On the Prospects for an Ethnography of Extinct Hominids.

The article presents the author's comments on a paper related to the issue of time resolution, taphonomy and overlapping accumulations in Early Pleistocene prehistory. According to the author, given appropriate questions and findings in an adequate context, one can productively examine split-second decisions made by extinct hominids or long-term trends over thousands of years. The approach of the author of the said paper tends to eliminate the individual from the past and will only enlighten with regard to the most macroscopic trends in Pleistocene prehistory. Contemporary researchers are using faunal, lithic, and structural remains to trace the activities of individuals on the time scale of weeks, days, and minutes. He states that lithic studies utilizing refitting have become increasingly commonplace and productive avenues of research. His dismissal of the prospects for research focuses on relatively short periods of time in the distant past is unwarrantedly pessimistic. Researchers might eventually make progress toward writing the ethnography of the extinct with new fieldwork and the aid of creative theoretical and analytical insight.