(
Reddit) In light of the recent article in
Nature regarding the 3.3 Million year old stone tools found in Africa and the very long comment thread in this
subreddit, a discussion of archaeological methods seems timely.
African Fossils.org has put together a really nice site which has movable 3D photos of the artifacts.
Some of the most common questions in the comment thread included;
--"Those look like rocks!"
--"How can we tell they are actually tools?"
--"How can they tell how old the tools are?"
Distinguishing Artifacts from Ecofacts
Some of the work co-authors and I have done was cited in the Nature paper. Building on previous work we were looking at methods to distinguish human-manufactured stone tools (artifacts) from natural rocks (called ecofacts). This is especially important at sites where the lithic technology is rudimentary, as in the Kenyan example cited above or several potentially pre-Clovis sites in North America.
Our technique was to use several attributes of the tools which are considered to appear more commonly on artifacts rather than ecofacts because they signify intentionality rather than accidental creation.
These included:
--flakes of a similar size
--flakes oriented and overlapping forming an edge
--bulbs of percussion indicating strong short term force rather than long term pressure
--platform preparation
--small flakes along the edge showing a flintknapper preparing and edge;
--stone type selection
--use wear on edges, among others
We tested known artifact samples, known ecofact samples and the test sample and compared the frequency of these attributes to determine if the test samples were more similar to artifacts or ecofacts. This method provides a robust way to differentiate stone tools from naturally occurring rocks.
Other Points for Discussion
The press received by the Nature article provides a unique teaching opportunity for archaeologists to discuss their methods with each other and to help laypeople better understand how we learn about prehistory.
Other topics derived from the Nature article could include;
- dating methods
- excavation methods
- geoarchaeology
- interpretive theory
(
Reddit user THHUXLEY)
