Technology and Human Evolution

Since the beginning of prehistoric archaeology, tools have been associated with prehistoric humans (called Homo faber by philosophers). The different stages of Homo have been related to their material culture, essentially lithic industries (assemblages of typical stone tools) that were the only artifacts to survive in number: Homo habilis is related with the Oldowan industry (from 1.9 million to 1.6 million years B.C.), Homo erectus with Acheulean (from 0.5 to 0.3 million years B.C., Neandertal with Mousterian (between 300,000 and 35,000 years B.C., Homo sapiens with Upper Paleolithic industries from (40,000 years B.C. on). Parallels were drawn between human evolution and CULTURAL EVOLUTION. But it was only in the 1960s that palaeontologists and prehistorians sought for theories relating technology and evolution. Sherwood Washburn (1960) proposed a model that related educated behavior to human evolution in a biocultural feedback system. In a quite different context, André Leroi-Gourhan (1964/1993) constructed a comprehensive theory of evolution that related the evolution of man and culture to the evolution of gesture/action and speech and to the exteriorization of physical and mental functions (by transfer of functions from mouth to hand and from hand to tools, and also from brain to books and to computer memory). In this theory, evolution, once the Homo sapiens stage is reached, is carried out through channels other than genetics: that is, the technological and the social realm. From the appearance of the first tool to the spread of Homo sapiens, there is a related evolution of Homo and technology. In the 1970s sociobiologists emphasized the relation between technology, as a learned behavior, and genetic evolution (E. O. Wilson 1975; see also SOCIOBIOLOGY). More recently a philosopher of science, Bernard Stiegler, proposed to see in this related evolution of man and its technology a phenomenon of epiphylogenesis as a new relation between the human organism and its environment: lithic technology and tools are preserved beyond the life of the individual who produced them and determine the relation of man with its environment, thus conditioning a part of the selection pressure (Stiegler 1992).

Research on prehistoric technology is becoming an important field within archaeological researches and a part of COGNITIVE ARCHAEOLOGY. It is based on flint-knapping experimentations, on refitting flint flakes, and on microwear and functional analysis of tools. It is a powerful approach to the cognitive abilities of prehistoric humans. The concept of "chaînes opératoires" (which presents technical productions as operational sequences of technical actions) introduced by Leroi-Gourhan (1964; Schlanger 1994) played a key role in its development, permitting the analysis of goals, intentions, realizations and their extent of variability, degree of anticipation and level of competence within a technological framework or technocomplex (Boëda 1994; Karlin and Julien 1994).

J. Pelegrin, whose conclusions are widely accepted, analyzes intellectual and physiological abilities of flint knappers in terms of knowledge and know-how. Knowledge includes concepts and mental representations of ideal tools and conceivable raw materials, and mental representations of a constellation of actions (gestures and results). Know-how includes the ability to imagine which actions are needed for a given task and to assess the results. It can be divided into an ideatory know-how, which critically assesses raw materials' potentials here and now and their consequences, and a sensorimotor know-how, which induces programming of knapping gestures and actions (Pelegrin 1990). This analytical framework has permitted the analysis of the "chaînes opératoires" characteristic of the main lithic industries, their increasing complexity and anticipatory strategies through time. Levels of complexity can be evidenced from the Oldowan to Upper Paleolithic industries according to number and variety of tasks and actions performed, from the intensity of preparation and rejuvenation of the core, from the degree of anticipation of the consequences of technical choices and gestures (Roche and Texier 1993). In the oldest lithic industries such as Oldowan, the ideational know-how is reduced to a simple repetition of elementary actions (Pelegrin 1990) but is associated with a motor know-how able to control the intensity and direction of hammer strokes. For Roche and Texier (1993), first bifaces (appearing in the late Oldowan) reflect an emerging concept poorly materialized by an insufficient sensorimotor know-how. The Acheulean bifaces already imply more complex conceptual and reflexive abilities: the final form of a biface is completely independent of the original raw material and includes a double symmetry; every flake removal results in modifying at the same time the edge contour and profile and the face thickness. Errors of judgment or poor sensorimotor control results in wasting raw material or even in rendering the core useless. For Pelegrin, technical aspects of hominization are achieved at this stage, even if numerous progressions are still to come.

A few British and American prehistorians and paleontologists interpret the same data in a quite different way and oppose what they call the "final object fallacy" (Wynn 1993). They privilege use upon conceptual creation in shaping the final product: polyhedrals and bolas (nearly perfect spheric stone balls) of the Oldowan are viewed as hammers that acquired their spheric shape through repeated use (Toth 1993); Mousterian sidescrapers as well acquire their shape through use (Dibble and Bar-Yosef 1995). However, Toth acknowledges that the double symmetry of later bifaces represent a conscious and planned shape (Toth and Schick 1993). At this stage, all agree that language is not necessary, but Toth and Schick consider that it could be incipient given the dominance of right-handed knappers. But most prehistorians advocate for language associated with Mousterian technology. All agree that the problem cannot be solved for the moment because there is no clear technological performance correlated with language (Ingold 1993; Wynn 1993).

Another problem has emerged with discoveries of remains from archaic Homo sapiens associated with Mousterian artifacts and technology, at the same time that remains from late Neandertals (Chatelperroniaa) were found with an early Upper Paleolithic industry (Hublin et al. 1996). Similarly, first bifaces appear in late Oldowan in Homo habilis context. Thus, it is no longer possible to equate technocomplexes and human species. However, technology is opening a new field of investigation about the cognitive abilities of prehistoric humans.

References

Boëda, E. (1994). Le concept Levallois: Variabilité des méthodes. Paris: CNRS éditions, monographies du CRA no. 9.

Davidson, I., and W. Noble. (1993). Early stone industries and inferences regarding language and cognition. In K. R. Gibson and T. Ingold, Eds., Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 363-388.

Dibble, H. L., and O. Bar-Yosef, Eds. (1995). The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology. Madison: Prehistory Press, Monographs in World Archaeology no. 23.

Gibson, K. R., and T. Ingold, Eds. (1993). Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hublin, J.-J., F. Spoort, M. Braun, F. Zonneveld, and S. Condemi. (1996). A late Neanderthal associated with Upper Palaeolithic artefacts. Nature 381:224-226.

Ingold, T. (1993). Epilogue -- Technology, language, intelligence: A reconsideration of basic concepts. In K. R. Gibson and T. Ingold, Eds., Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 449-472.

Karlin, C., and M. Julien. (1994). Prehistoric technology: A cognitive science? In C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow, Eds., The Ancient Mind, Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 143-151.

Leroi-Gourhan, A. (1964). Le Geste et la Parole, vol. 1: Technique et langage; vol. 2: La Mémoire et les Rythmes. Paris: Albin Michel. (Translated as Gesture and Speech by A. Bostock Berger (1993). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.)

Pelegrin, J. (1990). Prehistoric lithic technology, some aspects of research. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 9(1):116-125.

Pelegrin, J. (1993). A framework for analysing prehistoric stone tool manufacture and a tentative application to some early stone age industries. In A. Berthelet and J. Chavaillon, Eds., The Use of Tools by Human and Non-human Primates. Symposia of the Fyssen Foundation no. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 302-314.

Roche, H., and P.-J. Texier. (1996). Evaluation of technical competence of Homo erectus in East Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. In J. R. F. Bower and S. Sartono, Eds., Human Evolution in its Ecological Context. Leiden: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, pp. 153-167. (First volume of L. J. Slikkerveer, Ed., Evolution and Ecology of Homo erectus.)

Schlanger, N. (1994). Mindful technology: Unlashing the chaine opératoire for an archaeology of mind. In C. Renfrew and E. B. W. Zubrow, Eds., The Ancient Mind, Elements of Cognitive Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 143-151.

Stiegler, B. (1992). Leroi-Gourhan, part maudite de l'anthropologie. Les Nouvelles de l'Archologie 48/49:23-30.

Toth, N. (1993). The Oldowan reassessed: A close look at early stone artifacts. In R. L. Ciochon and J. G. Fleagle, Eds., The Human Evolution Source Book. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 336-347.

Toth, N., and K. Schick. (1993). Early stone industries and inferences regarding language and cognition. In K. R. Gibson and T. Ingold, Eds., Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 346-362.

Vandermeersch, B. (1990). Réflexions d'un anthropologue á propos de la transition Moustréien/Paléolithique supérieur. In C. Farizy, Ed., Paléolithique moyen récent et Paléolithique supérieur ancien en Europe. Nemours: APRAIF, pp. 21-24. (Mémoires du Muése de Préhistoire d'Ile-de-France, no. 3.)

Washburn, S. L. (1960). Tools and human evolution. Scientific American 203:63-75.

Wilson, E. O. (1975). Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wynn, T. (1993). Layers of thinking in tool behavior. In K. R. Gibson and T. Ingold, Eds., Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 389-406.

Technology and Human Evolution

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References

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