Percussive technology in human evolution: an introduction to a comparative approach in fossil and living primates

Abstract

Percussive technology is part of the behavioural suite of several fossil and living primates. Stone Age ancestors used lithic artefacts in pounding activities, which could have been most important in the earliest stages of stone working. This has relevant evolutionary implications, as other primates such as chimpanzees and some monkeys use stone hammer-and-anvil combinations to crack hard-shelled foodstuffs. Parallels between primate percussive technologies and early archaeological sites need to be further explored in order to assess the emergence of technological behaviour in our evolutionary line, and firmly establish bridges between Primatology and Archaeology. What are the anatomical, cognitive and ecological constraints of percussive technology? How common are percussive activities in the Stone Age and among living primates? What is their functional significance? How similar are archaeological percussive tools and those made by non-human primates? This issue of Phil. Trans. addresses some of these questions by presenting case studies with a wide chronological, geographical and disciplinary coverage. The studies presented here cover studies of Brazilian capuchins, captive chimpanzees and chimpanzees in the wild, research on the use of percussive technology among modern humans and recent hunter–gatherers in Australia, the Near East and Europe, and archaeological examples of this behaviour from a million years ago to the Holocene. In summary, the breadth and depth of research compiled here should make this issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B , a landmark step forward towards a better understanding of percussive technology, a unique behaviour shared by some modern and fossil primates.

Three-dimensional surface morphometry differentiates behaviour on primate percussive stone tools

“…Until recently, our understanding of technological behaviours of the earliest hominins revolved around the intentional production of sharp-edged flakes used as cutting tools [10]. The past decade has shown that percussive behaviours also played an important role in hominin subsistence strategies [11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. The new field of primate archaeology [18] has highlighted the potential for developing a greater understanding of hominin percussive technology through the study of modern primate percussive tools.…”

Analysis of wild macaque stone tools used to crack oil palm nuts

“…Stone tool percussion is of increasing interest to primatology, archaeology and primate archaeology [ 1 ]. The durable nature of lithic artefacts makes them the prime candidate for tracing the development of primate and hominin percussive technologies through time [ 2 , 3 ].…”

The 1‐million‐year‐old quartz assemblage from Pont‐de‐Lavaud (Centre, France) in the European context

“…For the experiments, we used the same type of quartz and reproduced similar marks to those described at similar sites (Crabtree, ; Shott, ; Leakey and Roe, ; Curtoni, ; Mourre and Jarry, ; Barsky et al ., ; Hayden, ; de la Torre and Hirata, ; Li, ; Rodríguez‐Álvarez, ; Li et al ., ). Geological data indicate that the pebble layer was a possible source of raw material for hominins.…”