, such as increased core technology complexity. Current archaeological patterns do not support the existence of transitional industries. Rather, the scant evidence suggests that biface production associated with the management of bifacial volume was widespread around 700 ka. Among the earliest sites, the site of Notarchirico in Southern Italy stands out as one of the most significant examples. 40Ar/39Ar ages and ESR dates recently provided a revised chronology for the whole sedimentary sequence and constrained the archaeological levels between ca. 610 and 670 ka. Five archaeosurfaces (A, A1, B, D and F) yielded LCTs, including bifaces, during Marcello Piperno’s excavations from 1980 to 1995. In light of this new chronological framework, which is much shorter than previously thought, we propose in this contribution a revision of the bifaces by applying the “chaine opératoire” method for the first time (analysis of reduction processes). Our goals are to assess biface production in this early Western European locality and to characterize the strategies applied at the site throughout the sequence. A corpus of 32 tools was selected from the A-A1, B, D and F archaeosurfaces. The technological analysis shows that hominins had the capacity to manage bifacial volumes, when raw material quality was adequate. Clear differences do not emerge between the different levels in terms of shaping modes or final forms. However, we demonstrate that the oldest level (level F), with the richest corpus, lacks flint and displays a higher diversity of bifaces. This ability to manage bifacial and bilateral equilibrium, as well as the diversity of the morphological results, is observed in a few penecontemporaneous sites (700–600 ka), both in the north-western and southern parts of Western Europe. These patterns suggest that hominins mastered well-controlled and diversified biface production, combining intense shaping and minimal shaping, and shared a common technological background regardless of the geographical area, and applied this technology regardless of the available raw materials. The degree of skill complexity of hominins in Western Europe between 700 and 600 ka, the current lack of evidence suggesting “gradual industries” between core-and-flake series and Acheulean techno-complexes, raise numerous questions on the origin of new behaviours in Western Europe, their mode of diffusion, and their association with Homo heidelbergensis or other Middle Pleistocene populations.

show abstract

Section: Discussion: What About Biface Shaping In Western Europe Betwmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussion: What About Biface Shaping In Western Europe Betwmentioning

confidence: 99%

A biface production older than 600 ka ago at Notarchirico (Southern Italy) contribution to understanding early Acheulean cognition and skills in Europe

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although expert lithic knappers may have existed in the Levant as early as the Acheulian, it is of note that their activities are understood as those of local artisans acting within the context of a (sometimes large) residential group (Herzlinger and Goren-Inbar, 2019) of kin (in the extended sense of Bird et al, 2019). Comparable evidence is lacking for most of the Levantine Paleolithic record (possibly due to research/preservation constraints), yet the presence of expert knappers has been recognized in other Paleolithic records, such as the UP Magdalenian culture (ca.…”

Section: Craft Specializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two fundamental, widely-discussed concepts in paleoanthropological research are those of "group" and "population" (e.g., Birdsell, 1958;Zhou et al, 2005;Gamble et al, 2014;White, 2017;Casari and Tagliapietra, 2018; and references therein). Attention was devoted to the variable forms of the organization of individuals into groups as the mechanisms that enabled rich and complex social configurations in extant and past hunter-gatherers (e.g., Grove, 2010;Hill et al, 2011;Grove et al, 2012;Bird et al, 2019;Domínguez-Rodrigo et al, 2019;Herzlinger and Goren-Inbar, 2019;Malinsky-Buller and Hovers, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prehistoric Perspectives on “Others” and “Strangers”

Belfer‐Cohen

Hovers

2020

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social "connectivity" through time is currently considered as one of the major drivers of cultural transmission and cultural evolution. Within this framework, the interactions within and between groups are impacted by individuals' distinction of social relationships. In this paper, we focus on changes in a major aspect of social perceptions, "other" and "stranger." As inferred from the archaeological record, this perception among human groups gained importance during the course of the Pleistocene. These changes would have occurred due to the plasticity of cognitive mechanisms, in response to the demands on behavior along the trajectory of human social evolution. The concepts of "other" and "stranger" have received little attention in the archaeological discourse, yet they are fundamental in the perception of social standing. The property of being an "other" is defined by one's perception and is inherent to one's view of the world around oneself; when shared by a group it becomes a social cognitive construct. Allocating an individual the status of a "stranger" is a socially-defined state that is potentially transient. We hypothesize that, while possibly entrenched in deep evolutionary origins, the latter is a relatively late addition to socio-cognitive categorization, associated with increased sedentism, larger groups and reduced territorial extent as part of the process of Neolithization. We posit that "others" and "strangers" can be approached from contextual archaeological data, with inferences as regards the evolution of cognitive social categories. Our analysis focused on raw material studies, observations on style, and evidence for craft specialization. We find that contrary to the null hypothesis the archaeological record implies earlier emergence of complex sociocognitive categorization. The cognitive, cultural and social processes involved in the maintenance and distinction between "others" and "strangers" can be defined as "self-domestication" that is still an ongoing process.

show abstract

“…All artifacts were produced by a single, highly skilled professional knapper, using similar technological procedures conforming to those used in the “large flake Acheulian” (LFA) technological tradition [ 55 ]. In addition, the mental template of the knapper remained relatively constant, as his final goal was to mimic the morphologically homogeneous handaxes excavated at GBY [ 56 ]. Among the 29 artifacts, 20 were produced on dense alkali-olivine basalt similar to that used at GBY and 9 on high-quality fine-grained flint collected in the Negev, Israel.…”

Section: Case Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

AGMT3-D: A software for 3-D landmarks-based geometric morphometric shape analysis of archaeological artifacts

Herzlinger

Grosman

2018

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present here a newly developed software package named Artifact GeoMorph Toolbox 3-D (AGMT3-D). It is intended to provide archaeologists with a simple and easy-to-use tool for performing 3-D landmarks-based geometric morphometric shape analysis on 3-D digital models of archaeological artifacts. It requires no prior knowledge of programming or proficiency in statistics. AGMT3-D consists of a data-acquisition procedure for automatically positioning 3-D models in space and fitting them with grids of 3-D semi-landmarks. It also provides a number of analytical tools and procedures that allow the processing and statistical analysis of the data, including generalized Procrustes analysis, principal component analysis, a warp tool, automatic calculation of shape variabilities and statistical tests. It provides an output of quantitative, objective and reproducible results in numerical, textual and graphic formats. These can be used to answer archaeologically significant questions relating to morphologies and morphological variabilities in artifact assemblages. Following the presentation of the software and its functions, we apply it to a case study addressing the effects of different types of raw material on the morphologies and morphological variabilities present in an experimentally produced Acheulian handaxe assemblage. The results show that there are statistically significant differences between the mean shapes and shape variabilities of handaxes produced on flint and those produced on basalt. With AGMT3-D, users can analyze artifact assemblages and address questions that are deducible from the morphologies and morphological variabilities of material culture assemblages. These questions can relate to issues of, among others, relative chronology, cultural affinities, tool function and production technology. AGMT3-D is aimed at making 3-D landmarks-based geometric morphometric shape analysis more accessible to archaeologists, in the hope that this method will become a tool commonly used by archaeologists.

show abstract

Do a few tools necessarily mean a few people? A techno-morphological approach to the question of group size at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel

Cited by 24 publications

References 66 publications

A biface production older than 600 ka ago at Notarchirico (Southern Italy) contribution to understanding early Acheulean cognition and skills in Europe

A biface production older than 600 ka ago at Notarchirico (Southern Italy) contribution to understanding early Acheulean cognition and skills in Europe

Prehistoric Perspectives on “Others” and “Strangers”

AGMT3-D: A software for 3-D landmarks-based geometric morphometric shape analysis of archaeological artifacts

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About