7 documents found, page 1 of 1
Material matters: raw material influences stone tool performance in capuchin mo...
O’Malley, Theo D. R.; Slania, Nora E.; Falótico, Tiago; Torre, Ignacio de la; Luncz, Lydia V.; Reeves, Jonathan S.; Proffitt, TomosIdentifying the conditions that facilitate and shape tool use is a central focus in the field of human evolution and animal behaviour. Particular interest lies in the use of stone hammers by nonhuman primates to open encased food sources. It is widely theorized that similar behaviours were used by early hominins and provided a foundation for the emergence of stone knapping. Environmental factors are thought to ...
Hominin glacial-stage occupation 712,000 to 424,000 years ago at Fordwich Pit, ...
Key, Alastair; Clark, James; Lauer, Tobias; Bates, Jennifer; Sier, Mark-Jan; Nichols, Claire; Martín-Ramos, Carmen; Cebeiro, Adela; Williams, EleanorFew high-latitude archaeological contexts are older than marine isotope stage (MIS) 15 and even fewer provide evidence of early human occupation during a glacial period. New discoveries at Old Park, Canterbury (UK), provide evidence of both the oldest accessible artefact-bearing sediment in northern Europe and cold-stage adaptation. Radiometric and palaeomagnetic dating places the earliest suggested occupation ...
Flake production: a universal by-product of primate stone percussion
Proffitt, Tomos; Medeiros, Paula de Sousa; Martins, Waldney Pereira; Luncz, Lydia. V.The evolution of stone tool technology marks a significant milestone in hominin devel-opment, enabling early humans to manipulate their environments. The oldest known evidence, dating to 3.3 Ma, indicates a combination of percussive and flake production activities. Studying the archaeological signature of percussive stone tool use in living primate provides a potential analog to the origin of stone flake techno...
Searching for the earliest archaeological record: insights from chimpanzee mate...
Reeves, Jonathan S.; Proffitt, Tomos; Pacome, Soiret Serge; Luncz, Lydia V.The origin of tool use is a central question in human evolutionary studies. Plio-Pleistocene core and flake technologies represent the earliest evidence of tool use in the human lineage. Some suggest this form of tool use is probably pre-dated by a phase of percussive tool use. However, there is currently no evidence for such a record. The archaeological signature of solely percussive behaviours is not as well ...
The archaeological visibility of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) nut-cracking
Proffitt, Tomos; Pacome, Serge Soiret; Reeves, Jonathan S.; Wittig, Roman M.; Luncz, Lydia V.The earliest evidence for complex tool use in the archaeological record dates to 3.3 Ma. While wooden tools may have been used by our earliest ancestors, the evidence is absent due to poor preservation. However, insights into possible early hominin wooden tool use can be gained from observing the tool-use practices of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). By using stone hammers used to cr...
Revising the oldest oldowan: updated optimal linear estimation models and the i...
Key, Alastair; Proffitt, TomosThe Oldowan lithic industry represents the earliest known evidence of efficiently and expeditiously produced flake stone tools (Toth, 1985; Braun et al., 2019; Reti, 2016; Stout et al., 2019). Complex technological strategies were employed to produce these artefacts compared to earlier hominin stone tools, and potential organic tool-use behaviors inferred via parsimony with non-human primates (Braun et al., 201...
Modeling Oldowan tool transport from a primate perspective
Reeves, Jonathan S.; Proffitt, Tomos; Almeida-Warren, Katarina; Luncz, Lydia V.Living nonhuman primates have long served as a referential framework for understanding various aspects of hominin biological and cultural evolution. Comparing the cognitive, social, and ecological contexts of nonhuman primate and hominin tool use has allowed researchers to identify key adaptations relevant to the evolution of hominin behavior. Although the Oldowan is often considered to be a major evolutionary ...