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The Acheulean Handaxe Corbey, Raymond; Collard, Mark; Vaesen, Krist; Jagich, Adam Tilburg University The Acheulean handaxe Corbey, Raymond; Collard, Mark; Vaesen, Krist; Jagich, Adam Published in: Evolutionary Anthropology DOI: 10.1002/evan.21467 Publication date: 2016 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in Tilburg University Research Portal Citation for published version (APA): Corbey, R., Collard, M., Vaesen, K., & Jagich, A. (2016). The Acheulean handaxe: More like a bird’s song than a Beatles’ tune? Evolutionary Anthropology, 25(1), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21467 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. sep. 2021 Evolutionary Anthropology 25:6–19 (2016) ARTICLE The Acheulean Handaxe: More Like a Bird’s Song Than a Beatles’ Tune? RAYMOND CORBEY, ADAM JAGICH, KRIST VAESEN, AND MARK COLLARD The goal of this paper is to provoke debate about the nature of an iconic arti- lion square kilometers, multiple eco- fact—the Acheulean handaxe. Specifically, we want to initiate a conversation logical regions, and roughly a about whether or not they are cultural objects. The vast majority of archeolo- hundred thousand generations. gists assume that the behaviors involved in the production of handaxes were Acheulean handaxes are the defin- acquired by social learning and that handaxes are therefore cultural. We will ing artifact of the Acheulean indus- argue that this assumption is not warranted on the basis of the available evi- try, which also includes flakes, flake dence and that an alternative hypothesis should be given serious consideration. tools, and cores, as well as other This alternative hypothesis is that the form of Acheulean handaxes was at least large cutting tools such as cleavers, partly under genetic control. picks, trihedrals, and unifaces. The Acheulean industry was preceded by the Oldowan, which is found in Named after the site of Saint-Acheul Acheulean handaxes are one of the Africa and parts of Eurasia; it was in France, where they were first identi- commonest, most widely distributed, succeeded by the Middle Palaeolithic fied, Acheulean handaxes are distinc- and longest-lasting archeological arti- in western Eurasia and the Middle tive (Fig. 1). Indeed, they are so facts. Several hundred thousand Stone Age in Africa. distinctive that they are probably the Acheulean handaxes have been recov- Acheulean handaxes are thought to one artifact that all archeologists, ered from sites in many regions of the have been produced by two extinct whatever their period of interest, are Old World, including North, South, hominin species, Homo erectus and capable of identifying. Acheulean han- and East Africa; Europe; and West- Homo heidelbergensis.Fossilsassigned daxes were produced by the bifacial ern, South, and East Asia (Fig. 2). The to H. erectus have been recovered from reduction of a block or large flake oldest Acheulean handaxes date to sites in East Africa, South Africa, blank around a single, long axis. They approximately 1.76 million years ago North Africa, the Caucasus, Southeast have a cutting edge in the secant (Ma)1 and the youngest to between Asia, and East Asia.5 H. erectus is plane, and range in shape from lan- 300 and 200 thousand years ago sometimes subdivided into Homo ceolate through ovate to orbiculate. (Ka).2,3 Thus, they span several mil- ergaster and H. erectus sensu stricto.5 Raymond Corbey is Professor of Epistemology and Anthropology at the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University, both in the Netherlands. Much of his research deals with the history and philosophy of anthropology and archeology. Email: [email protected]. Adam Jagich is a graduate of Stony Brook University and Leiden University. Currently he is the scientific director of CommonSites, a web- based platform for the heritage sector, and is based in Lagos, Nigeria. His main research interest is Neanderthal biogeography. Email: [email protected]. Krist Vaesen is an assistant professor of philosophy at Eindhoven University of Technology and a research fellow at the Faculty of Archaeol- ogy, University of Leiden, both in the Netherlands. He leads a research program on the Darwinization of the cultural sciences. Email: k.vae- [email protected]. Mark Collard is the Canada Research Chair in Human Evolutionary Studies and Professor of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Can- ada. He also holds a personal chair in archeology at the University of Aberdeen in the UK. Collard is an evolutionary anthropologist with a wide range of interests, including the evolution of technology. He is the corresponding author for this paper. Email: [email protected]. Key words: Acheulean handaxe; cultural transmission; social learning; genetic transmission VC 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/evan.21467 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). ARTICLE The Acheulean Handaxe: More Like a Bird’s Song Than a Beatles’ Tune? 7 ual signaling.10,11 There is also debate about the extent to which the form (that is, the shape and size) of Acheu- lean handaxes is deliberate. Most researchers assume that it is, but others assert that resharpening greatly affects handaxe form.12 According to this argument, resharpening generates similar forms in assemblages that are geographically and temporally sepa- rated. Still other researchers contend that raw material quality affected han- daxe form,13 with, for example, large, flat chunks of flint from chalk cliffs yielding handaxes of a different form than small, elongated flint pebbles obtained from river beds. There is even debate about the validity of the Acheulean handaxe as a type. The majority of researchers 14 Figure 1. Acheulean handaxes from the site of Boxgrove, England, which dates to about agree with McNabb that while han- 500 Ka. The handaxes are made of flint and are between 12 and 14.5 cm in length. Pho- daxes may be large or small, more or tograph by W. Roebroeks; used with permission. [Color figure can be viewed in the less refined, pointed or ovate, sym- online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.] metrical or off-set, beneath this vari- ability there are general “themes” that are present in all handaxes. However, The former is represented by several mens to H. heidelbergensis and African there are some dissenting opinions. early African specimens and the latter specimens to Homo rhodesiensis. Nicoud,15 for instance, argues that by Eurasian and later African speci- Several issues regarding Acheulean the Acheulean handaxe is not a uni- mens. The hypodigm of H. heidelber- handaxes are contentious. Most con- tary phenomenon but rather an artifi- gensis includes specimens from East spicuously, there is disagreement cial grouping together of artifacts on Africa, South Africa, Europe, South about their function. Most researchers the basis of superficial morphological Asia, and East Asia.6 H. heidelbergensis consider handaxes to be cutting tools, and technological similarities. is sometimes argued to be a but it has also been suggested that Thus, disagreement about Acheu- 7–9 “wastebasket” taxon. Those who they were throwing weapons. In lean handaxes abounds. However, as choose to split this taxon into two spe- addition, it has been proposed that Richerson and Boyd16 observe, there cies usually assign Eurasian speci- they played a role in social and/or sex- is one thing that more or less all researchers working on handaxes agree on, which is that the behaviors necessary to manufacture them were copied from other individuals and, therefore, that handaxes are cultural objects. Richerson and Boyd16 offer an argument against this idea. They point out that both models and ethno- graphic data suggest that cultural learning in the small, relatively iso- lated groups that H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis are thought to have lived in should have resulted in rap- idly diverging traditions rather than the “bewildering”17:648 geographic and temporal stability exhibited by the Acheulean handaxe. Based on this, Richerson and Boyd16 suggest that the conservatism of Acheulean handaxes may be evidence, not of cul- Figure 2. Acheulean handaxes from various regions (to scale; biface 7 is 22.5 cm tall). Sites: 1) Boxgrove, England; 2) North of Bridge Acheulean, near Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, tural transmission, but of genetic 18 Israel; 3) Erg Tihoda€ıne, Algeria; 4) Sterkfontein, South Africa; 5) Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania; transmission. Foley makes a similar 6) Bose, China, 7) Isampur, India.89,124–129 Figure by Shumon Hussain. point, arguing that since the pattern 8 Corbey et al. ARTICLE of handaxe variation does not match of the behaviors required to produce production of handaxes and even sug- what we expect to see if the behaviors handaxes. gest that it was “most likely aided by involved in their manufacture were Cultural transmission has been active teaching.” Bar-Yosef,22 in his socially learned, a role for genetic invoked numerous times in the post- concluding remarks to a widely cited transmission should be considered. 1990 literature to explain the stability edited volume on the Acheulean, sup- To date, the possibility that the pro- of the key features of handaxes over plies another example of the use of duction of Acheulean handaxes was roughly 1.5 million years.
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