Our introduction to this special edition of Lithic Technology Exploring Variability in Bipolar Technology does not attempt to summarize the papers found in the volume. This is done succinctly and accurately by Tostevin and Shott in this volume's concluding section (Tostevin & Shott 2015). Here we briefly discuss a theme recurring in most of the volume's papers, the importance of simple technologies for exploring the evolution of human behavioral variability (Shea 2011).
Bipolar technology is important for studying the evolution of human behavioral variability because of its ubiquity in the archaeological record. Over and again, humans and their ancestors chose to deploy bipolar techniques in varying social and ecological settings. From the earliest flake production and block modification using hammers and anvils (e.g. Mora and de la Torre 2005) to late Pleistocene bipolar bladelet production (e.g. Brantingham et al. 2004), bipolar technology was useful for many different purposes. Bipolar reduction can therefore be considered an example of an exapted technology (sensu Gould and Vrba 1982), that is, technologies re-introduced for purposes other than those associated with their origins.
The ubiquity of bipolar technology in the Stone Age gives it less utility as an “Age” or “Industry” marker (e.g. de la Peña and Wadley 2014). Its importance lies rather in what it can tell us about the evolution of human behavioral variability and its responsiveness to ecological and social changes. Archaeologists have made considerable strides towards accurately identifying and quantifying traces of bipolar technology on a wide variety of rock types (e.g. de la Peña 2015; Diez-Martín et al. 2011; Kuijt et al. 1995; Leaf 1979; Vergès and Ollé 2011). This has made bipolar technology more visible and thereby more accessible for comparative studies examining the role of simple technologies across the entire archaeological record. Bipolar technology remains unique in this regard.
The papers in this volume define, identify, and explain strategic variation in bipolar technology, as they examine the social (e.g. skill [Duke and Pargeter 2015]), situational (e.g. raw material availability [Gurtov and Eren 2015] and functional variability [Jeske and Sterner-Miller 2015]), and structural (e.g. core size [Hiscock 2015]) variables that place selective pressures on these simple technologies. Together, they join a growing movement in lithic studies away from purely descriptive studies of lithic patterning, towards understanding the behavioral processes that underpin these patterns (e.g. Eren et al. 2012; Kuhn 2013:106; Lewis et al. 2014; Tostevin 2012). Human mobility patterns, settlement dynamics and the cultural transmission of technological knowledge are other examples of behavioral and organizational questions that can be suitably investigated using context-specific studies of bipolar technology.
Similar questions about human strategic behavioral variability have led to an increased incorporation of evolutionary methods and theory into lithic studies (e.g. Lycett and von Cramon-Taubadel 2014; Mackay et al. 2014). These studies show that “evolution” in archaeology describes more than developmental sequences, straight lines, or ladders (see Langbroek 2012). These traditional, linear perspectives more accurately referred to as cultural evolutionism (see Dunnell 1980), underplay the importance of simple technologies in human behavioral evolution. Evolutionary perspectives, on the other hand, aim to understand strategic variation in human behavior and its material manifestations with accommodations for the co-occurrence and reoccurrence of simple and complex technologies (see Prentiss et al. 2015).
Evolutionary perspectives provide a behavioral framework for structuring research questions about why humans made specific technological choices, and how these choices reflect the broader contexts in which ancestral humans lived. In such an evolutionary framework, simple bipolar technologies can be imagined as one of many strategic choices available to human and non-human primate tool-makers. Understanding why these simple solutions were chosen demands a different approach to lithic variability.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Justin Pargeter
Justin Pargeter is a doctoral candidate in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York and holds an honorary research fellowship with the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Justin received his M.Sc. degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, after which he gained teaching experience in Malawi, central Africa, helping to establish the first archaeology degree program in this country. His doctoral dissertation research focuses on testing the role of ecological risk and cultural transmission in the uptake and spread of microlith production variability during MIS 2 in southern Africa. Justin is also currently the lithicist for the P5 Pondoland research and exploration project along the South African Wild Coast.
Hilary Duke
Hilary Duke is a doctoral candidate in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York and holds a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral fellowship. She has received her B.Sc. in Psychology and Archaeology and M.Sc. in Archaeology from the University of Toronto in Canada. Her research focuses on the origins of façonnage (“shaping”) in Plio-Pleistocene lithic technology, considering its implications for the evolution of hominin cognition and skill. She is currently a member of the West Turkana Archaeological Project.
References
- Brantingham, Peter J., Xing Gao, David B. Madsen, Robert L. Bettinger, and Richard G. Elston 2004 The Initial Upper Paleolithic at Shuidonggou, Northwestern China. In The Early Upper Paleolithic Beyond Western Europe, edited by Peter J. Brantingham, Steven L. Kuhn, and Kate W. Kerry, pp. 223–241. University of California Press, Berkeley.
- de la Peña, Paloma. 2015 A qualitative guide for recognizing bipolar knapping on flint and quartz. Lithic Technology 40(4):xx–xx.
- de la Peña, Paloma, and Lyn Wadley 2014 New Knapping Methods in the Howiesons Poort at Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). Quaternary International 350(6):26–42. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.03.043
- Diez-Martín, Fernando, Policarpo Yustos, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, and Mary Prendergast 2011 An Experimental Study of Bipolar and Freehand Knapping of Naibor Soit Quartz from Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). American Antiquity 76(4):690–708. doi: 10.7183/0002-7316.76.4.690
- Dunnell, Robert C. 1980 Evolutionary Theory and Archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 3:35–99.
- Duke, Hilary, and Justin, Pargeter 2015 Weaving simple solutions to complex problems: An experimental study of skill in bipolar cobble splitting. Lithic Technology 40(4):349–365.
- Eren, Metin I., Fernando Diez-Martin, and Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo 2012 An Empirical Test of the Relative Frequency of Bipolar Reduction in Beds VI, V, and III at Mumba Rockshelter, Tanzania: Implications for the East African Middle to Late Stone Age transition. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(1):248–256. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2012.08.012
- Gould, Stephen J., and Elisabeth S. Vrba 1982 Exaptation—A Missing Term in the Science of Form. Paleobiology 8(1): 4–15.
- Gurtov, Alia, and Metin I. Eren 2015 “Dissecting” quartzite and basalt bipolar flake shape. A morphometric comparison of experimental replications from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Lithic Technology 40(4): 332–341.
- Jeske, Robert R., and Katherine C. Sterner-Miller 2015 Microwear analysis of bipolar tools from the Crescent Bay Hunt Club Site (47JE904). Lithic Technology 40(4): xx–xx.
- Kuhn, Steven 2013 Cultural Transmission, Institutional Continuity and the Persistence of the Mousterian. In Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1: Cultural Perspectives, edited by T. Akazawa, Y. Nishiaki, and K. Aoki, pp. 105–113. Springer, Tokyo.
- Kuijt, Ian, William C. Prentiss, and David L. Pokotylo 1995 Bipolar Reduction: An Experimental Study of Debitage Variability. Lithic Technology 20(2):116–127.
- Langbroek, Marco 2012 Trees and Ladders: A Critique of the Theory of Human Cognitive and Behavioural Evolution in Palaeolithic Archaeology. Quaternary International 270:4–14. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.03.007
- Leaf, Gary R. 1979 Variation in the Form of Bipolar Cores. The Plains Anthropologist 24(83):39–50.
- Lewis, Laura, Nimal Perera, and Michael Petraglia 2014 First Technological Comparison of Southern African Howiesons Poort and South Asian Microlithic Industries: An Exploration of Inter-Regional Variability in Microlithic Assemblages. Quaternary International 350(6):7–25. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.09.013
- Lycett, Stephen J., and Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel 2014 Toward a ‘Quantitative Genetic’ Approach to Lithic Variation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 22(2):1–30.
- Mackay, Alex, Brian A. Stewart, and Brian M. Chase 2014 Coalescence and Fragmentation in the Late Pleistocene Archaeology of Southernmost Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 72:26–51. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.03.003
- Mora, Rafael, and Ignacio de la Torre 2005 Percussion Tools in Olduvai Beds I and II (Tanzania): Implications for Early Human Activities. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 24:179–192. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2004.12.001
- Prentiss, William M., James C. Chatters, Matthew J. Walsh, and Randall R. Skelton 2015 The Evolution of Old Cordilleran Core Technology. In Works in Stone: Contemporary Perspectives on Lithic Analysis, edited by M. J. Shott, pp. 178–196. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
- Shea, John J. 2011 Homo Sapiens is as Homo Sapiens Was. Current Anthropology 52(1):1–35. doi: 10.1086/658067
- Tostevin, Gilbert B. 2012 Seeing Lithics: A Middle-Range Theory for Testing for Cultural Transmission in the Pleistocene. Oxbow Books, Oakville.
- Tostevin, Gilbet B., and Michael, J. Shott 2015 Diversity under the bipolar umbrella. Lithic Technology. 40(4):377–384
- Vergès, Josep M., and Andreu Ollé 2011 Technical Microwear and Residues in Identifying Bipolar Knapping on an Anvil: Experimental Data. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(5):1016–1025. doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2010.11.016