ABSTRACT

Understanding the evolution of technological complexity is a major goal in the study of prehistoric lithic industries. This has led to the development of different methods to examine both archaeological items and their production processes. These methods have attempted to segment the actions that form an operational sequence, usually with the aim of quantifying the complexity involved in lithic knapping. However, to date, no study has been capable of cataloguing these actions to the point of characterizing the elements that comprise them. In this work, we propose an approach to identify the smallest unit of any knapping action: the manual gesture. Our goal is to provide a homogeneous language allowing the characterization and quantification of 1) the variability between lithic industries, and 2) the evolution of technological complexity, from both synchronic and diachronic view. As a proof-of-concept, we designed a pilot experiment to characterize the manual gestures involved in making choppers, chopping-tools and handaxes. Our results confirm the reliability of this approach. In addition, it points to the existence of a gestural primordial core that lasted throughout the Oldowan and the Acheulean –as knapping sequences increased in complexity- and the potential to identify some specific traits of the individual knappers.

摘要

了解技术复杂性的演变是史前石器业研究的主要目标。这导致开发了多种方法来检查考古物品及其生产过程。这些方法试图分割形成操作序列的动作，通常目的是量化涉及石板绑架的复杂性。但是，迄今为止，还没有研究能够对这些行为进行分类，以表征构成它们的元素。在这项工作中，我们提出一种方法来识别任何敲击动作的最小单位：手动手势。我们的目标是提供一种统一的语言，以表征和量化1）石器行业之间的可变性，以及2）技术复杂性的演变，从共时和历时的角度来看。作为概念验证，我们设计了一个试验实验来表征制作切碎器，切碎工具和斧头时涉及的手动手势。我们的结果证实了这种方法的可靠性。此外，它指出存在一个遍及整个Oldowan和Acheulean的手势原始核心（随着敲击序列的复杂性增加），并且有可能识别各个敲击者的某些特定特征。