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Interview with a Neanderthal an Experimental Approach to Scraper

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Interview with a Neanderthal an Experimental Approach to Scraper Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11:2 (2001), 165–84 Interview with a Neanderthal: an Experimental Approach for Reconstructing Scraper Production Rules, and their Implications for Imposed Form in Middle Palaeolithic Tools Michael S. Bisson This article investigates the degree and nature of ‘imposed form’ in Middle Palaeolithic scrapers, the most common category of stone tool produced by Neanderthals. Novice flintknappers unfamiliar with Middle Palaeolithic tool forms were found to consistently employ two rules in manufacturing scrapers: the striking platform and any adjacent blunt edges were left intact to facilitate prehension, and the longest edge with the most acute spine-plane angle was retouched. Scrapers from three major Middle Palaeolithic sites adhered to these rules in over 90 per cent of cases, but significant divergence from these rules was found in a sample from Skhul# cave (Israel) level B1, associated with early anatomically modern Homo sapiens. It is concluded that Middle Palaeolithic scraper manufacture was structured by the need to create a suitable working edge, and to locate that edge to maximize ease and comfort during manufacture and use. The overall shape of the resulting tools was thus not an expression of ‘imposed form’ in the conventional sense. The discovery of violations of these rules in the Skhul# B1 collection provides evidence of increased use of imposed form, as well as potentially significant behavioural differences between early anatomically modern Homo sapiens and contemporary Neanderthals. The relationship of Neanderthals to anatomically they were not (Mithen 1996; Kuhn & Stiner 1998). modern Homo sapiens continues to be one of the most Although there is no question of their successful active debates in palaeoanthropology (Stringer & adaptation to the rigorous environment of Pleistocene Gamble 1993; Trinkaus & Shipman 1993; Mellars western Eurasia, with few exceptions (most notably 1989; 1996; 1999; Wolpoff & Caspari 1997; d’Errico et Wolpoff & Caspari 1997, and d’Errico et al. 1998) al. 1998; Zilhão & d’Errico 1999). Disagreements not Neanderthals are viewed as biologically and cultur- only exist over the evolutionary relationships of these ally inferior to the anatomically modern people that two hominid sub-species, but also over the relative succeeded them. capabilities of their technologies, and their food and Understanding the mental capabilities of early raw material procurement strategies. In addition, hominids is a particularly challenging task, since the many scholars doubt the presence of complex lan- luxury of direct observation is not available. In the guage, personal adornment, ritual, and other evi- early years of palaeoanthropology, this problem was dence of symbolic behaviour among Neanderthals. resolved through assumptions conditioned by pre- Inherent in these debates is our assessment of the vailing national and anthropological ideologies nature of Neanderthal cognition and the Neander- (Brace 1964; Hammond 1982). Reliance on assump- thal mind. Were they capable of the same mental tion continued throughout most of the twentieth cen- processes and level of mental flexibility as are mod- tury for one simple reason: the archaeological record ern Homo sapiens? The majority opinion today is that for the Middle Palaeolithic assemblages produced 165 Michael S. Bisson by Neanderthals is cryptic, containing little obvious in which a non-traditional type of formal analysis, evidence of complex cognition comparable to the combined with a chaîne opératoire orientation that more familiar look of the Upper Palaeolithic. This is seeks to identify the behavioural patterns that un- particularly true of stone tools. derlay the production of a particular class of Middle Stone tools are the most common and durable Palaeolithic tools, may provide insights into the na- evidence of Middle Palaeolithic behaviour, but are ture of the Neanderthal mind. also among the most enigmatic. They are, obviously, The chaîne opératoire method requires an under- technological artefacts, produced by a set of me- standing of the sequence of actions that form the chanical processes beginning with raw material ac- ‘behavioural chain’ (Schiffer 1976), yet archaeolo- quisition followed by its transformation into blanks gists cannot directly observe the behaviours that pro- and retouched implements, which may be discarded duced a lithic assemblage. Our data consist of formal, as-is, or undergo one or more episodes of rejuvena- spatial and temporal attributes from which behav- tion. At the same time, we can safely presume that iour must be inferred. In this context, the key ques- their production was deliberate and goal-directed in tion is how, and to what extent, are the workings of the sense that their makers created them to perform the Neanderthal mind reflected in the forms of their one or more tasks. Yet beyond these basic points, lithic artefacts, and does this differ from the patterns Middle Palaeolithic stone tools do not lend them- produced by anatomically modern Homo sapiens? selves to easy interpretation. No strong links can be Although formal analysis has a long history in drawn between form and function (Beyries 1987; palaeoanthropology, it has until recently been pri- Mellars 1996), at least when the Bordesian typology marily concerned with the description and classifi- is used to describe form (Bisson 2000), and there is a cation of artefacts. The assumptions that underlay broad consensus that ‘style’, when defined as classifications up to the 1960s were that even the patterning of choices between functionally equal al- most primitive tool forms were deliberate products ternatives, is not present in Middle Palaeolithic flake reflecting real cognitive categories on the part of the tool forms (Dibble 1987 and elsewhere; Mellars 1996). makers. The most influential expression of this view These fundamental differences have led vis-à-vis the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic was palaeoanthropologists to approach Middle Palaeo- Bordesian typology and assemblage systematics lithic assemblages in three different ways. The first (Bordes 1953; 1961), and even those who initially was chronotypological, where individual types or rejected Bordes’ interpretations of inter-assemblage type frequencies were used to define cultures and variability (Binford & Binford 1966; Binford 1973) culture chronologies (Bordes & Bourgon 1951; Bordes implicitly accepted his belief that Middle Palaeolithic 1953). Although these taxonomies remain in place, tool types were material expressions of mental tem- this is no longer a primary research focus. The sec- plates (Dibble 1987; 1995a; Dibble & Rolland 1992; ond is forensic analysis of use-wear and residues to Clark 1993), exhibiting what has been referred to as determine function (Semenov 1964; Beyries 1987; ‘imposed form’ (Mellars 1989). The notion of im- Hardy 1999; Hardy & Kay 1999). This remains a posed form assumes deliberate creation of a specific promising line of research, but its labour-intensive shape. In the archaeological record, that shape must nature combined with the problems of chemical and occur frequently enough to be identifiable as a real mechanical post-depositional surface modification, behavioural pattern rather than a random combina- which are often intensified by the cryo-turbated na- tion of attributes. Imposed form is unambiguously ture of many Pleistocene sediments, have limited its present in the European Upper Palaeolithic, and is applicability (Levi-Sala 1986). Most recently, the one reason why ‘index fossil’ tool types have been chaîne opératoire approach developed in France has successfully used in culture-chronological systemat- been widely employed to both describe and under- ics (but for a critique of this view see Clark 1997). stand the full range of behaviours affecting an arte- Middle (and Lower) Palaeolithic tools are gen- fact from raw material acquisition through to discard. erally considered to be different from those in the This often includes an analysis and reconstruction of Upper Palaeolithic in some important respects. As the artisans’ technical knowledge and the ‘concepts’ has been frequently noted, Middle Palaeolithic arte- of tool production (Pelegrin et al. 1988). Both of these facts are remarkably similar across space and over more recent research orientations have proved dy- time, with little or no change in designs (Binford namic and productive, whereas formal analysis has 1973; Jelinek 1976; 1988; Clark 1982; Mellars 1989; stagnated (see Bisson 2000 for an extended discus- 1996; Dibble & Rolland 1992; Dibble 1991; Kuhn 1995). sion of this topic). This article explores a novel way Kuhn & Stiner (1998) argue that this is because Mid- 166 Interview with a Neanderthal dle Palaeolithic tools were made for generalized tasks world is mass-produced. In contrast, Middle such as working other materials and simple process- Palaeolithic tool forms are thought to have carried ing of foods that did not require standardized de- no social information (Kuhn & Stiner 1998, 156) and sign or promote much change in tool forms over could be, and likely were, produced by any adult or time. Subsistence technology was significantly sim- juvenile member of the group, female or male, rather pler than that of later periods, and combined with than by occupational specialists. In this simpler tech- the tendency of traits subject to functional constraints nology, raw-material and mechanical constraints, as to be highly conservative, it is not surprising that
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