Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition

6: On Standardization in the Paleolithic

105 ABSTRACT Questions of morphological standardization in Paleolithic stone tools have important implications for the cognitive and technological capacities of early hominins. Past treatments of the topic suffer from an inadequate definition of the concept of “standardization” and a scarcity of quantitative comparisons of morphological variation. Ranges of variation in the sizes and shapes of Middle and Lower Paleolithic artifacts from several sites are compared using a bootstrapping method. These comparisons illustrate how variables related to the basic technological constraints of working isotropic stone and the fracture qualities of particular raw materials may lead to the appearance of differential standardization . Because they are influenced by so many factors, artifact forms may be less informative about technological “design” among ancient hominins than are phenomena such as core reduction and raw material exploitation. INTRODUCTION The potential for “standardization” in the shapes of Paleolithic artifacts, with its many implications for the cognitive and linguistic capacities of early hominids, has S I X Steven L. Kuhn UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA On Standardization in the Paleolithic Measures, Causes, and Interpretations of Metric Similarity in Stone Tools 106 S t e v e n L . K u h n excited much discussion among paleoanthropologists. Considerations of artifact standardization fall into two main groups: those focusing on final forms of artifacts (morphological standardization), and those concentrating on techniques and methods of production (procedural standardization). Some authors assert that a high degree of morphological similarity among certain early Paleolithic artifacts—Acheulian bifaces in particular—demonstrates the existence of culturally , perhaps even symbolically transmitted “norms” of artifact design (Gowlett 1984, 1987; Hopkinson and White 2005; Wynn 1985, 1995). These assertions in turn have been challenged at both the observational and the interpretive levels (e.g., Chase 1991; Davidson and Noble 1993; Dibble 1989; Noble and Davidson 1996). Other authors have asserted that Upper Paleolithic stone stool industries show greater levels of morphological standardization than earlier ones as a function of increasingly rigid symbolically encoded constraints on “intended” artifact morphology (Mellars 1995:381–382); again, the assertion has been challenged at the empirical level (Marks, Hietala, and Williams 2001; Monnier 2005). Various authors have proposed that the wholesale adoption of prismatic blade production and microlithic technologies in the early Upper and late Paleolithic, respectively, occurred as a response to increasing use of composite tools and the concomitant requirements for dimensionally standardized inserts (Bar-Yosef and Kuhn 1999; Fisher 2006; Hayden and Gargett 1988). On the procedural side, many researchers argue that the repetitive, stereotypical sets of technological actions manifest in reconstructed lithic core reduction sequences or chaînes opératoires are evidence for culturally prescribed, perhaps symbolically encoded plans for action in the production of tools (e.g., Boëda 1990, 1991; Gowlett 1996; Karlin and Julien 1994; Roche et al. 1987; Schlanger 1994). Procedural and morphological standardization can be demonstrated in the technological productions of recent humans, and they could be significant signposts in the evolution of human cognition. However, there are substantial shortcomings in the ways “standardization” as an empirical phenomenon is conceptualized and measured. This chapter examines critically two features of arguments , pro and con, about morphological standardization in stone tools. The first is the definition of the concept of standardization itself, a definition that conflates observations about morphological variation—or its absence—with inferences about the ultimate cause of that variation. A whole range of factors beyond human choice can serve to attenuate or expand ranges of variation in artifact form. The second relates to the ways morphological variation among artifact classes or samples is assessed. Many assertions about differing levels of standardization are non-quantitative and most are non-probabilistic. A probabilistic method for comparing the most common measure of standardization, 107 On Standardization in the Paleolithic the coefficient of variation (CV), is applied to a series of Middle and Lower Paleolithic data sets in order to examine how a range of factors influence levels of variation in the sizes and shapes of stone artifacts. QUESTIONS OF STANDARDIZATION IN THE LOWER AND MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC Statements about the relative degree of (or absence of) standardization in early stone technologies are common to the point of being routine. For example, Mellars (1989, 1991, 1995) has long argued that Upper Paleolithic stone tools show evidence of “a much more standardized, categorical way of conceptualizing tool forms,” which can be contrasted with the “much looser and ill-defined forms of most Lower and Middle Paleolithic tools” (Mellars 1995...