New and old technologies to understand MP human tool technology, design, and use

Rationale

Archaeologists attempt to answer questions regarding the evolution of human behaviour through the study of material culture. During the Pleistocene, stone tools were essential to the survival of hominins. Hence, the emergence and changes of past human technologies provide fundamental insights into early hominin behaviour and have been seen as a combination of cultural traits but also human technological adaptations and innovations. Understanding the relationship between production, design, function, and actual use of the huge variety of stone tools in the archaeological record, and their change over time and space, is fundamental. Therefore, research that combines studies on tool design and use is crucial. This understanding can have a major impact on questions related to the use-life history of a tool, including technological strategies, tool maintenance, resharpening, and recycling mechanisms, but also on the nature of human decision-making processes. This comprehensive research will contribute to answering key questions related to the study of human technological evolution, as well as the nature and origin of cultural and social transmission mechanisms among early hominins. State-of-the-art research has been advocating that a comprehensive understanding of stone tool use in the past is still needed. Such an approach can only be achieved when both aspects of tool design and use are combined. However, such a complementary approach has so far not been achieved in archaeological research. The relation between tool design and use can be investigated most effectively in technological systems showing a minimum of tool variability and instead evidence of maintenance and long-term use, such as the Middle Palaeolithic industries. Throughout the Middle Palaeolithic, technological choices seem consistent, leading to the impression of a certain stasis and little alteration concerning the composition of lithic assemblages. Nevertheless, the Late Middle Palaeolithic sites (late OIS 5 until mid OIS 3; of Central and Eastern Europe are marked by the presence of a prominent asymmetric tool type). One of these concerns is the tool function. The tools’ morphology suggests that they could have been used for different activities, for example, cutting, scraping, and carving. Thus, interpretations see Keilmesser as a multifunctional or at least bi-functional tool. This argumentation is based on tool morphology only and has not been verified through further analysis. Also, hypotheses related to the potential of an intentionally optimised design for different tasks have not been tested yet. these questions can only be addressed by the combination of the different scales of analysis and methods as techno-typological and material properties studies, use-wear analysis, and controlled experiments. Investigating and understanding aspects such as the underlying tool concept and design as well as tool function and use, here applied to the case study of Keilmesser, is conditional upon tracing certain behavioural phenomena of Neanderthals.

{width="389”}

Research agenda and goals

This project aims at a unique agenda in the study of past human stone tools. Data resulting from different approaches will be combined, aiming at a comprehensive understanding and reconstruction of early stone tool use. Stone tool design will be investigated through the analysis of major features observed within archaeological tool variability, such as raw material properties, tool morphology, edge angle and actual use. These aspects will be tested experimentally to infer on tool function and performance, including efficacy, efficiency, and durability, and against different types of motions and worked materials. Here, experimental replication will be used to check the performance and suitability of a tool for a given task. Based on the research questions and gaps of knowledge earlier identified, the investigation agenda of this project combines multi-scale research on the overarching topics of stone tool design and use. This will be explored through different but interrelated methodological avenues: 1) archaeological, focusing on the study of the selected archaeological material. 2) experimental, building upon the data collected from the archaeological assemblages and 3) computational tools and statistical modelling. This approach will enable the development of a multi-scale method of analysis, where different types of wear traces can be combined and used as diagnostic features for understanding stone tool use.

By providing new data, methods and models, the project will not only allow for testing the validity of the preliminary data, but also explore the unanswered remaining questions. Taken together, this proposed approach will combine three research avenues, comprising several supplementing and intertwined methods. Thereby, different scales of analysis, from macroscopic to microscopic, will highlight possible determining aspects and correlating factors. All experimental designs will be built upon data collected from the archaeological samples. This combination will work on a two-way relation of comparison and testing between archaeological and experimental assemblages. An assessment of tool performance will be focused on understanding aspects of tool effectiveness, efficiency, and durability, and how these relate to the different features involved in the tool’s design.

{width="466”}

Team

Principal Investigators - João Marreiros, TraCEr-MONREPOS. LEIZA, Mainz - Andreas Hildebrandt, Institut für Informatik, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Research team - Lisa Schunk, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge - Paolo Sferrazza, TraCEr-MONREPOS. LEIZA, Mainz - Ivan Calandra, MONREPOS. LEIZA, Mainz - Walter Gneisinger, TraCEr-MONREPOS. LEIZA, Mainz

Collaborators - Alastair Key. Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge - Andrzej Wisniewski. Institute for Archaeology, Faculty of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences, University of Wroclaw - Olaf. Joris MONREPOS. LEIZA, Mainz - Marcel Weiß. Institut fur Ur- und Fruhgeschichte, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg - Petr Neruda, Moravské zemské muzeum, Brno

Publications related to the project

• Marreiros, J., Calandra, I., Gneisinger, W., Paixão, E., Pedergnana, A. and Schunk, L., 2020. Rethinking use-wear analysis and experimentation as applied to the study of past hominin tool use. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 3, pp.475-502..
• Schunk, L., Gneisinger, W., Calandra, I. and Marreiros, J., 2023. The role of artificial contact materials in experimental use-wear studies: A controlled proxy to understand use-wear polish formation. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 47, p.103737.
• Hildebrandt, A.K., Stöckel, D., Fischer, N.M., de la Garza, L., Krüger, J., Nickels, S., Röttig, M., Schärfe, C., Schumann, M., Thiel, P. and Lenhof, H.P., 2015. Ballaxy: web services for structural bioinformatics. Bioinformatics, 31(1), pp.121-122..
• Marreiros, J., Pereira, T. and Iovita, R., 2020. Controlled experiments in lithic technology and function. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 12, pp.1-7.).
• Werner, S., Schmidt, L., Marchand, V., Kemmer, T., Falschlunger, C., Sednev, M.V., Bec, G., Ennifar, E., Höbartner, C., Micura, R. and Motorin, Y., 2020. Machine learning of reverse transcription signatures of variegated polymerases allows mapping and discrimination of methylated purines in limited transcriptomes. Nucleic acids research, 48(7), pp.3734-3746.
• Schunk, L., Cramer, A., Bob, K., Calandra, I., Heinz, G., Jöris, O. and Marreiros, J., 2023. Enhancing lithic analysis: Introducing 3D-EdgeAngle as a semi-automated 3D digital method to systematically quantify stone tool edge angle and design. Plos one, 18(11), p.e0295081.
• Calandra, I., Gneisinger, W. and Marreiros, J., 2020. A versatile mechanized setup for controlled experiments in archeology. STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research, 6(1), pp.30-40.
• Calandra, I., Schunk, L., Bob, K., Gneisinger, W., Pedergnana, A., Paixao, E., Hildebrandt, A. and Marreiros, J., 2019. The effect of numerical aperture on quantitative use-wear studies and its implication on reproducibility. Scientific reports, 9(1), p.6313.