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, Himla Soodyall, Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Bernard Malauzat, Francesco d'Errico, Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Lucinda Backwell, Bernard Malauzat

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9781868144174
• eBook ISBN: 9781776142293
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• 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...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Profile of Professor Tobias
• List of participants
• Foreword
• Address
• Keynote address
• Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
• The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
• Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
• Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
• Tools and brains: which came first?
• Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
• Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
• Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
• The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
• Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
• Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
• Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
• Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
• The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
• Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins
• An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
• From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
• New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
• Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
• Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson’s Poort at Klasies River
• Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
• Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
• From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
• Chronology of the Howieson’s Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
• Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
• Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
• Personal names index
• Subject index