C. Gamble: 150 Years of Cutting Edge Research 150 YEARS OF CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH Clive Gamble Centre for Quaternary Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK. Contact mail: [email protected] ___________________________________________________________________________ Full reference: Gamble, C. 2009. 150 years of cutting edge research. In R. Hosfield, F. Wenban-Smith & M. Pope (eds.) Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Special Volume 30 of Lithics: The Journal of the Lithic Studies Society): 9–12. Lithic Studies Society, London. Keywords: St. Acheul, Prestwich, Evans, flint knapping There have been at least two and a half 600,000 or even the genetic benchmark of 6 million years of stone tool making but only million years for a last common ancestor. one hundred and fifty years of understanding. On April 27th 1859, when We have been refining this proof for 150 Joseph Prestwich and John Evans years and the study of lithics has led the way. photographed, and then plucked, a biface As this volume demonstrates there have been from the gravels at St Acheul on the outskirts at least three phases of roughly fifty years of Amiens they turned speculation and each. First came the heroic age when a pre- conjecture into repeatable scientific enquiry. historic archaeology was established and the In the whirlwind four weeks that followed, Palaeolithic became a science tasked with until Prestwich presented their results to the charting the chronological and typological Royal Society on May 26th, they not only boundaries of this new intellectual confirmed what Boucher de Perthes had long landscape. Then came the age of the claimed as antédiluvienne artefacts (Breuil collector when many million flint tools were 1945; de Bussac 1999) but they also harvested, worldwide, from gravels, fields rediscovered John Frere‟s overlooked letter and caves. These added detail to the to the Society of Antiquaries of 1797, visited classifications, by period and region, laid Hoxne and spoke to workmen who were well down in the heroic age of lithics. Finally, the acquainted with such „fighting stones‟; last fifty years has been a period of became aware, thanks to Augustus Franks, of experimentation when chronologies, thanks the Gray‟s Inn handaxe found in the 1690s; to science-based dating, became absolute and wrote and re-wrote their papers and unexpected variation in technology and convinced most of the main players in the typology has been teased from the data. This principal learned societies of the veracity of transition is captured in Figures 1 & 2. The their results (Gamble & Kruszynski 2009). first is a cartoon from 1912 and the age of collectors. It shows a cowering audience at This great moment in the history of science the Society of Antiquaries. Which specialist is significant because it transferred the from this volume, I wonder, is portrayed? burden of proof for the antiquity of humans The second is Phil Harding participating as from texts to artefacts. The stone was now an expert knapper in the experimental mightier than the pen. Without such a programme for the Hand-to-Mouth project, transfer human antiquity could not have been an international collaboration based at pushed back beyond the 6000 biblical years University College London, commenced in to the unimaginable recesses of 60,000, 2006, and aimed at investigating the 9 Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Lithics 30) Figure 1: „A member of the Society of Antiquaries gives a demonstration of his theory of the construction of arrowheads‟ [George Morrow for The Sphere, April–December 1912] Figure 2: Phil Harding carrying out expert replication of early lithic technology, under the gaze of Dr. Blandine Bril of the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociale, Paris 10 C. Gamble: 150 Years of Cutting Edge Research evolution of speech and manual dexterity. the last century produced many driven Experimental flint knapping has developed individuals, fanatics such as Henry Stopes from an antiquarian curiosity into a and James Reid Moir and those who are not mainstream scientific endeavour for widely known outside their local areas; archaeologists; 100 years later and lithic Charles Bean, Llewellyn and Mabel studies are being taken seriously once again. Treacher, George Smith, F.C.J. Spurrell. These busy and dedicated collectors The heroic age did more than demonstrate established our primary archives which in the antiquity of humans. At the same time it Britain have provided the quarry for future instituted the study of variation. In his paper research in projects such as Derek Roe‟s to the Society of Antiquaries on June 2nd (1968b) CBA Gazetteer, John Wymer‟s 1859, Evans described the main forms of (1999) English Rivers Survey and the artefacts they had collected from the Somme Ancient Human Occupation of Britain led by and seen in England: Chris Stringer (2006). Such archives are not unique to Britain. They form the basis for “The classification I propose is as follows – major syntheses in France (de Lumley 1969, 1. Flint flakes, apparently intended 1971, 1976), Germany (Bosinski 1967) and for arrow-heads or knives. South Africa (Goodwin & van Riet Lowe 2. Pointed weapons, some probably 1929), to name only a few examples. lance or spear-heads 3. Oval or almond-shaped The third phase of experimentation starts, I implements, presenting a cutting believe, with Hazzledine Warren (1914) and edge all round” his debunking of the eoliths that so many (Evans 1860: 288–9) collectors were busily amassing. Then followed the Clactonian debates that have The pattern of pointed, ovate and flake was formed a vital focus for discussions of spotted early and confirmed by many later technological and typological variability studies, most notably the seminal overview (McNabb 2007); a theme of international of the British Palaeolithic by Derek Roe interest in Bordes‟ study of the Mousterian (1968a). Many other patterns followed with and its competing explanations of variability the work of Lartet and Christy and the in archaeological evidence. The experimental insights of de Mortillet (Richard 1999) and thread is, however, always present during the Commont; Lower, Middle and Upper collectors‟ phase with Breuil‟s (1912) vision Palaeolithic were all differentiated as was the of the Aurignacian and Garrod‟s (1937) Mesolithic (Westropp 1872), and the major study of the change between the Middle and cultural divisions: Acheulean, Levallois, Upper Palaeolithic. But it has come to Solutrean, Magdalenian and many others. prominence only in the last forty years with Unlike their archaeological contemporaries painstakingly acquired technical expertise who were classifying metalwork and pots supporting new investigative areas of chaîne that had been known for many years, these opératoires, raw material studies, use wear lithic pioneers started from nothing to chart and residue analysis. Experimental analyses, new archaeological territories with what to as Phil Harding shows us (Figure 2), have us seems like unerring accuracy. opened up possibilities for studying Extraordinary insights were produced from Palaeolithic cognition and memory and re- detailed local knowledge which, in the hands invigorated investigations into shape and of a sharp observer such as Worthington symmetry by better understanding the Smith, had wide ramifications for properties of stone. understanding our earliest ancestors. This anniversary volume fittingly recalls the The age of the collector in the first half of achievements and contributions of many of 11 Great Prehistorians: 150 Years of Palaeolithic Research, 1859–2009 (Lithics 30) the key players in lithics‟ three ages. But moyen du Midi méditerranéen dans son cadre where will a fourth age lead us? Will we wait géologique, 1. Ligurie – Provence. Gallia Préhistoire supplément 5. on a scientific breakthrough either to date de Lumley, H. 1971. Le paléolithique inférieur et individual stone tools by a simple MRI-like moyen du Midi méditerranéen dans son cadre scan, or to retrieve by a cheap, everyday géologique, 2. Bas Languedoc, Roussillon- technique, ancient DNA from their surface Catalogne. Gallia Préhistoire supplément 5. so that we can know not only which hominin de Lumley, H. (ed.) 1976. La Préhistoire Française. CNRS, Paris. species made a particular tool, but what it Evans, J. 1860. On the occurrence of flint implements was used to cut, scrape, shave or bore? Such in undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, and clay. wish lists should not however cramp our Archaeologia 38: 280–307. style. Those who studied lithics in the past Gamble, C. & Kruszynski, R. 2009. John Evans, did so from a sense of curiosity and a desire Joseph Prestwich and the stone that shattered the time barrier. Antiquity 83: 461–475. to understand more about our ancestors. Garrod, D.A.E. & Bate, D.M.A. 1937. The stone age There is no substitute for that hands-on of Mount Carmel. Vol. 1. Clarendon Press, Oxford. experience when it comes to the properties Goodwin, A.J.H. & van Riet Lowe, C. 1929. The and potential of stone. And it is that complex Stone Age cultures of South Africa. Annals of the shared hominin experience, with its deep South African Museum 27: 1–289. McNabb, J. 2007. The British Lower Palaeolithic: emotional underpinnings, that should guide Stones in Contention. Routledge, Abingdon. our steps into a fourth age of lithics. Richard, N. 1999. Gabriel de Mortillet. In T. Murray (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Archaeology: The great archaeologists: 93–107. ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara. REFERENCES Roe, D.A. 1968a. British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic handaxe groups. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 34: 1–82. Bosinski, G. 1967. Die Mittelpalaolithischen Funde Roe, D.A. 1968b. A gazetteer of British Lower and im Westlichen Mitteleuropa. Fundamental Reihe Middle Palaeolithic sites. Council for British A/4, Koln. Archaeology Research Report 8, London. Breuil, H. 1912. “Les subdivisions du Paléolithique Stringer, C. 2006. Homo Britannicus: the incredible supérieur et leur signifcation”.