An Experimental Approach to Understanding the “Eolithic” Problem: Cultural Cognition and the Perception of Plausibly Anthropic Artifacts

Abstract

The Eolithic controversy dominated debate about the earliest human tools between approximately 1880 and 1930, and raised acutely the difficulties of identifying stone that had been selected and modified for human or proto-human use. Similar issues in distinguishing artifacts from geofacts have persisted, making this more than a matter of arcane historical interest. This paper examines the thinking behind the claims made by British “eolithophiles” by using approaches developed in the study of cultural cognition. We report on a series of experiments conducted on non-artifactual material derived from the classic Kentish eolith-bearing deposits, and on specimens labeled “eoliths” in the Maidstone Museum. We demonstrate how the sorting behavior of research subjects provides evidence of “form selection” and perceptual pattern-recognition influenced by cultural experience, and how engaging interactively with the material indicates the importance of bodily actions in “thinking through” the functionality of objects.

Keywords:

• Eoliths
• cultural cognition
• perception experiments
• history of science

Acknowledgements

This paper is an outcome of a British Academy project entitled “The Eolithic Controversy as a Problem in the History of Science, and of Archaeology in Particular: An Approach from Cognitive Anthropology” (Grant LRG 44967). A 2005 British Association for the Advancement of Science Panel held in Dublin on the theme of “Fraud, fantasy and the anthropological imagination” provided an opportunity to explore and develop some of the original ideas, funded jointly by the British Academy and the Royal Anthropological Institute. Ellen is responsible for overall conceptualization of the project and for experimental design. Ellen and Muthana shared the supervision of the experimental work between October 2007 and March 2008. Muthana prepared all the material used in the experiments, compiled the catalogue of the Harrison collection in the Maidstone Museum and the database based on this, transcribed the raw data from subject lab report forms to spreadsheets, and collated qualitative feedback. Ellen analyzed the data and undertook the writing. We would like to thank Christine Eagle for statistical advice, Rob Massey-Booth of the Kent Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Systems for advice on general experimental protocols, and Rachel Kaleta for research assistance. Mr. Andrew Tickell of Johnson's Farm West Yoke, Sue and Mike Ridley of Parsonage Farm Ash, and Mr. Jonathan Lovett, operations manager at Hale Street Quarry, East Peckham, kindly provided access to sites where surface collections of flint were made, while Giles Guthrie and Simon Lace of the Maidstone Museum authorized the loan of eoliths from the Harrison collection to the University of Kent Ethnobiology Laboratory. Finally, we would also like to thank all those who agreed to be research subjects, Grant McCall for his patience and support, and two sympathetic reviewers who's comments have significantly clarified our argument.

Notes

1 By comparison, Rutot (1907: 444) distinguishes the following eolithic functional types: percuteurs (choppers), enclumes (anvils), couteaux (cutters), racloirs (side scrapers), grattoirs (end scrapers), and perçoirs (awls). MacAlister (1921: 155) was later to note “the futility of minute classifications of rude objects,” and with reference to Prestwich-Harrison types, opined that it was absurd that “any sort of man who could have existed in the Tertiary epoch” would have had need for “a tool box of 17 different sorts of specialised implements.”

2 Peacock (1991: 345) reminds us how distinguishing artifacts from geofacts is a persistent problem in archaeology, and observes the repetition of similar controversies to those surrounding eoliths in recent times (e.g., the Kafuan and Calico Hills controversies). He compared possible artifacts with a sample of known natural geofacts on a range of characteristics and was able to show that some of the flakes were artifacts. In particular, he compared pieces excavated from Kirmington on Humberside with material from two known archaeological sites and a random sample of 50 eoliths from Ash in Kent (in the Baden-Powell Quaternary Research Centre, Oxford). He compared general characteristics (prominent bulb of percussion, ripple lines, radial lines, bulbar scars, differential weathering of flake scars, cortex on platform, cortex on dorsal surface, two or more flake scars on dorsal surface, dorsal flake scars parallel with medial axis, negative dorsal bulb) and locational characteristics (raw material, rolling, edge flaking, flake surfaces scratched). The results showed that by combining an examination of general flake characteristics with features that take processes into account, a strong case could be made for the presence of artifacts at Kirmington, where objects were form selected out of natural deposits.