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This article considers the adaptive setting and probable origins of human aesthetic capabilities, using evidence of the Acheulean tradition in the last million years, and highlighting the importance of the preceding and enveloping social and technological contexts. Acheulean bifaces, made from about 1.75 to 0.1 Ma, often with an appearance of symmetry, give windows on crucial interlocking aspects of human intellectual evolution. These have been seen as the domains of technology, sociality and aesthetics, following Leroi-Gourhan, or in near-equivalence the ‘technological’, ‘sociological’ and ‘ideological/philosophical’ of L.A. White. These domains can be analysed to have a reality, in the sense that social worlds of the apes far antedate technology, which in turn is generally taken to be far older than a sense of aesthetic appreciation. The bifaces are helpful in illustrating early developments because they can be made only through bringing together a set of concepts linking form, function and technology of manufacture, in a recurring ‘deep structure’. As there are at least 6 to 12 necessary concepts, perhaps significantly more, the artefacts are essentially multivariable or multivariate. They thus impose high cognitive requirements in manufacture, pressing towards effective sequencing of steps so that not too many variables will be involved simultaneously. Support of such a knowledge base has social requirements of shared or collective intention. Biomechanical and functional necessities also exert pressures on concepts: rules maintained by all these requirements entail a notion of ‘appropriateness’ or ‘rightness’ that may have been a prime factor in driving evolution of a sense of aesthetics and even the shaping of moral feelings. As the rules are variably expressed through time and space in the Acheulean, some of the best information comes from seeing how far particular variables are ‘locked’ in relationships which recur to give the impression of deep structure.

Early human fire use is of great scientific interest, but little comparative work has been undertaken across the ecological settings in which natural fire occurs or on the taphonomy of fire and circumstances in which natural and human-controlled fire could be confused. We present here results of experiments carried out with fire fronts from grass- and bushland in South and East Africa. Our work illustrates that in these circumstances hominins would have been able to walk with and exploit fires, and we emphasize that there can be different levels of fire use. The results also indicate that traditional assumptions about the discrimination of these are not reliable. Grass fires pass through the landscape rapidly in burns of less than 5 minutes duration, but areas of denser vegetation burn to much higher temperatures and for much longer. Trees are also caught in fires and may burn back into their roots, baking sediments. Animal bones on the surface can also become burned, so that presence of burned bone has to be used with care as an indicator of human activity. Duration of burning, repeated nature of burning, and copresence of features of human activity may give a better indication of human involvement.

This chapter is concerned with evaluating the antiquity of the domestication changes in northern Africa, considering the nature of the environments in which they arose, their social implications and the influence of climatic change on their later progress. The development of agricultural and livestock economies has taken place once in the Middle East and northern Africa, through a sequence of climatic changes which are not unique in themselves. Testimony to the scale of the climatic changes is provided by the deep pollen records from lake beds on the high mountains of East Africa. Naturally enough the wetter climate led to profound change, and particularly the extension of human settlement over most of the present Sahara. Livestock herding and agriculture appear to have started in northern Africa, during a climatic pulsation when conditions were much wetter across the Sahara and the Middle East than in the present day.

We report a newly extended stratigraphic sequence with associated Palaeolithic sites from the area of the extinct Kilombe volcano in central Kenya. The extended archaeological sequence runs from Oldowan finds, through the Acheulean, and up to the Middle Stone Age. The sedimentary sequences within the Kilombe caldera and south flanks of the mountain have been dated through 40Ar/39Ar measurements and palaeomagnetic studies. A series of 40Ar/39Ar values date the geological sequence from 2.493 ± 0.095 Ma, near the beginning of the Lower Pleistocene, through to 0.118 ± 0.030 Ma near the Middle to Upper Pleistocene transition. It includes the first entirely new area of Oldowan localities in East Africa south of Ethiopia for thirty years, and the first in a rugged mountainous setting. Trachyte lavas of Kilombe mountain were extruded during and after c. 2.5 Ma, followed by formation of a caldera and subsequent caldera lake, and sedimentation of a sequence of tuffs, diamictites, sandstones, and claystones. Sections in the mid-part of this intra-caldera fill-sequence have produced dates of 1.8–1.7 Ma, associated with an Oldowan industry and fauna dated precisely at 1.814 ± 0.004, and overlain by Acheulean finds at higher level. On the southern outward flanks of Kilombe mountain, a second major sequence is bounded at the base by trachyphonolite and a tuff yielding dates in the range 1.58–1.50 Ma. The main Acheulean archaeological site (GqJh1) falls within the overlying sedimentary sequence and has an age of c. 1.0 Ma, on the basis of a new 40Ar/39Ar date for the Three-Banded Tuff and palaeomagnetic reversal stratigraphy. Further 40Ar/39Ar dates indicate an age of c. 0.48–0.46 Ma for a marker ashflow tuff (AFT), prominent across the area. At Moricho, west of Kilombe, sediments above the AFT have been dated in the range 270,000–120,000 years and are associated with Middle Stone Age assemblages. In total, these sites attest to hominin activity from an Oldowan horizon dated to 1.8 Ma up to Later Stone Age stone scatters within the last 100,000 years.

The Acheulean handaxe is one of the longest-known and longest-surviving artifacts of the Palaeolithic and, despite its experimentally tested functionality, is often regarded as puzzling. It is unnecessary to invoke a unique-for-mammals genetic mechanism to explain the handaxe phenomenon. Instead, we propose that two nongenetic processes are sufficient. The first is a set of ergonomic design principles linked to the production of sturdy, hand-held cutting tools in the context of a knapped-stone technology that lacked hafting. The second is an esthetic preference for regular forms with gradual curves and pleasing proportions. Neither process is a cultural meme but, operating together in a cultural context, they can account for all of the supposedly puzzling time-space patterns presented by handaxes.

Debate over the taxonomic status of the Neanderthals has been incessant since the initial discovery of the type specimens, with some arguing they should be included within our species (i.e. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and others believing them to be different enough to constitute their own species (Homo neanderthalensis). This synthesis addresses the process of speciation as well as incorporating information on the differences between species and subspecies, and the criteria used for discriminating between the two. It also analyses the evidence for Neanderthal–AMH hybrids, and their relevance to the species debate, before discussing morphological and genetic evidence relevant to the Neanderthal taxonomic debate. The main conclusion is that Neanderthals fulfil all major requirements for species status. The extent of interbreeding between the two populations is still highly debated, and is irrelevant to the issue at hand, as the Biological Species Concept allows for an expected amount of interbreeding between species.

Issues of early fire use have become topical in human evolution, after a long period in which fire scarcely featured in general texts. Interest has been stimulated by new archaeological finds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and also by major inputs from other disciplines, including primatology and evolutionary psychology. Evidence for fire is, however, often disputed, especially with regard to the early cases in Africa. Interpretations often struggle to take into account the implications of a huge bias in archaeological preservation, which means that our surviving evidence does not accurately map the past. Additionally, there is often a ‘yes-no’ presence/absence approach to fire, which does not recognise that earliest hominin fire use may have occurred in interaction with natural fire, and may not even have included deliberate hearth use in its first stages. Here we examine the need to integrate different approaches to the issues of early fire-use, considering especially the earliest archaeological...

The picture of human evolution has been transformed by new evidence in recent years, but contributing disciplines seem to have difficulty in sharing knowledge on a common basis. The disciplines producing primary data in paleoanthropology scarcely reach out to a broader picture and are often bypassed by writers in other disciplines. Archaeology is encouraged by its material evidence to project a view that "what you see is what there was": by definition, there can be only a late flowering of human abilities. Yet there is a vital alternative paleontological record of the early hominins that gives us important information about their brains and suggests that brains become large and complex far earlier than that late material complexity might imply. How, then, to account for the large brains acting far back in time? Evolutionary psychology, in the form of the social brain hypothesis, claims that these large brains were concerned with managing a far-reaching social life. In becoming human, those brains did not merely become larger, but of necessity they took on new socialized perspectives, a domestication of emotional capacities allowing greater insights and collaboration. We argue that there is at least a 2-million-year social record that must be made part of mainstream interpretation. © 2012 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.

We report here on evidence of early Homo around 1.0 Ma (millions of years ago) in the central plains of southern Africa. The human material, a first upper molar, was discovered during the systematic excavation of a densely-packed bone bed in the basal part of the sedimentary sequence at the Cornelia-Uitzoek fossil vertebrate locality. We dated this sequence by palaeomagnetism and correlated the bone bed to the Jaramillo subchron, between 1.07 and 0.99 Ma. This makes the specimen the oldest southern African hominine remains outside the dolomitic karst landscapes of northern South Africa. Cornelia-Uitzoek is the type locality of the Cornelian Land Mammal Age. The fauna contains an archaic component, reflecting previous biogeographic links with East Africa, and a derived component, suggesting incipient southern endemism. The bone bed is considered to be the result of the bone collecting behaviour of a large predator, possibly spotted hyaenas. Acheulian artefacts are found in small numbers within the bone bed among the fossil vertebrates, reflecting the penecontemporaneous presence of people in the immediate vicinity of the occurrence. The hominine tooth was recovered from the central, deeper part of the bone bed. In size, it clusters with southern African early Homo and it is also morphologically similar. We propose that the early Homo specimen forms part of an archaic component in the fauna, in parallel with the other archaic faunal elements at Uitzoek. This supports an emergent pattern of archaic survivors in the southern landscape at this time, but also demonstrates the presence of early Homo in the central plains of southern Africa, beyond the dolomitic karst areas.

This paper explores issues of technology and artefacts in a comparative cross-species frame, using archaeological examples and modern data sets to illustrate points about process and content. It develops the argument that regardless of species, artefacts have a special significance as external projections of the mind, often necessitating cognitive judgements on the basis of several variables and subject to influences by cultural tradition, functional needs, and raw materials. In humans, apes, and other tool using animals, behaviour overlaps in some respects and is vastly different in others. Overlapping aspects are worth seeking out and exploiting, as they provide opportunities to investigate factors influencing variation and to gain insights into cognition. Recent primatological research establishes much more foundation for continuity, but many of the details of artefacts and their variation remain to be explored. This paper presents case studies of variability and standardisation that suggest the limits on variation are as tight in some chimpanzee produced artefacts as in many produced by humans, and functional constraints appear to operate more strongly on some parts of artefacts than others. Thus, degree of standardisation cannot be used as a simple index to 'refinement,' but the widespread overlap in standardisation between human and nonhuman artefacts greatly expands the scope for study.

The Acheulean, sometimes known as ‘the great handaxe tradition’, is the longest-lasting entity in the human cultural record. The oldest sites are in Africa at around 1.6 million years ago and the most recent approach the last 100,000 years. The geographical extent is also enormous, ranging across Africa, the Middle East, most of Europe and large parts of Asia. Is it however a real tradition? The Acheulean represents a set of stone-working ideas that endure, but the strength of ‘tradition’ is often an assumption made by archaeologists. This paper re-examines Acheulean biface variation, looking at sets of assemblages measured in different ways, but amenable to discriminant analysis (DFA), which is able to highlight differences useful in classification. The analyses show significant differences between European and African assemblages. In the case of the Far East, in line with others, we provide further analyses suggestive of technological differences between putative ‘handaxes’ from Korea and some ...

The two fundamental approaches to studying human evolution are those of using data relating to the past itself (i.e., archaeology, palaeontology), and those of establishing comparative frameworks, usually based on the study of extant related species. Work with primates has been important in establishing comparisons of social structure, frameworks of subsistence, and base levels of intelligence, and has recently been used to generate ideas about the origins of language. This chapter examines how archaeology can be used to address critically the application of comparative ideas, especially those which are based on the concept of ‘Machiavellian intelligence’, linking group size and neocortex ratio. Archaeology is able to map out the communication of cultural information in a number of ways. Its direct evidence establishes that early Homo had far greater ranges than those of living apes. Technology used across these ranges had to pay for itself in energetic terms. It is argued that such factors may be as important as group size in accounting for evolutionary change.

Stellen wir uns einmal Folgendes vor: Auserirdische besuchen, getrieben von langen Erinnerungen und der typischen Neugier intergalaktischer Touristen, alle 500.000 Jahre die Erde. Vor 1,5 und einer Million Jahren fanden sie bei ihren Visiten den Homo erectus und wunderten sich daruber, wie langsam der Wandel ablief. Bei ihrem nachsten Besuch vor 500.000 Jahren trafen sie auf Homo heidelbergensis, und der erinnerte sie mehr oder weniger an ihre beiden vorangegangenen Reisen, auch wenn der Kopf mittlerweile deutlich groser war. Das Letzte, womit sie fur das nachste Mal gerechnet hatten, waren wir – der Homo sapiens, der in Stadten lebt, eine hoch entwickelte Technologie besitzt, das Sonnensystem erkundet und mit dem Smartphone kommuniziert. Verblufft waren sie auch daruber, dass diese klugen Kopfe nicht viel groser sind als beim letzten Mal. Uber die Reise nach dem Motto „Da andert sich nicht viel“ mussen sie nun zu Hause mit den Worten „Kaum drehst du dich um, schon hast du was verpasst“ berichten.

Mit der Vorstellung vom sozialen Gehirn verfugen wir uber eine starke Hypothese: Danach war unser Sozialleben die Triebkraft fur das Wachstum unseres Gehirns. Aber von welchem Zeitpunkt an wenden wir diese Hypothese auf die Evolution des Menschen an? Und wie uberprufen wir sie? Manche Hypothesen, beispielsweise dass Objekte mit unterschiedlicher Masse gleich schnell fallen, kann man mit einem einzigen Experiment verifizieren. Die Hypothese vom sozialen Gehirnwirft jedoch das Problem auf, dass ihr Kerngedanke in einer Kurve steckt, die sich je nachdem, wo wir die Geschichte beginnen lassen, unter Umstanden uber viele Millionen Jahre erstreckt.

Was macht uns eigentlich zu Menschen? Wenn man die Evolution des Menschen erforschen will, besteht eines der grosten Probleme darin, dass wir uns selbst definieren. Vor rund 300 Jahren taufte uns Carl von Linne, der grose schwedische Klassifikator der Tiere und Pflanzen, auf den Namen Homo sapiens, der kluge Mensch. Und er schrieb auch: „Homo. Nosce te ipsum“. („Mensch. Kenne dich selbst.“) Damit griff er einen altgriechischen Wahlspruch auf, gab ihm aber einen neuen Dreh: Wir sollten uns als Spezies kennenlernen. Wissenschaftlich betrachtet, sind wir Richter und Geschworene, die daruber entscheiden, wer zum Club der Menschen gehort und wer nicht – in der Natur findet man eine solche Entscheidung nicht, sondern sie erwachst aus dem Ballast kultureller Vorurteile und historischer Interpretationen. Archaologen mussen irgendwie entscheiden, wo sie bei unseren Homininenvorfahren die Grenze ziehen. In der Regel erstellen sie dazu Listen mit Kriterien wie Schmuck und Kunst, aber auch Tatigkeiten wie Jagd und Religion. Dabei stellt sich nur das Problem, dass wir fur die ferne Vergangenheit nur uber sehr kurze Listen von Merkmalen verfugen, die wir uberprufen konnen. Und da wir keinen unabhangigen Gerichtshof haben, der unsere Behauptungen beurteilen konnte, ist es kaum verwunderlich, dass keine Einigkeit daruber besteht, was uns im Einzelnen zu Menschen macht, ganz zu schweigen von der Frage, wann solche Eigenschaften zum ersten Mal auftraten.

In der Menschheitsgeschichte gab es wahrend der Laufzeit des Lucy-Projekts zwei Meilensteine. Im Jahr 2007 lebten zum ersten Mal mehr Menschen in Stadten als auf dem Land, und 2011 wuchs die Weltbevolkerung auf mehr als 7 Mrd. Die Archaologie ruckt diese Wendepunkte in den richtigen Zusammenhang. Vor 11.000 Jahren, am Ende der Eiszeit, bestand die Weltbevolkerung einer Schatzung zufolge aus 7 Mio. Menschen. Stadte gab es nicht, und die Menschen lebten vom Fischen, Jagen und Sammeln. Sie verfugten uber Kunst, ihre Zeremonien zeigten sich bei Bestattungen, ihre Architektur hatte die Form von Hutten und Dorfern. Zu den technischen Errungenschaften gehorten Pfeile mit Steinspitzen, Sicheln und Messer, auserdem Schalen, Mahlsteine, Morser und Pistille. Auch ein breites Spektrum pflanzlicher Materialien wurde verwendet – sie wurden zu geflochtenen Korben verarbeitet, oder man trug sie als Kleidung. Die wichtigste Losung fur die Probleme, die sich aus veranderlichen Ressourcen und zwischenmenschlichen Konflikten ergaben, bestand darin, den Problemen nach dem altbewahrten Prinzip von Aufteilung und Verschmelzung, das man noch heute bei Jagern und Sammlern beobachtet, ganz buchstablich aus dem Weg zu gehen.

Die Evolution des Menschen ist eine legendare Geschichte, die uns immer wieder aufs Neue fasziniert und verzaubert. In unserer Vergangenheit verbirgt sich einer der Triumphe der Evolution: der Prozess, durch den sich sowohl die ausere Gestalt als auch die Lebensweise eines gewohnlichen afrikanischen Menschenaffen so veranderten, dass er am Ende zur beherrschenden Spezies der Erde wurde. Erst seit rund hundert Jahren konnen wir wirklich einschatzen, was fur eine grosartige Geschichte das ist und wie oft sie durch Augenblicke der Unsicherheit und des Beinahe-Aussterbens gefahrdet war.

In der Familie der Primaten machte die Evolution eine grosartige Erfindung: das Sozialleben. Aber das Leben in Gruppen hat seinen Preis. Je mehr Tiere die Gruppe umfasst, desto grosere Strecken muss man jeden Tag zurucklegen, denn jedes Tier muss in einem ungefahr gleich grosen Gebiet auf die Suche gehen, um die benotigte Nahrung zu finden. Das bedeutet eine Belastung: In der gleichen Zeit konnten die Tiere sich sonst still im Schatten eines Busches ausruhen oder gesellig mit ihren „Freunden“ zusammen sein. Das Leben in Gruppen erfordert aber auch physiologischen Aufwand: Wenn Artgenossen zusammentreffen und sich gegenseitig von einem besonders saftigen Stuck Nahrung oder einem sicheren Schlafplatz vertreiben, kommt Stress auf. Solche Zwischenfalle werden mit zunehmender Gruppengrose zwangslaufig haufiger.

Der schwierigste Teil jedes Forschungsprojekts ist die Uberprufung von Ideen. Sie macht aber auch am meisten Spas. Die Archaologen, die in diesem Kapitel die weitere Geschichte erzahlen, uberprufen ihre Ideen mithilfe handfester Belege. Ausgrabungen haben nicht den Zweck, antike Gegenstande um ihrer selbst willen zu bergen, sondern wir wollen damit Fragen beantworten – wollten wir das nicht, sollten wir uns nicht als Archaologen bezeichnen. Wir stecken nie einen Spaten in den Boden, ohne eine Vorstellung davon zu haben, was wir finden werden oder zu finden hoffen und welches Licht es auf die Geschichte der Menschheit werfen wird. Anhaltspunkte an der Oberflache helfen uns zu entscheiden, wo wir am besten nachsehen: abgeschlagene Flintsteine, Tierknochen und auch fruhere Arbeiten, die schneller in grosere Tiefen vorgestosen sind als moderne Ausgrabungen. Dennoch lautet die goldene Regel fur Archaologen: „Erwarte das Unerwartete.“ Als John Gowlett, damals noch ein junger Wissenschaftler, in Kenia an der Fundstatte Chesowanja grub, suchte er nach alten Steinwerkzeugen. Er fand aber einen der ersten Belege fur die Beherrschung des Feuers. Und man stelle sich nur vor, wie uberrascht der australische Archaologe Mike Morwood im Jahr 2003 gewesen sein muss, als er in der Hohle Liang Bua auf der indonesischen Insel Flores eine Reihe winziger menschlicher Skelette ans Licht brachte – die sogenannten Hobbits, die den Anlass gaben, die Lehrbucher uber die Vielfalt der Menschen neu zu schreiben.

Evaluation of the first early human settlement of northern Europe is closely bound up with issues of climate change, human social and technical capability, and sampling visibility. The finds from Dmanisi (1.7 Ma) suggest that small-brained early Homo with simple technologies was able to colonise temperate regions, and it is unlikely that Europe presented insuperable problems compared with Georgia; or that hominids who colonised the South of Europe in favourable conditions could not advance to the north within a few thousand years. Consideration of the geological record, however, shows how much has been lost: apart from large areas currently under sea, evidence of past rivers such as the proto-Thames and Bytham helps measure the extent of erosion, much of it caused by glacial planing. Fire history, in terms of controlled fire use, appears in northern Europe by isotope stage 11, when it is widespread across the continent. Beeches Pit is a prime example indicating fire control, and social activity around fires and in fire management. Fire is however puzzlingly absent from many sites, including those of OIS13. The paper considers the alternative possibilities: that fire use was introduced through an increase in human social/intellectual capability around OIS 11, and that sampling limitations greatly reduce our chances of seeing it on earlier sites. To cite this article: J.A.J. Gowlett, C. R. Palevol 5 (2006).

A Lower Palaeolithic industry at Beeches Pit, West Stow, Suffolk, occurs within an interglacial sequence that immediately overlies glacial deposits, referable to the Anglian Lowestoft Formation. There is strong biostratigraphical evidence from both vertebrates and molluscs that the interglacial represented is the Hoxnian (MIS 11). This conclusion is supported by uranium series dates from carbonate nodules (>400 kyr), TL dates from burnt flint (414 � 30 kyr) and a range of amino acid racemisation data. The archaeology consists of flint artefacts of Acheulian character, including many refitting examples. Charred material is abundant in three stratigraphical units and many bones and flints have been burnt, indicating repeated occurrence of fire. Several discrete areas of burnt sediment appear to be hearths. This interpretation is supported by: (1) the intensity of burning (600-8008C) implied by the charred and calcined bones; (2) the intersection of two of the burnt areas, implying separate burning events at slightly different, overlapping locations; (3) the discovery of two burnt flakes that refit onto an adjacent group that are unburnt, indicating that the burning was highly localised; and (4) the spatial distribution of artefacts respects the features interpreted as hearths, suggesting fireside knapping. Fossils associated with the archaeology indicate occupation within closed deciduous forest in a fully temperate climate. Attractions to this unusual environment would have included the fresh water provided by springs, a rich supply of potential food and a prolific source of good quality flint for tool manufacture. The archaeological evidence therefore suggests that the site repeatedly served as an area of focused activities (perhaps a 'home-base') during much of the interglacial. The upper levels of the sequence provide clear faunal evidence of climatic deterioration during which human occupation and fire use persisted. Biostratigraphical correlations with other Lower Palaeolithic sites lend support to the suggestion that Acheulian and Clactonian industries occurred in Britain during the same substage of the Hoxnian, although not necessarily at precisely the same time. Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Purpose: In the last few years there has been considerable talk of the ‘Stone Age diet’ as an attractive alternative to the ‘modern’ diet. The underlying idea is that recent distortions of diet are likely to be harmful and that, if we can recover a primeval diet, we will live in closer harmony with our digestive systems and their evolutionary biochemistry. This paper aims to evaluate that set of ideas rigorously in relation to the extensive and sometimes detailed records of the past.Design: Comparative and direct palaeoanthropology and archaeology.Methodology: To review evidence of the comparative picture established by the nearest living relations of hominids (extant apes), and of the deep view given by the fossil records and archaeological evidence.Results: The broad outline of the evolutionary record is becoming increasingly clear: human ancestors diverged from the last common ape ancestor about 8–10 million years ago. Since then major stages of dietary evolution can be traced, involving the incorporat...

Pourquoi y a-t-il 90 % de droitiers chez les humains dans le monde ? Comment sommes-nous devenus producteurs et utilisateurs d'outils très complexes ? Pourquoi le langage humain a-t-il évolué ? Nous présenterons des données archéologiques et paléoanthropologiques portant sur la latéralité manuelle chez les homininés. Ensuite nous proposerons notre théorie que la latéralité et le langage sont reliés à travers les habiletés sociales et techniques de nos ancêtres préhistoriques. Le langage a permis aux homininés de maîtriser la fabrication d'outils complexes par l'apprentissage et l'enseignement ; et l'utilisation des outils complexes a influencé la latéralité de l'espèce. La complexité technologique a pu se transmettre à cause de l'organisation sociale des homininés, vivant en groupes de plus en plus larges avec des réseaux sociaux plus importants. De plus, l'invention du feu aurait permis une croissance de la complexité dans les liens sociaux et les outils. Why are 90% of people in the world right-handed? How did we become makers and users of such complex tools? Why did human language evolve? We will present archaeological and palaeoanthropological data for right-handedness in hominins. We will present our hypothesis that right-handedness and language are linked through the social and technical skills of our prehistoric ancestors. Language allowed hominins to teach and learn complex tool-making; and complex tool-use influenced the handedness of the species. Technological complexity could be transmitted thanks to the social organisation of hominins, living in larger groups with bigger social networks. Furthermore, the invention of fire would have allowed increased complexity in social relations and tools.

L'A propose une approche archeologique methodologique de terrain applicable a des ensembles de tailles differentes, dans le but de comprendre le fonctionnement des societes passees dans la plus grade objectivite. Apres une analyse critique de la situation, l'A propose un historique des recherches, montre la contribution des methodes de la nouvelle geographie, de l'ethnologie, de l'analyse spatiale...

Elongation is a commonly found feature in artefacts made and used by humans and other animals and can be analysed in comparative study. Whether made for use in hand or beak, the artefacts have some common properties of length, breadth, thickness and balance point, and elongation can be studied as a factor relating to construction or use of a long axis. In human artefacts, elongation can be traced through the archaeological record, for example in stone blades of the Upper Palaeolithic (traditionally regarded as more sophisticated than earlier artefacts), and in earlier blades of the Middle Palaeolithic. It is now recognized that elongation extends to earlier Palaeolithic artefacts, being found in the repertoire of both Neanderthals and more archaic humans. Artefacts used by non-human animals, including chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys and New Caledonian crows show selection for diameter and length, and consistent interventions of modification. Both chimpanzees and capuchins trim side branches from stems, and appropriate lengths of stave are selected or cut. In human artefacts, occasional organic finds show elongation back to about 0.5 million years. A record of elongation achieved in stone tools survives to at least 1.75 Ma (million years ago) in the Acheulean tradition. Throughout this tradition, some Acheulean handaxes are highly elongated, usually found with others that are less elongated. Finds from the million-year-old site of Kilombe and Kenya are given as an example. These findings argue that the elongation need not be integral to a design, but that artefacts may be the outcome of adjustments to individual variables. Such individual adjustments are seen in animal artefacts. In the case of a handaxe, the maker must balance the adjustments to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the artefact as a whole. It is argued that the need to make decisions about individual variables within multivariate objects provides an essential continuity across artefacts made by different species.

Allometry, or size-related variation, is shown to be an important factor in the bifaces of two separate assemblages from the Acheulean site of Kariandusi in Kenya. Such variation has functional and possibly stylistic implications. The paper gives a review of the archaeology of Kariandusi, and then investigates the question of size and shape variation in bifaces. The Upper Sites at Kariandusi, first investigated by L. S. B. Leakey, have yielded many obsidian bifaces which can be dated to approximately 0.7–1.0 myr ago. Material from the Lower Site, including many lava bifaces, is judged to be stratigraphically younger but probably in the same time range. We show by making comparisons with the neighbouring Acheulean sites of Kilombe and the Kapthurin Formation that allometry is present in biface assemblages at least 0.5 myr different in date; that similar principles of allometry operate in all the assemblages; and that where there are differences of allometric pattern, within-site variation is sometimes greater than variation between distant sites. We conclude that the size of a biface at least partly determines the shape in which it was made, and that sites in the time range ofHomo erectus and earlyHomo sapiens show surprisingly similar allometric patterns.

The origin of modern humans remains a central question of palaeoanthropology—the discipline devoted to the scientific investigation of human evolution. This research field, like the questions it asks and evidence it draws upon, is multidisciplinary and synthetic in nature. Palaeoanthropology is also in the mist of a transformation, from a once largely descriptive and discovery driven enterprise to a discipline integrating the methods and results of cutting edge discoveries in 3D modeling and morphometrics, genomic sequencing, including ancient DNA and geochronology and isotope geochemistry, among others. Thus, the unfolding story of recent human evolution is as much about the transformation of the history of human evolution research as it is about the evidence and narratives we weave about of our origins. The geographic location and timing of the origin of modern humans are now well understood to have been Sub-Saharan Africa at around 200,000 years ago. Yet, there is still much to be learned about the hypothesised divergence of Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalensis from a common ancestor some 400,000 years ago, the deep-time transformations of archaic humans to modern H. sapiens, and the colonisation of Eurasia by a subset of Sub-Saharan Africans after 100,000 years ago. Moreover, attempts to define anatomical and behavioural modernity have become increasingly challenging with new research in genetics suggesting the possibility of interbreeding with archaic hominins and discoveries from archaeology blurring the behavioural distinctions between Neanderthals and early modern humans. Finally, a historical subtext in human origins research deals with explaining the perceived “gulf” between humans and all other life. Yet, this notion is one that sits uncomfortably beside the Darwinian concept of evolutionary continuity through common descent. It is also a subtext built into the very language of human origins research, being evident in widely used terms like “modern” and “archaic.” In reality, such terms lack biological meaning and are arbitrary (descriptive) contrivances—for example, if H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis actually share a common ancestor, then the latter can be no more archaic than the former; yet H. neanderthalensis is frequently referred to as a perhaps the ultimate example of an archaic group. Such terms are clearly loaded and only muddle our attempts to reconstruct human biological history within an evolutionary framework. This special issue takes a broad brush approach to examining some of the more important topics of contemporary palaeoanthropology. Contributions cover topics ranging from molecular to morphological and population level transformations, and some of the key factors underpinning human evolution and variability, through to important behavioural questions examined using isotopic proxies, ideas from evolutionary psychology, and rich data from the archaeological record. They should find wide relevance across the many disparate fields that comprise this enterprise of human evolutionary research. We wish to express our sincerest appreciation to all of the authors and reviewers whose efforts have made this special issue such a success. We truly hope it will provide a sense of “where we're at” with respect to some key questions, answer some old questions, and, most importantly, satisfy curiosity and excite readers about future possibilities. Darren Curnoe Bing Su Parth Chauhan John Gowlett

We demonstrate that allometry is a major factor in the variation of hand-axes from the late Lower Pleistocene Acheulean site of Kilombe in Kenya. Acheulean hand-axes were made in a range of sizes, from ca. 8-30 cm in length, and are superficially similar in form at different sizes, even though functional requirements might be expected to vary. To make an appropriate study of three-dimensional form we require a method for analysing size-related change in multiple measures of form. Jolicoeur's multivariate generalization of the allometric equation, (y = bx4), provides a suitable technique, based on the angular relationships of co-ordinates for each measure to the first principal component of the covariance matrix. We have applied this approach to an analysis of several biface assemblages from separate parts of the Kilombe site complex. Allometry is an important component in all the localities, but one area observes a different set of adjustments. We argue that the allometry is probably imposed in response to functional requirements: it suggests that Homo erectus was constrained to follow a number of different guiding principles in the manufacturing process.

The mastery of fire is a great human achievement which has helped shape our species. This chapter addresses the wider importance of fire, arguing that it is part of a fundamental motor of human evolution, deeply tied into our biology as well as economy and technology, and indeed a motor of the social brain. It seems likely that fire was involved in this nexus from a very early period, probably back to the time of increases in human brain size in the early Pleistocene, and indeed that it may have been a necessity for the subsequent physical evolutionary and social developments in Homo. Fire may be associated so strongly with imagery, imagination and symbolism in the modern world as a result of its primary role in effecting transformation of materials, and acting to link various strands of material culture.

Archaeology has to rise to the challenge of projecting itself, accommodating new relationships with disciplines such as evolutionary psychology and anthropology, primatology and genetics. This task requires a reorganisation of approach, so that archaeology does not seem to take purely minimalist views, based simply on the current record of preserved finds. Early archaeology in the Old World divides overall into the dynamics of big evolutionary outlines, and scenarios of local detail. Both are equally important in building a record. The first is more subject to major changes of perspective, and the second offers more continuity in its analytical techniques. The chapter explores recent developments in Palaeolithic archaeology as hints of changes to come.

Preservation and the history of archaeology have led to classification of a Stone Age in stone, in which there are naturally phases and transitions. A major issue is whether the phases have an overriding reality, and whether they give a good fit between biological and cultural evolution. In the evidence of biological evolution there is a surprisingly smooth curve documenting the rise in brain size through the Pleistocene. Models of social competition and the managing requirements of a ‘social brain’ have claims to explain much of the change without reference to archaeological phasing. In contrast the cultural scheme has to take into account detailed variation in artefacts (e.g., ‘traditions’ including the Oldowan and the Acheulean; and their polythetic aspects of presence and absence; that Acheulean hand-axes run on into later periods, and then changes in functional solutions, such as hafting). The other major biological scheme, that of hominid palaeontology, presents other complications as there is not full agreement over speciation issues such as chronospecies and anagenesis. To add to all this, recovery of genomes indicates that selection in large numbers of individual genes occurs through the same time. Transitions as we see them in a single discipline may thus be artefacts of the nature of the proxy; in sets of disciplines they may be reinforced or undermined by coincidental factors. Their significance may be unintentionally enhanced by our focus on them, and our tendency to ascribe a reality to entities simply because they have been named. Here a multidisciplinary approach is advocated as necessary to isolate real major changes in human capabilities. Concentrating on the total number of cultural traits available for study, the paper concludes with the view that a first human revolution had been achieved by about 1.6 million years, that a second revolution, largely silent archaeologically, had occurred by about 500,000; that a third revolution, of modernity, occurred thereafter. These are aspects within the dominating continuity of an evolutionary trend into a cognitive niche.