From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Fri 13 Feb 2004 - 06:02:44 GMT
At 08:29 PM 12/02/04 +0200, you wrote:
>Keith, I'd appreciate some references to look further into these issues
>(it's probably just my own lack of exposure to evidence, but realization of
>a sharp stone's usefulness catalyzing the evolution of memetics sounds too
>much like a Just So Story).
It *is* a Just So Story, that I freely admit.
But other than the exact events that started hominids using broken rock to
get more of that delicious meat, there is an awful lot of evidence from
about 2.6 million years ago that a bunch of hominids started making a heck
of a lot of stone tools. I found the article I was looking for:
http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/X-PDF/Semaw2000.pdf
The World’s Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their
Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns
of Human Evolution Between 2·6–1·5 Million Years Ago
Abstract.
"The systematic archaeological and geological survey and excavations at
Gona between 1992–1994 led to the discovery
of well-flaked stone artefacts which are currently the oldest known from
anywhere in the world. More than 3000 surface
and excavated artefacts were recovered at 15 localities documented east and
west of the Kada Gona river. Based on
radioisotopic dating (40Ar/39Ar) and magnetostratigraphy, the artefacts are
dated between 2·6–2·5 million years ago
(Ma). EG10 and EG12 from East Gona are the most informative with the
highest density, providing the best
opportunity for characterizing the oldest assemblages and for understanding
the stone working capability of the earliest
tool makers. Slightly younger artefact occurrences dated to 2·4–2·3 Ma are
known from Hadar and Omo in Ethiopia,
and from Lokalalei in Kenya. Cut-marked bones dated to 2·5 Ma from Bouri in
Ethiopia are now providing important
clues on the function of these artefacts. In addition, Australopithecus
garhi known from contemporary deposits at Bouri
may be the best candidate responsible for the oldest artefacts.
Surprisingly, the makers of the Gona artefacts had a
sophisticated understanding of stone fracture mechanics and control similar
to what is observed for Oldowan
assemblages dated between 2·0–1·5 Ma. This observation was corroborated by
the recent archaeological discoveries
made at Lokalalei. Because of the similarities seen in the techniques of
artefact manufacture during the Late
Pliocene–Early Pleistocene, it is argued here that the stone assemblages
dated between 2·6–1·5 Ma group into the
Oldowan Industry. The similarity and simplicity of the artefacts from this
time interval suggests a technological stasis
in the Oldowan."
Now, making stone tools out of rocks is an element of culture. Chimpanzees
have considerable culture without generating durable evidence, so it is
unlikely that the cultural information used to make stone tools was the
first meme, but it is the first for which the evidence survives (tens of
thousands found, probably hundreds of millions of pieces of broken rocks).
The cultural habit of cracking rocks to get sharp edges was invented in at
least one place and from the evidence became a widespread cultural practice
of these populations. By any reasonable definition, the information on how
to chip rocks is a meme, a very useful one for creatures that like to eat
meat but are not well equipped for ripping meat off bones with their
teeth. Spreading out to a large population makes rock cracking a
successful meme.
So for a million years these hominids (who almost certainly included our
ancestors) ate better because they could use sharp rocks to get meat off
bones and hammer stones to get at marrow. What is impressive in a negative
way is that having figured out how to make shape edged stone tools, there
were few improvements as they passed this information down through about
40,000 generations during the next million years. It took biological
evolution that long and probably some major crises to find a better model
hominid who improved on the original stone tools--taking them into the era
of the killer Frisbee (hand ax).
Still, after a million years the rock wielding hominids may have (and
likely did) become dependant on rock chipping and the ability to pass the
memes for rock chipping on to their descendants. I.e., by the end of that
time, a group that quit using sharp rocks probably would have died out in
competition with groups that used them and ate better.
> > Throwing stones, "manuports" are found in places where hominid transport
> > from distant rock outcrops is the most likely reason they are found (Mary
> > Leakey).
'"mary leakey" manuports' in Google will take you to a wealth of
material. You can also make the case from the evidence that new tools were
introduced at a rough rate of one per 100k years. Talk about *slow.*
>As to why the hominids ventured out from the trees, it was
> > probably for meat. (Chimps *really* crave meat (Jane Goodall) and there
>is
> > no reason our remote ancestors didn't also.) They were probably killing
> > and eating young antelopes, same as baboons do today.
However, once they started using sharp edges:
"In his 1996 study of the bone accumulations at FxJj50 which he summarises
in this paper, RD concludes (pages 35 and 45, "Given the fact that
midshafts (in general) and upper limb bones are particularly devoid of even
scraps of flesh at carnivore kills, the cut-mark pattern from the FxJj50 is
indicative of flesh exploitation, and therefore, early access to carcasses
by hominids... These results are in accordance with other studies. The
analysis made by Monahan (1996) on Olduvai Bed II faunas also shows that
upper limb bones are highly ranked among the cut-marked bones in some of
the sites, further suggesting that hominids were primary agents in carcass
exploitation... "Data from the archaeofaunas at Olduvai and Koobi Fora
suggest that hominids had primary access to fleshed carcasses. The
strategies they used to obtain these carcasses are still unknown and
difficult to test. The (stilluntested) scavenging hypothesis has been
assumed by several researchers as the most likely explanation for carcass
acquisition by early hominids (Lewin, 1984), and even landscape modeling
has been made on this basis (Blumenschine and Peters, 1998; Peters and
Blumenschine, 1995). In the current stage of research, the hunting
hypothesis cannot be ruled out, and it seems that its heuristic power is
greater than that of the passive scavenging scenarios outlined so far.
Perhaps we are not far from the threshold of another scientific revolution
toward interpretations in which hominids are considered to have been more
actively involved in obtaining carcasses.""
http://www.antiquityofman.com/Hunting_scavenging_and_stone_tools.html
If I had one opportunity to go into the past, my choice would be at this
root time where our remote ancestors started using stone tools. They had
already been walking upright for several million years. It would be really
interesting to see the origin of the other major human differences with
chimpanzees such as pair bonding, provisioning, and moving food back to a
home base.
Incidentally, if you are not familiar with really old stone tools there is
an article here:
http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/0892-7537/contents
With good pictures of some of the oldest tool sets.
> > Given a million years, one of those thrown rocks would have hit something
> > hard and broken. Chimps can figure out the use of shape edges to cut down
> > a reward. The can learn to smash rocks on hard surfaces to make the sharp
> > edges. Some researchers found this out when they tried to teach a chimp
>to
> > chip rocks and the chimp persisted in making sharp fragments by smashing
> > his stones on the concrete floor (rather than on another rock).
I have objections to this site since bonobos are *not* chimps, but it does
tell the story.
http://lithiccastinglab.com/gallery-pages/2001julykanzichimp.htm
More here:
http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199703/0005.html
"Their subject, Kanzi, a star in communication experiments,
showed an immediate interest in having sharp flakes available to
cut cords that held a fruit-containing box closed. He got the
idea of striking flakes from a core, but even after many months
of training he was still nowhere near the skill level of the
Oldowan toolmakers. The latter clearly understood the major
properties of the stones they worked and selected the most
effective points at which to strike an inevitably irregular core.
NOt so Kanzi, who never mastered the idea of striking stone at
the optimum angle.
And here
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/ANT%20200/200tech.htm
Increases in tool efficiency: Some archaeologists argue that the changes in
stone-tool technology over time have a trajectory towards an exponential
increase in the length of cutting edge that knappers could produce from a
given amount of tool stone.
* Olduwan knappers (H. habilis) got about 7.5 cm of cutting edge from
about half a kilo of flint ca. 2 million years ago
* Acheulean handaxe (H. erectus) got about 30 cm of cutting edge from
half a kilo
* Mousterian (H. neanderthalensis) got about 75 cm of cutting edge
from half a kilo
* Upper Palaeolithic blades: almost 10 m of cutting edge from half a kilo
Keith Henson
> > Some chance observation by a bright hominid that her recovered but now
> > broken in half "lion stone" was useful in hacking off a chunk of a large
> > carcass the group chanced upon during the walk back to the trees where
>they
> > were sleeping seems to have been enough to start the evolution of our
> > entire meme based material culture. (This is a petrocentric view of
> > course. The bag might have been an important meme too but the supporting
> > evidence didn't survive.)
> >
> > >Memetics is supposedly derived from an evolutionary outlook, yet one of
> > >the most fundamental evolutionary issues, the evolution of memes, has not
> > >been attended to.
> >
> > That's a good point. If the above isn't enough evidence for the start of
> > meme evolution and you want me to fill in web sites and book sources
> > supporting this view, let me know.
> >
> > Keith
>
>
>
>===============================================================
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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