THE SOUNDS of FLINTKNAPPING a Thesis
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ROCK MUISC: THE SOUNDS OF FLINTKNAPPING A thesis submitted To Kent State University in partial Fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Heather Noelle Smith May 2020 © Copyright All rights reserved Except for previously published materials i Thesis written by Heather N. Smith Bachelor of Music, Youngstown State University, 2000 M.A., Kent State University, 2020 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iii LIST OF FIGURES----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- v CHAPTERS I. Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 History-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Experimental Archaeology------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Auditory Neuroscience----------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Sound--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 II. Methods and Materials---------------------------------------------------------------- 16 III. Results------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19 IV. Discussion--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 REFERENCES------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of Oldowan Sites in East Africa ------------------------------------------------------- 11 Figure 2. Cores and Whole Flakes from Gona, Ethiopia ------------------------------------------- 12 Figure 3. Auditory Pathway ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13 Figure 4. Harmonic Series of A -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14 Figure 5. Representations of Sound Waves --------------------------------------------------------- 14 Figure 6. Combination Tones --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Figure 7. Pitches of Five Stone Tool Materials ------------------------------------------------------ 20 Figure 8. Three Knapper Skill Levels ------------------------------------------------------------------ 21 Figure 9. Five Size Categories of Fredricksburg Chert Flakes ----------------------------------- 21 Figure 10. Five Size Categories of Keokuk Chert Flakes ------------------------------------------ 22 Figure 11. Five Size Categories of Quartzite Flakes ----------------------------------------------- 22 Figure 12. Five Size Categories of Basalt Flakes --------------------------------------------------- 23 Figure 13. Five Size Categories of Obsidian Flakes ----------------------------------------------- 23 Figure 14. Four Sets of Primate Audiograms ------------------------------------------------------- 29 Figure 15. Human Vocal Ranges and Flintknapping Sounds ----------------------------------- 30 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the many people and groups who helped to make this document and degree possible. Thank you to the GSS for the research grant award. Through their support, I was able to purchase the five stone tool materials needed to run the experiments. Thank you to my committee and all the faculty and staff that helped to guide me in this process. I truly appreciate your invaluable knowledge and guidance. Thank you to my lab members and the other graduate students within the Anthropology department. Your encouragement and support helped spur me on. Lastly, thank you to my family whose lives are busier, but hopefully richer, with ‘mom’ in school. v Introduction The human lineage uniquely developed complex language, technology, and artistic expression at various points of our evolution. The Lower Paleolithic (ca. 3 million – 300,000 years ago) was a time of significant change that further differentiated us from the other primates. During this period, our brains were enlarging and reorganizing, stone tools were consistently being made, and music and language may have been developing. The emergence of, and ultimate reliance on, stone tools shaped hominid evolution and was a critical component of our culture and success. It was this first significant technology, the making of stone tools, that would have created a new auditory niche. These new tapping sounds we created became an auditory constant in our environment. 1.1. History The environment and technology of Lower Paleolithic peoples, dated from around 3.3 to 1.8 million years ago, can be studied at archaeological sites across Africa, as seen in Figure 1. Oldowan tools are the earliest known stone tool type and are found at sites in the Great Rift Valley such as Gona, Hadar, and Middle Awash, Ethiopia. The sites of Koobi Fora and West Turkana are located in Kenya, with Oduvai Gorge and Peninj in Tanzania. In South Africa, Sterkfontein and Swartkrans are two of the major sites. Stone tool making later spread across Eurasia with early Homo erectus. The habitats at the African sites included floodplain, fluviatile sands with volcanic ashes, lake margins, caves, grasslands, and woodlands. Oldowan tools are 1 characterized by clear, deliberate, and patterned flaking, as can be seen in Figure 2. They include simple core forms, unmodified flakes, some retouched flakes, debitage, and the hammerstones used in production. Tools were unifacial, bifacial, or polyfacial. Cores could be unidirectional, bidirectional, or multidirectional. Flakes were often very sharp and useful for cutting, chopping, or scraping a variety of resources. Evidence of tool use is seen through bone modification and microwear studies. Reports indicate that butchering, woodworking, and soft plant processing were all a part of the adaptive strategy. The materials used included basalt, chert, lavas, quartz, and quartzite (Kimbel, 1996; Toth and Schick, 2006; Anton et al., 2014; Lemorini et al., 2014). Although tool making may have been practiced to some degree by Australopithecines, early Homo, such as Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis, is most associated with consistent tool making in the Oldowan style, and with passing this technology down the Homo lineage (Lovejoy, 1981). The 1470 group includes the KNM-ER 1470 cranium, 62000 partial face, and KNM-ER 1482 and 60000 mandibles. Their range of estimated brain size may be 560 to 750 cm3 (Leakey et al., 2012). The 1813 group includes the KNM-ER 1813 and OH 24 crania, KNM-ER 1805 and OH 13 partial crania and mandible, OH 65 palate, and KNM-ER 3735 and OH 62 fragmentary crania and post-crania. Their range of estimated brain size may be 510 to 775 cm3 (Shipman and Walker, 1989; Anton et al., 2014). This smaller brain size, compared to modern Homo sapiens, possibly processed sound differently than the larger brains we have today. The evolution of stone tool technology may be reflective of cognitive capabilities of the human lineage. Acheulean handaxes are associated with Homo erectus and were made from 1.76 million to 2.5 thousand years ago. Handaxes are known for their symmetry around a single 2 long axis (Corbey, 2016; Lycett, 2008; Lycett et al., 2016). Some researchers feel these tools demonstrate hierarchical cognition (Stout et al., 2014; Badre and D’Esposito, 2009). The Levallois technology was made by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago. This entailed creating prepared cores and preferential flakes (Eren and Lycett, 2012). Showing a hierarchical structuring of information, this technique would have made use of long- term working memory. Blade technology includes macroblades, microblades, and composite technologies. They occurred at a variety of times and places, but were prominent during the mid to upper Paleolithic transition (Bar-Yosef and Kuhn, 1999; Eren et al., 2008). 1.2. Experimental Archaeology The production of stone tools by flintknapping is still practiced by artisans and archaeologists today. Through experimental archaeology, we are able to produce stone tools the same way our early ancestors did and study various aspects of that production. A stone replica can be defined as a “new-made object that possesses attributes relevant to better understanding prehistoric artifacts” (Eren et al., 2016). Stone-tool replication is one part in our process that includes hypothesis construction, design of test parameters, and quantitative analysis (Lycett and Chauhan, 2010). It is the sounds produced during the making of replicas that are the focus of this study. Stone tools are made by striking the material with a harder rock, or hammerstone, such as granite. The structure of these materials lends itself to conchoidal fracture, a smooth fissure showing concentric ripples. When these materials are struck with a hammerstone, a flake breaks off in a predictable way (Whittaker, 1994). The sounds may be predictable as well. The sounds produced today during flintknapping are the same sounds produced by ancient peoples. 3 Perception of flintknapping sounds by modern knappers has not been extensively studied, but is thought to be related to the same properties of the rocks that influence fracture mechanics (Patten, 2005). Whittaker noted that the Oxford English Dictionary associates the word ‘knap’ with “a sharp cracking sound” (Whittaker, 1994). The sounds have been described as “almost hypnotic” (Bond, 2016).