From Tools to Symbols

From Early Hominids to Modern Humans

Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Bernard Malauzat, Bonny S. Williamson, Cedric Poggenpoel, Chantal Tribolo, Charles K. Brain, Christopher Henshilwood, Curtis W. Marean, David Lewis-Williams, Dominique Gommery, Francis Thackeray, Frédéric Joulian, Geeske Langejans, Helen Kempson, Hélène Valladas, Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Francesco d'Errico, Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Lucinda Backwell, Bernard Malauzat

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781776142293
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

A number of researchers have tried to characterise the anatomy and behavioural systems of early hominid and early modern human populations in an attempt to understand how we became what we are. Can archaeology, palaeo-anthropology and genetics tell us how and when human cultures developed the traits that make our societies different from those of our closest living relatives? In which cases are these differences substantial, and when do they simply reflect our definitions of culture, species, the image we have of their evolution or of ourselves? From Tools to Symbols, a collection of twenty-seven selected papers from a South African-French conference organised in honour of the well-known palaeo-anthropologist Phillip Tobias, provides a multidisciplinary overview of this field of study. It is based on collaborative research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa by South African, French, American and German scholars in the last twenty years, and represents an excellent synthesis of the palaeontological and archaeological evidence of the last five million years of human evolution.

Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens

Sandrine Prat

UPR 2147 du CNRS, 44 rue de l’Admiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France

Abstract

Since the discovery in 1959 of the first specimens allocated to Homo habilis in the Olduvai Gorge, no consensus has been achieved concerning the status of the species Homo habilis, and the taxonomic allocation of the specimens of early Homo. Four hypotheses have been expressed: (1) the specimens from Olduvai, East Turkana and Omo belong to the same palaeo-species: Homo habilis sensu lato; (2) the hypodigm is heterogeneous: two species could be defined in that group, Homo habilis sensu stricto and Homo rudolfensis; (3) these species do not belong to the genus Homo but to the genus Australopithecus; or (4) it would be more appropriate to include the specimens of Homo rudolfensis in the genus Kenyanthropus. The goal of this study is to re-evaluate the hypotheses concerning the taxonomy of the specimens attributed to early Homo, and to test whether they belong anatomically to the genus Homo or to another genus.

A morphological comparative study, a craniofacial variation study and numerical cladistic analyses were carried out on the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens. The Operational Taxonomic Unit used in this analysis is defined by the specimen and not by the species (as often used) in the absence of consensus on the content of the hypodigm of the species Homo habilis.

The results of this analysis show that based on the cranial specimens: (1) two species can be distinguished: habilis and rudolfensis; (2) the specimens belonging to these two taxa are included in the Homo clade; (3) the conclusions concerning the revision of the genus Homo and the inclu...