Lecture Week 9 The first stone tool maker. The first member of our genus, Homo habilis. (Handy Man) Where found; regions and principle sites Olduvai, 1961, Louis Leakey Lake Turkana, early 70's, Richard Leakey Sterkfontein S. Africa, late 70's Distinguishing characteristics Lessened prognathism Small body w/ long arms First major brain expansion First evidence for stone tools Time ranges 2.2-1.6 Cranial capacity 500-800cc, avg. 680 Diet, habitat, & tool use Omnivorous including meat, savanna w/ wooded patches, Olduwan tools Some researchers divide into two species, H. habilis for the smaller specimens and H. rudolphensis for the larger. Stone tools How do you know it's a tool in the first place? Find it in a strange place Amount of artifacts present More than one flake removed from a single spot on a stone Flakes and flake scars show characteristics of hard hammer percussion Striking platform Bulb of percussion Concentric rings ` Associated with animal bones Bones show cutmarks Cutmarks V-shaped, toothmarks U-shaped Mechanics of stone tool manufacture Earliest technique- hard hammer percussion Best stone for flaking (knapping) Need to predict removal Conchoidal fracture Fine-grained with no cleavage planes Flint/chert, Basalt, Quartz/quartzite, Limestone, Obsidian How you make a stone tool Find an angle of less than 90( Take hammerstone in dominant hand & aim for a glancing blow Snap wrist in a throwing motion Often best place for next removal is at or next to flake scar Characteristics of the Olduwan Oldest at 2.5 MYA- Gona, Ethiopia Youngest sites ~800 KYA; Similar industries after then called by different names Generally reserved for sites in Africa; similar industries elsewhere again given other names Core tools- Choppers River cobble with one or more flakes removed near each other Can be unifacial (removed from one side) or bifacial (two sides) Used to be though of as tools in their own right, now considered to be just cores for flake tools Flake tools Sharp-edged flakes removed from a core Very useful for cutting, especially meat Sometimes shows microscopic usewear characteristic of meat cutting Hammerstones Hand-sized durable stone, like granite or quartzite Often shows pitted area where blows have been struck Quartzite ones become "polyhedral" then rounded- mistaken for bola stones Habiline lifestyles Tool use All finds of Homo habilis associated w/ stone tools Also associated w/ cutmarked and broken bone Flakes show micropolish indicating meat use Meat eating Hunting vs. scavenging Bones often show carnivore toothmarks overlapping cutmarks Cutmarks often on shaft rather than ends- getting meat quickly rather than dismembering Going for marrow in shafts of long bones Fracture patterns on bones Marrow is fat-rich, high-energy food source At 3 feet tall, hard to imagine habilis as much of a hunter Scavanging most likely Effects on body Brain very expensive to maintain- meat high energy food Easier to chew- teeth don't need to be as big Home bases? Monogamy? Language? All three seem to be later innovations; at least clear signs of them.