TY - JOUR
T1 - The handaxe reloaded
T2 - A morphometric reassessment of Acheulian and Middle Paleolithic handaxes
AU - Iovita, Radu
AU - McPherron, Shannon P.
N1 - Funding Information:
RI and SPM wish to thank Alain Turq and Jean-Jacques Cleyet-Merle (Musée National de Préhistoire, Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac, France) for access to the MTA collections, and RI thanks Nick Ashton (British Museum) and Mark Roberts (University College London) for access to the Boxgrove collection. Funding for RI’s study of the MTA came from the National Science Foundation (dissertation improvement grant BCS # 0624962 ); RI also thanks the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz , for funding the study of the Boxgrove collections. SPM thanks the Max Planck Society for their support. Versions of this paper were presented at the Society for American Archaeology (2010) and the Hugo Obermaier-Society (2010) meetings, and the authors are grateful for comments received at those times. Thanks as well to David Braun for productive discussions about this paper and about handaxes in general. Both authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers and an associate editor for their helpful suggestions which helped improve this paper. All remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors.
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - This paper examines shape and size variability in Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) handaxes and compares the observed patterns to those in the Lower Paleolithic Acheulian, both to better understand variability in MTA handaxes and to test whether or not this variability, particularly as it relates to resharpening and reduction, is structured similarly to that in the Acheulian. The Acheulian data set is based on previously published data with the addition here of a study of the handaxes from the site of Boxgrove, England. The MTA data set is based on four classic sites from southwest France with large handaxe collections. Both standard caliper-based morphometrics and Elliptical Fourier Analysis applied to coordinate data taken from digitized images of handaxes are used to assess shape. The result is that, contrary to expectations based on assumptions of evolving technological skill, handaxes in the MTA are as or more variable in shape than Acheulian ones. This variation is allometric in Acheulian handaxes, and is linked to resharpening from the tip down to the base, but is not related to size in the MTA samples. These results suggest that the goals and constraints of handaxe manufacture, but particularly handaxe reduction as a result of reworking during use, were quite different in the MTA and Acheulian, implying that conclusions about hominin cognition drawn from patterns in shape variability in handaxes must be understood in the context of artifact life histories.
AB - This paper examines shape and size variability in Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) handaxes and compares the observed patterns to those in the Lower Paleolithic Acheulian, both to better understand variability in MTA handaxes and to test whether or not this variability, particularly as it relates to resharpening and reduction, is structured similarly to that in the Acheulian. The Acheulian data set is based on previously published data with the addition here of a study of the handaxes from the site of Boxgrove, England. The MTA data set is based on four classic sites from southwest France with large handaxe collections. Both standard caliper-based morphometrics and Elliptical Fourier Analysis applied to coordinate data taken from digitized images of handaxes are used to assess shape. The result is that, contrary to expectations based on assumptions of evolving technological skill, handaxes in the MTA are as or more variable in shape than Acheulian ones. This variation is allometric in Acheulian handaxes, and is linked to resharpening from the tip down to the base, but is not related to size in the MTA samples. These results suggest that the goals and constraints of handaxe manufacture, but particularly handaxe reduction as a result of reworking during use, were quite different in the MTA and Acheulian, implying that conclusions about hominin cognition drawn from patterns in shape variability in handaxes must be understood in the context of artifact life histories.
KW - Acheulian
KW - Boxgrove
KW - Elliptical Fourier analysis
KW - Geometric morphometrics
KW - Handaxe
KW - Life-history
KW - MTA
KW - Shape variability
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.02.007
DO - 10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.02.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 21496877
AN - SCOPUS:79956090095
SN - 0047-2484
VL - 61
SP - 61
EP - 74
JO - Journal of Human Evolution
JF - Journal of Human Evolution
IS - 1
ER -