Mobile Containers in Human Cognitive Evolution Studies: Understudied and Underrepresented

Langley Michelle (Orcid ID: 0000-0002-0299-5561)

Michelle C. Langley & Thomas Suddendorf

Issues Essay for Evolutionary Anthropology

Michelle C. LANGLEY Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution Environmental Futures Research Institute Griffith University, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected]

Thomas SUDDENDORF Centre for Psychology & Evolution Early Cognitive Development Centre School of Psychology University of Queensland, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA Email: [email protected]

Abstract Mobile carrying devices — slings, bags, boxes, containers, etc. — are a ubiquitous tool form amongst recent human communities. So ingrained are they to our present lifeways that the fundamental relationship between mobile containers and foresight is easily overlooked, resulting in their significance in the study of human cognitive development being largely unrecognised. Exactly when this game-changing innovation appeared and became an essential component of the human toolkit is currently unknown. Taphonomic processes are obviously a significant factor in this situation, however, we argue that these devices have also not received the attention that they deserve from human evolution researchers. Here we discuss what the current archaeological evidence is for Pleistocene-aged mobile containers and outline the various lines of evidence that they provide for the origins and development of human cognitive and cultural behaviour.

Keywords Foresight; Planning; Bags; Slings; Organic Material Culture; Long-Distance Transport

This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/evan.21857

Running Title: Containers in Human Cognitive Evolution

Author Biographies

Michelle C. Langley is a ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. She specialises in traceological studies of osseous and shell technologies with her research revolving around the evolution of modern behavioural patterns.

Thomas Suddendorf is Director of the Early Cognitive Development Centre and Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland, Australia. He investigates the cognitive capacities of nonhuman animals and of young children, to answer fundamental questions about the nature and evolution of the human mind.

1. Introduction Foresight — the ability to think about future situations, what will happen or be needed — is an essential human adaptive strategy1 and consequently, the subject of intense interest in evolutionary human sciences. Throughout all this debate and discussion, the collection and carrying of items by an individual for future use is most frequently cited in connection to archaeologically identifying the origin and development of foresight.2-9 Rarely though, is it considered exactly how one would carry such items over (often significant) distances while going about one’s usual subsistence and social necessities. Obviously, people can only carry so much in their hands and be actively using them at any one time.

Mobile ‘containers’ — objects for holding and/or transporting something — are devices presumed to have an extended antiquity, though no substantial research has yet been undertaken to specifically pinpoint when and how this technology developed amongst hominins. Instead, publications have been largely restricted to reporting ‘earliest’ instances (usually in the context of foresight development) or brief speculations regarding their origins.10-12 Given the importance of bags, baskets, pockets, slings, boxes, tubs, bins, sacks (etc., etc.) for human existence, this oversight by scientists appears incongruous.

Here we unpack the importance of including a targeted investigation of the origins and development of mobile containers for advancing our understanding of foresight in hominins. We also outline the currently available evidence for mobile containers in the global Pleistocene archaeological record and highlight possible future research avenues to be explored.

2. The Importance of Foresight Increasingly, foresight is being recognised as a quintessential human adaptive strategy. The modern human capacity to prudently consider future events, to be driven to prepare, to make contingency plans, and embed distant events into larger narratives has recently become a topic of intense research interest in the behavioural sciences.13-14 A surge of research has explored the neurological bases of foresight,13 its late and multifaceted development,15 its role in clinical conditions,16 in social interaction,17 decision making,18 and in economics.19

The very capacity to innovate may be regarded as a sign of foresight. Indeed, it has been argued that what turns a problem-solution into an innovation is the recognition of future utility.20 Because we can recognise future use of solutions, we are motivated to retain, refine, and potentially share them, and this ability, in turn, is critical for the emergence of the cumulative culture that characterises the modern human condition.

We know that actions which increase the likelihood of future survival and reproductive success are under intense selection pressure, resulting in most species being able to act in tune with significant long-term regularities such as day/night and seasonal changes. Through associative learning, animals can further adapt to local regularities and adjust behaviour so as to increase chances of rewards and to avoid negative outcomes. Humans have evolved even more flexible prospective capacities, enabling us to foresee not only what is likely to happen next, but to consider multiple versions of potential future situations, of motivations we do not currently experience, and even of remote events that we have never experienced personally.21 There continues to be debate surrounding precisely what makes human foresight unique,22-24 especially given that various behaviours other than foresight can lead to future benefits, such as associative learning, instincts, and chance. Experiments with non-human animals and young children have thus gone to great lengths to rule out such alternative interpretations.22

3. Foresight and Containers While stone tools have long dominated debates surrounding the development of foresight in hominins,25 mobile containers could be considered more direct evidence for this capacity as carrying

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. a range of items — which one’s hands cannot contain alone — cannot only solve an immediate problem, but also multiple future problems, while simultaneously and dramatically facilitating subsequent innovation by enabling the accumulation and transport of raw materials and tools to one place or the keeping on your person. Mobile containers allow us to retain a local environment that keeps tools and resources handy wherever we go. They hence help us be prepared for the future. Mobile containers can be considered meta-tools, that is tools that serve as a tool for other tools,26 and their emergence may have been a catalyst for the growth of material culture.

Of course, many animals use tools, cache food, build nests, and transport materials. Functional analogs of carrying devices are also relatively widespread. Marsupials have natural baby slings in the form of pouches to carry offspring, birds carry food in their beaks and throat sacks to feed their brood, and cercopithecines stuff their cheeks with food for later consumption. But do they make or use mobile containers with foresight like humans do? McGrew noted that containers are markedly absent even in ape material culture.27 Although apes transport food in hands, feet, or mouth and by tucking it into a groin “pocket”, they do not make containers to carry more items over longer distances. This is not to say that chimpanzee and other animals cannot use containers per se. Shumaker et al.’s comprehensive survey of animal tool-use lists various instances of container use, especially in the context of obtaining and consuming water,28 however, significant differences remain in humans in terms of the manufacture and sustained as well as versatile use of mobile containers.

There are very few claims for manufacture of anything akin to a container among non-human animals. Rogers and Kaplan describe rehabilitated orangutans arranging half a dozen large oblong leaves in a fan shape to eat semi-solid foods away from a feeding station.29 Captive chimpanzees also sometimes shuffle leaves into a ‘plate’ to carry food.30 However, captive and rehabilitated animals may have learned this behaviour from humans, with great apes in particular known to copy human behaviour. In language-acquisition projects, for instance, bonobos have used human-made bowls, boxes, cups, and even backpacks to carry liquids, foods, and objects.31 There is no doubt animals can be trained to act in ways which resemble human foresightful behavior.

In the wild, there is little to suggest that animals retain tools for remote future events, let alone that they invented tools to keep (more) tools. Tools may be carried over short distances and are retained for short periods until their motivations have changed, whereas humans retain items in their bags and pockets for remote future occasions or possibilities. Importantly, humans can anticipate their

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. future drives and are thus interested in retaining materials to meet those future needs. Indeed, one proposal about what makes human foresight unique is the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis, which states that other animals cannot conceive of motivational states they do not currently experience.21,32 Thus, although sea otters carry their mussel pounding stones for some time in underarm skin folds33 and bottlenose dolphins carry sponges that are held to cover their rostrum to protect themselves from injury while foraging for prey,34 they may only do so as long as they are hungry. Once sated, retaining the tool for future foraging may not be relevant, if they cannot conceive being hungry again later. Chimpanzees may transport rocks up to 200 m to a place where they can be used to crack nuts, but they seem to pick them up with an appetite for nuts, not to satisfy their future hunger.32 With increasing foresight about one’s future needs, about future opportunities and threats, our ancestors have had growing reason to be prepared and carry food, liquid, and tools over longer distances and periods of time. As McGrew observed, the bipedal locomotion of our ancestors meant that they lost the "body container," the skin fold in the groin that chimpanzees sometimes use, just as the necessity for a carrier grew.27 This is a point to which we will return.

4. Containers in the Ethnographic Present In recent times, humans have not only carried objects which are of immediate — or near future — use, but also items which they perceive might gain them potential future benefits (e.g., exotic raw materials for trade). Thus, humans tend to accumulate — and carry on their person — significant amounts of stuff, in addition to caching things they ‘own’ (Figure 1). Supporting this assertion is the tendency of human children, unlike great apes, to respect ownership,35 though the development of ownership concepts differs between cultures.36 Today, mobile containers are used to retain and transport surpluses of food and water for future consumption or for later sharing with others, as well as to carry phones, money, keys, pens, contraceptives, cosmetics, and numerous other tools. These items are moved not only from one location to another for an expressed purpose, but frequently are carried, as illustrated by the content of most satchels and handbags, simply because they might potentially become useful at some undefined future point.37

Indeed, review of observations collected over the past two hundred or so years of hunter-gatherer- fisher peoples strongly suggests that carrying devices are universal. For example, a search for “Burden Carrying” of the eHRAF World Cultures database focusing on hunter gatherers — as other subsistence types such as agriculturalists presupposes container use — yielded documentation of

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. carrying devices in peoples of Africa (e.g. Mbuti, Hadza and San), Asia (e.g., Ainu, Andamans, and Semang), North America (e.g., Aleut, Yuki, and Apache), South America (e.g., Siriono, Xokleng, and Ona) and Australia (e.g., Aranda, Tiwi, and Manus). These data also indicate that groups utilise and/or favour different methods of carrying burdens (e.g., on head, shoulders, back, use of carrying pole or head pad, etc.), resulting from a combination of functional and stylistic attributes of the mobile container, what is being carried, and who is carrying it. The raw material of which mobile containers are made is of course dictated by what is available in the surrounding environment, and their style of construction (sensu 38) by the communities of practice developed in each time and space.

Figure 1: Slings, bags, ostrich eggshell containers, and quivers in the present day. (Above) San people gathering food in Botswana, Africa in 2017; (Below) Korovai women fishing with woven baskets in Iran Jaya, New Guinea in 2016. Images: Shutterstock.

Cross-cultural studies with remote South African Bushman and Indigenous Australian communities indicate that human children acquire basic foresight capacities over the preschool years.39 As yet there is not any specific documentation of young children’s understanding and spontaneous use of mobile containers. However, by about age four Australian children were shown to remember a past problem sufficiently to secure a tool in a container for a return to the problem at some future point.40 By contrast, non-human animals, including our closest ape relatives, have not demonstrated competency on such tasks, and other evidence for flexible planning capacities have remained controversial, as discussed above. Thus, it currently appears that the use of carrying devices to retain tools for remote future deployment appears to be a universal and uniquely human trait.

5. Archaeological Evidence for Pleistocene Mobile Containers Recovery of mobile containers from the Pleistocene archaeological record is exceedingly rare. We identified only 22 instances (artefact/s from a single site dating to a single age/age bracket) (Table 1), more than likely reflecting the preferential use of highly perishable raw materials (plant- or skin- based) in the manufacture of carrying devices — a preference seen in recent hunter-gatherer-fisher toolkits. The oldest recorded examples (Blombos and Qafzeh) date to about 100,000 BP,12,41 before a 40,000-year-long gap in the archaeological record to around 60,000 BP (Figure 2). From this period

Table 1: Earliest archaeological instances of mobile containers from around the globe.

Several interesting observations can be made. All of the surviving artefacts until about 45,000 BP are made on raw materials which offer naturally concave surfaces (marine shells, tortoise carapace, ostrich eggshell, etc.). These items do not require modification to be used and show no signs of alteration for use. However, these raw materials are also the hardiest in terms of surviving archaeological time scales. It would not be surprising if many more perishable versions of such ‘natural’ containers, such as gourds and seedpods, were also utilised (as in recent times). To detect such uses we would have to rely on archaeobotanical evidence for the presence of these plants within archaeological contexts — and even then, make an assumption that they were used as containers rather than simply being gathered for food. Strong ethnographic analogies would need to be marshalled to support such an argument, if not experimental evidence.

The current evidence suggests a ‘roof’ of 100,000 BP for the preservation of mobile containers. How real this boundary is in terms of both preservation and use of mobile containers can only be tested with continued excavation of contexts older than this period. Obviously, sites significantly older than 100,000 years are known and continue to be investigated — including sites in southern Africa preserving marine shell assemblages.

The oldest examples also appear restricted in what they were used to contain: ochre and water. While these two substances are arguably two of the most important materials to Pleistocene human communities and consequently desirable to contain, it could be argued that this result also indicates specialisation of containers for specific uses. In the Blombos case, the ochre was collected from a source at least several kilometres away,12 though we cannot know if it was carried that distance within the Haliotis shell (collected itself only a few hundred meters from the cave) in which it was mixed and later discovered. It is possible they merely used the container to mix the ochre — rather than to transport it. Questions over whether any of the Qafzeh Glycymeris shells were used as ochre containers remain (they may have been ornaments instead),41,57 though the next oldest instance — that of the ostrich eggshell containers appears indisputable. While residues which would indicate

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. what was carried in these 60,000-year-old tools are not reported, ethnographically such shells were most commonly used to transport water, food, ochre, and bead blanks.59 These particular artefacts, recovered from Howiesons Poort contexts at Diepkloof Rockshelter (South Africa), also feature engraved linear decorations — which, in recent times, signify content or ownership.60

While mobile containers remain few across the Late Pleistocene, their existence in the form of pockets, bags, backpacks, (etc.) are taken as given for some contexts such as the European Upper Palaeolithic. For example, it is often suggested off-hand that small figurines or beads such as those found in Aurignacian sites could be lost or discarded “while still attached to decorated clothes or other objects (e.g., bags, containers, etc.)”,61 even when no direct evidence for a container is present. Such assumptions are presumably based on the recovery of features which attest to the manufacture of soft organic technologies, such as the richly decorated burials of Sunghir where individuals were interred wearing complex beaded clothing.80

A final item of particular interest is the co-occurance of the majority of surviving evidence for fibre technologies (baskets, netted bags) and the development of ceramic technology between 30,000 and 24,000 BP.68,81 There is no coincidence here, as it is the baked clay artefacts which preserve evidence for the archaeologically fragile fibre items through impressions in their surfaces.64,68 Such a find attests to the existence of various forms of both light- and heavier-weighted container technologies co-occurring — something usually assumed but rarely able to be demonstrated.62

6. Indirect Lines of Evidence Mobile containers feature in various theories about the evolution of human cognition. In some contexts, scholars merely speculate about the utility of these tools but some conjectures point to indirect markers that could be used to predict the emergence and impact of early containers (see Box 1).

It has been widely speculated that the first container would have been the baby sling,10,11,65,67,73 and that this carrying technique was subsequently extended to carrying food and other essential supplies. As argued by Ehrenberg, “One of the most important things that a female hominid would need to carry would be her young offspring. The complex interaction of bipedalism, food-gathering, the loss of hair for the infant to cling to, along with changes in the structure of the toes which made

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. them useless for clinging to its mother would have made it necessary for the mother to carry the child. The development of a sling for supporting the infant, found in almost all modern societies, including foraging groups, is likely to have been among the earliest applications of the container.”11 If such a hypothesis is correct, could the development of mobile carrying containers then constitute a second “freeing-of-hands”? We note that such devices would need not necessarily reflect increased levels of foresight such as anticipation of future needs, and though while this is an intriguing idea, there is as yet no hard evidence for such early emergence of slings, nor would we expect to find such an archaeologically fragile item to survive such an extensive time period. Having said this, data related to the energetic costs of carrying an infant in arms versus with a sling has suggested that such a tool would have been required at least by the time of Homo erectus.82

Also unlikely to survive, are animal membrane bags which have been labelled as “a very basic human invention”.68 For these containers, two sequences of development are suggested: (1) the use of containers preceded and hence facilitated the development of extensive food sharing and the organisation of social life around the home base; or (2) the home base developed in conjunction with the transport and sharing of meat, which does not require a container (though one might argue the skins could be used to carry meat). Plant and insect foods were still foraged by each individual for themselves in the manner of most non-human primates and it was the possible adaptive potential of sharing vegetable foods which encouraged the invention and use of mobile containers.68 Others have similarly speculated that Australopithecine gatherers would have already benefited from containers.65

One might likewise speculate that the impetus for the innovation of containers was the control of fire and the need to retain fire-making utensils. But merely stating that something would have been useful, does not amount to a strong case for our early ancestors actually using containers (as many other inventions would have been useful if they had been discovered earlier). So, what additional archaeological and other disciplinary evidence might be summoned to explore the antiquity of carrying devices?

BOX 1. Summary of claims in the literature regarding the origins of mobile containers.

Not including any indicators of emergence (other than ‘probably early because essential’)

Food Gathering Australopithecine gatherers would have benefited from containers.65

Mobility — Baby Sling Homo erectus mothers probably used baby slings.66-67,82

Food Sharing Use of containers facilitated the development of extensive food sharing and division of labour.68

Including some indirect indicators of container existence (italics):

Cognitive Niche (Increased Foresight or Planning Depth) Acheulean represents increased foresight21 as does later emergence of composite tools.2,21

Exploitation of Habitats Removed from Water Receptacles allowed hominins to live away from instant water sources.69 Evidence for hominin occupation away from water.

Control of Fire Led to carrying of fire-making kit.70 Evidence for control of fire.

Increased Numbers of Tools Drove Innovation of Carriers Evidence for the transition to smaller and a more diverse toolkit.5,70-71 Composite tools may require more transport.88

Long Distance Transport Evidence for long distance transport of tools and materials may suggest carriers.72 Increased foresight may have driven both.

One potential line of evidence are depictions of containers. Relevant here is an interesting case made by Anderson (2020) who has suggested that the incisions on the engraved Blombos ochre nodules may represent instructions for weaving techniques (as opposed to previously being described as simply abstract designs). If she is correct in this hypothesis, these engravings — and perhaps those too found on ostrich eggshell, would suggest the use of fibre weaving techniques over 70,000 years ago in southern Africa.74 Indeed, similar such interpretations of lines crossed at right

The most obvious evidence for containers may be the transport of raw materials over long distances as these items are often moved not as single lumps/pieces (which would be relatively easy to carry in the hand loosely), but in bunches or blocks (being more suggestive of the use of a carrying device). Rare instances of long-distance transport of obsidian have been documented from the Oldowan (HWKE, Olduvai Gorge at 1.75 million years, >270 km) and Acheulean in eastern Africa, but such long-distance transport of raw materials does not become a regular feature of human behaviour before the second half of the Middle Stone Age.6,76 And, when it does become a feature, it is argued to reflect the development of large-scale regional social networks.76 But the development of carrying devices — and therefore the ability to physically carry more raw materials or other items at any one time — could also have played a role in both material transport and the process of creating larger social networks.

Across the Late Pleistocene there are significant changes in the size, weight, and number of stone tool types utilised, factors which researchers have previously linked changing mobility patterns.83 Furthermore, once the Middle Stone Age in Africa and the Middle Palaeolithic in Europe is reached, toolkits have expanded to include not only numerous implements made on osseous materials, but also compound adhesives for hafting.77-78 Indeed, evidence for the hafting of tools has a great antiquity, known to have been utilised by European Neanderthal tool-makers by at least 200,000 BP.79 Containers may well have been used in the multi-staged (perhaps multi-individual) manufacture of birch pitch and composite tools.78

Figure 2: Temporal distribution of speculation about the origins of container technology and the current direct evidence for mobile container use.

Other small items which first appear in the Middle Stone Age of Africa and which may also provide indirect evidence for the use of mobile containers include marine shell and ostrich eggshell bead technology. The creation of these forms of body adornment involves several tools (grinding stones, bone points, stone drills, etc.) and the construction of a single piece of adornment can take several hours depending on type of ornament and skill of the artist. Such an activity does not necessitate

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. the use of containers; however, without one keeping multiple bead blanks, preforms, and finished beads from being scattered and lost would be exceptionally difficult.

By being meta-tools, containers (just like adhesives) may not only be an indicator of considerable planning abilities, but also a catalyst for subsequent tool accumulation. Containers not only allowed hominins to carry existing supplies and tools, but also created a new niche in which the development of more tools for various other futures could become increasingly advantageous. Even carrying tools that were useful only occasionally could become a viable option attracting major long-term fitness benefits. Here is a point which we suggest warrants serious academic attention: did the change from the use of fewer, larger hand-held tools to more diverse toolkits of smaller tools and multi-piece tools play a role in the development of mobile carrying containers? Discussion of smaller tool sizes usually revolves around issues to do with economic use of raw material80 rather than how an individual would carry a number of smaller items around with them, but we wonder about how individuals dealt with these changes in lithic and organic technology on a practical day-to-day level. For example, the logistics of manufacturing and maintaining composite technologies involving mastics.

Areas of nutritional subsistence may also be worth examining more carefully. An obvious example is the use of marine shellfish. These food animals are noted as being exceptionally important for early Homo sapien groups.81,84 Indeed, it has been suggested that such coastal resources may have been central to the successful movement of H. sapiens out of Africa and across to Southeast Asia and Australia.85 In recent times and in general, shellfish are usually gathered in multiples owing to their small meat packages and/or requirement for many shells for bead manufacture during a relatively small widow of time (such as low-tide). Collecting is greatly facilitated by the use of a mobile container. And it is not only the collecting that is boosted by the use of a container, but also the cooking of shellfish. For example, Dusseldorp and Langejans report that mussels — like those recovered from the Middle Stone Age levels of Blombos, Klasies, and Sibudu — can be mass collected during low tide as they occur in dense colonies within the mid-inertial zone down and later be processed/cooked on mass by being boiled together in a container over a fire.86 Evidence for containers held over fires has also been found in European Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal sites such as Abri Romani.51

Finally, while thinking about possible archaeological indicators for the use of mobile containers, it has been suggested that such devices would have played an essential role in the exploitation of

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. habitats removed from reliable freshwater sources.69 Can we then use distribution data to identify from when groups may have been relying on water carriers?

7. Discussion We are not the first to highlight the importance of mobile containers, of course. Fisher argued in his The Carrier Bag Theory of Evolution, that the bag is a “fundamental innovation in the evolution of a large-brained, two-legged human being. It freed the hands for gathering and provided temporary storage for food such as nuts and fruit”.73 Nonetheless, mobile containers — as an overarching artefact type — have seen very little attention by Palaeolithic (late Pleistocene) archaeologists. But why?

Perhaps it is not only that taphonomy is unkind to containers (ethnographic evidence suggesting that most are made in organic raw materials), but also archaeology as a discipline — and particularly that area most concerned with tools in human evolutionary contexts — which has been heavily dominated by male-centric views regarding the making and importance of stone tools for the developing human mind (and society). While it has been amply pointed out that there is no reason that women were not making and using stone tools for equally as long as men, baskets and bags are frequently linked to “women’s work”, and so have been seen as not as important or of interest in many areas of human evolutionary research.87

We argue that investigating the origins and development of mobile containers will provide a new avenue of research into themes which have long been of interest to archaeology and human evolutionary studies more broadly. For example, it feeds into debate surrounding technological, subsistence, and social planning as well as curation, caching, and communities of practice. Questions we can investigate include whether mobile containers may have originated with provisioning groups and moved to provisioning individuals — or vice versa. Might mobile containers be considered the origin of caching? How did the introduction of ceramic vessels — with their weight and fragility — change people’s lifeways?88 And finally, why do so few examples survive? Even accounting for taphonomic bias, mobile containers appear to be unusually scarce archaeologically. The obvious answer could be curation. Mobile containers — owing to their versatility, usability, and (later perhaps) time in construction — would be well-placed to be heavily curated. Curation, interestingly, was originally outlined by Binford, as “the practice of maximising the utility of tools by carrying them before successive settlements” (authors emphasis).89 The list of questions that could have data fed into by seriously investigating mobile containers is seeming endless.

8. Conclusion We would like to conclude by echoing Kuhn’s statement that “because tools are crucial to such a wide array of pursuits, human beings cannot always satisfy their needs using whatever comes to hand. To fulfill their vast and changing array of technological requirements, people must plan ahead, scheduling the manufacture, maintenance, and discard of artifacts around projected demands as well as immediate necessities.”5 Indeed, mobile carriers should play more of a central role in such discussions of foresight in the evolution of the human mind and culture.

Acknowledgements Aspects of this research were funded by an Australian Research Council DECRA (DE170101076) to MCL.

Data Availability The data that supports the findings of this study are found in the references cited herein.

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Table 1: Earliest archaeological instances of mobile containers from around the globe.

Context Site Type Description Reference /Age

12,480±120 bp Gasya, Russia Pottery Ceramic assemblage made with plant tempers. - 10,875±90 bp 42

Ain Mallaha, Natufian Box “The form of human skeletal remains at Ain Mallaha indicates that a corpse was deposited in a Israel rigid box” 43-44

Wadi Hammeh 12,000 cal. BP Grouped “A sickle, 21 flint lunates for tipping spears and evidence of the hunted quarry -- gazelle bones -- 27, Jordan lay together by the wall of a Natufian building. The author deduces that these objects were (Natufian) artefacts 44 Valley contained in a bag and constituted the versatile working equipment of a hunter-gatherer”

Khummy, 13,260±10,345 Pottery Ceramic assemblage made with plant tempers. Russia ±110 bp 42

Odai 16,500-16,000 Yamamoto I, Pottery “Forty-six potsherds of a flat-based vessel in the form of either a deep bowl or pot” BP 45 Japan

Mezhirich, Weaving or fibre artefact production in any form — includes fragments of charred cordage and/or c.17,000 BP Netted bag Ukraine netting 46

Kosoutsy, Weaving or fibre artefact production in any form includes — fragments of charred cordage and/or c.17,000 BP Netted bag Moldova netting 46

Yuchanyan c.18,000- Pottery Pottery present. Cave, China 15,4300 BP 47-48

“it is reasonable to assume that the fish were kept together, either tied with a cord or placed (dried, smoked, or unprocessed) in a fibre container of some kind. The vertebrae in these piles Netted bag Ohalo II, Israel c.19,000 BP have diameters of ca. 1-3 mm, indicating the presence of small fish only. If they were in fibre and/or net 49 “bags,” these would have had to be fine-meshed… the use of fine nets or some kind of finer trap seems plausible.”

“Although no vessels could be reconstructed, they had rounded bottoms with walls 0.7 to 1.2 cm ~20,000 to Xianrendong thick. Two vessel-forming techniques can be identified through visual observation: sheet 19,000 cal yr Pottery Cave, China laminating and coiling with paddling. Many sherds bear signs of burning on their exterior surface, 48 B.P. possibly indicating their use in cooking.”

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Gravettian; sometime “The single specimen from this site (#124 Zar-98 153) bears impressions on two of its surfaces. Zaraisk, between Netted bag Both of the impressions are ‘wall’ or body fragments of the same knotted net of indeterminate Russia c.22,000 BP 50 form…Mesh size is c.1.5 mm.” ; “knotted netting — likely in the form of a bag (Zaraisk).” and c.17,000 BP

Eastern Gravettian; “Type of form represented: semi-flexible bag or mat, or fully flexible fabric, exact configuration Pavlov I, between Basketry unknown…The specimen may be either a portion of a finely woven bag or mat, or a length of Russia 46 C.26,980- fabric of an indeterminable shape.” 24,870 BP

Eastern Gravettian; Pavlov I, “Type of form represented: semi-flexible bag or length of fabric, exact configuration unknown…It between Basketry Russia may represent a portion of a finely woven bag or a flat length of fabric of indeterminable shape.” 46 C.26,980- 24,870 BP

Wooden Two wooden artefacts found in a living floor (Level H) — “One of oval shape, measuring 32x22x2 45,000±1500/4 containers/ cm, made with Juniperus sp. wood. A second artefact, also of oval shape appears above a Abric Romani, 9,000±1600 possible other hearth…The morphology, the association with burned bones and especially the spatial Spain (Neanderthal) 51 organic relationship with hearths of the three charred objects suggests domestic use.…Pseudomorphs of container three long sticks overcrossed above a large hearth were suggesting the existence of a tripod.”

c.48,000 years; Cioarei- Stalagmite Middle Borosteni, ochre 8 intentionally modified oval containers made from stalagmite with ochre stains on the inside only Palaeolithic 52-53 Romania containers (Neanderthal)

Between c.50,000 and Three Spondylus gaederopus shells use as a container for the storage of colorants or as a kind of Cueva de los Shell ochre 37,400 years paint cup for their preparation — possibly also Callista chione and two lower valve fragments of Aviones, Spain containers 54 ago Pecten maximus. (Neanderthal)

Between c.52,000 and Abri du Maras, Twisted plant A 3-ply cord fragment made from inner bark fibres stuck to a stone tool recovered in situ — fibre c.41,000 years France fibre string technology. 91 ago (Neanderthal)

60,000-48,000 “spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca) for food and perhaps also for containers” some of the Tortoise shell Kebara, Israel BP shells may have been deliberately kept in the central floor area after the animals had been cooked containers 55 (Neanderthal) and consumed, possibly for use as containers”

Klipdrift Ostrich c.65,500 - Shelter, South Eggshell More than 95 pieces of engraved ostrich eggshell 90 59,400 BP Africa containers

Diepkloof Howiesons Ostrich 270 fragments of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from the Howiesons Poort; Representing a Rock Shelter, Poort; ~60,000 Eggshell minimum of 25 EOES containers. 56 South Africa years ago containers

c. 90,000- Shell ochre “Four Glycymeris shells from the site with natural perforations and ochre traces may be beads, or Qafzeh, Israel 100,000 BP, containers alternately pigment containers” 41, 57-58 Mousterian

Blombos, Shell ochre “a processing workshop where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced and stored in two 100,000 BP Haliotis midae (abalone) shells 100,000 years ago. Ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones, and South Africa containers 12 hammerstones form a composite part of this production toolkit.”