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Experimentation and Scientific Inference Building in the Study of Hominin Behavior Through Stone Artifact Archaeology

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Experimentation and Scientific Inference Building in the Study of Hominin Behavior Through Stone Artifact Archaeology University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2014 Experimentation and Scientific Inference Building in the Study of Hominin Behavior through Stone Artifact Archaeology Sam Chieh-Heng Lin University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Lin, Sam Chieh-Heng, "Experimentation and Scientific Inference Building in the Study of Hominin Behavior through Stone Artifact Archaeology" (2014). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1346. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1346 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1346 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Experimentation and Scientific Inference Building in the Study of Hominin Behavior through Stone Artifact Archaeology Abstract Since the beginning of prehistoric archaeology, various methods and approaches have been developed to describe and explain stone artifact variability. However, noticeably less attention has been paid to the ontological nature of stone artifacts and the adequateness of the inferential reasoning for drawing archaeological interpretations from these artifacts. This dissertation takes a scientific perspective to rethink critically the ways that current lithic approaches generate knowledge about past hominin behavior from stone artifacts through experimentation (Chapter 2), and further, to explore the use of controlled experiments and uniformitarian principles for deriving inferences. The latter is presented as two case studies about Late Pleistocene Neanderthal behavior in southwestern France (Chapter 3 & 4). Archaeological reasoning is inescapably analogical, and archaeological knowledge is bound to be established on the basis on modern observations. However, simplistic treatments of archaeological analogs often result in inferences of questionable validity. In this dissertation, it is argued that greater attention is required to consider the implication of experimental design, variable control, and analogic reasoning in the construction of archaeological inference from stone artifacts. It is argued that the ability to move beyond the constraint of modern analogs in archaeological knowledge production lies in the use of uniformitarian principles that operate independently from the research questions archaeologists wish to evaluate. By examining the uniformitarian connection between platform attributes and flake morphology, the first case study explores how the production of unretouched flakes can be altered in ways that increase their relative utility, as reflected in the atior of edge length to mass. Application of this relationship to Middle Paleolithic assemblages shows two modes of flake production pattern, possibly related to different ways Neanderthal groups managed the utility of transported tool-kits. The second case study applies a geometric model to assess the lithic cortex proportion in the Middle Paleolithic study assemblages. An excess or deficit of cortex relative to artifact volume provides an indication of possible artifact transport to or from the assemblage locality. Results show correlation between assemblage cortex proportions and paleoenvironmental conditions, suggesting possible shifts in Neanderthal artifact transport pattern and land use during the late Pleistocene. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Anthropology First Advisor Harold L. Dibble Keywords Archaeological Inference, Experimental Archaeology, Experimentation, Human Evolution, Lithics, Stone Artifacts Subject Categories History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1346 EXPERIMENTATION AND SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE BUILDING IN THE STUDY OF HOMININ BEHAVIOR THROUGH STONE ARTIFACT ARCHAEOLOGY Sam Chieh-Heng Lin A DISSERTATION in Anthropology Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature ______________________ Harold L. Dibble, Professor, Anthropology Graduate Group Chairperson Signature ______________________ Clark L. Erickson, Professor, Anthropology Dissertation Committee: Shannon P. McPherron, Researcher, Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology David R. Braun, Assistant Professor, The George Washington University Deborah I. Olszewski, Adjunct Associate Professor, Anthropology Theodore G. Schurr, Professor, Anthropology EXPERIMENTATION AND SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE BUILDING IN THE STUDY OF HOMININ BEHAVIOR THROUGH STONE ARTIFACT ARCHAEOLOGY COPYRIGHT 2014 Sam Chieh-Heng Lin ACKNOWLEDGMENT The completion of this dissertation was made possible by the help of many people, and I would like to thank all of them for their support. Some deserve special mention. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor Harold Dibble for giving me the opportunity to pursue this Ph.D. under his guidance. Harold has been a constant source of support, inspiration, and motivation throughout my time at Penn. I am very grateful for his teaching over the past five years, and also for his generosity and friendship along the way. His dedication to archaeology and scientific knowledge is something that I will always look up to in the future. I hope that one day I would be able to inspire students as Harold had inspired me about archaeology. Shannon McPherron has provided tremendous support and was instrumental to the completion to my research. I am deeply grateful to him for the long discussions that helped me understand the various details of my work. I am also thankful to him for encouraging me to learn and use R statistics. It has been a rough ride, but it is definitely paying off big time. Many of the ideas presented in this body of research were developed during extensive group discussions with Harold Dibble, Shannon McPherron, Simon Holdaway, David Braun, Radu Iovita, Deborah Olszewski, Dennis Sandgathe, Matthew Douglass, and Zeljko Rezek during our “manifesto” workshops. I would like to thank my committee members – Deborah Olszewski, Theodore Schurr, and David Braun – for their guidance, feedback, and support. In addition, this work has benefited greatly from discussions with iii Matthew Douglass and Zeljko Rezek. Matthew Douglas has generously read and commented on drafts of this dissertation. Thanks to Harold and Shannon for granting access to the Roc de Marsal, Pech de l’Azé IV, and Combe-Capelle Bas databases. Alain Turq provided valuable information about raw material availability for these three sites. Tim Weaver pointed towards the potential offered by the permutation test for comparing Cortex Ratios, and offered helpful comments on Monte Carlo and bootstrapping techniques. Artifact scanning was made possible by the equipment and financial aid provided by the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology. Financial support for my research was provided by the Benjamin Franklin Fellowship from University of Pennsylvania and The Louis J. Kolb Society of the Penn University Museum. The laboratory experiment on flake formation was funded by the National Science Foundation to Harold Dibble. Thanks to Robert Preucel, Theodore Schurr, and Richard Leventhal, for their teaching had greatly influenced my thinking of archaeology and paleoanthropology. I would also like to take this chance to thank Simon Holdaway for fostering my interest in archaeology and stone artifacts during my undergraduate years at University of Auckland. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my family, especially my parents for their unconditional support of my choice in an unconventional career path. Special thanks are owed to my lovely wife Sonia for her patience and encouragement over the past five years. Thank you all. iv ABSTRACT EXPERIMENTATION AND SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE BUILDING IN THE STUDY OF HOMININ BEHAVIOR THROUGH STONE ARTIFACT ARCHAEOLOGY Sam C. Lin Harold L. Dibble Since the beginning of prehistoric archaeology, various methods and approaches have been developed to describe and explain stone artifact variability. However, noticeably less attention has been paid to the ontological nature of stone artifacts and the adequateness of the inferential reasoning for drawing archaeological interpretations from these artifacts. This dissertation takes a scientific perspective to rethink critically the ways that current lithic approaches generate knowledge about past hominin behavior from stone artifacts through experimentation (Chapter 2), and further, to explore the use of controlled experiments and uniformitarian principles for deriving inferences. The latter is presented as two case studies about Late Pleistocene Neanderthal behavior in southwestern France (Chapter 3 & 4). Archaeological reasoning is inescapably analogical, and archaeological knowledge is bound to be established on the basis on modern observations. However, simplistic treatments of archaeological analogs often result in inferences of questionable validity. In this dissertation, it is argued that greater attention is required to consider the implication of experimental design, variable control, and analogic reasoning in the v construction of archaeological inference from stone artifacts. It is argued that the ability to move beyond the constraint of modern analogs in archaeological
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