The Acquisition of Biface Knapping Skill in the Acheulean

The Acheulean stone tools of Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis are the longest enduring of all archaeological cultures, lasting for 1.5 million years. Three competing hypotheses have been proposed to explain this longevity: that Acheulean technology lies in a zone of latent, easy to invent solutions to problems that H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis would have encountered; that there was a genetic predisposition among H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis populations to make handaxes, and perhaps other stone tools characteristic of the Acheulean; or that high-fidelity social transmission was an integral part of the behavioural repertoire of H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis. In this chapter, the first two of these hypotheses are critiqued. Experimental and anecdotal evidence from modern stone knappers is reviewed to determine how knapping expertise is acquired. The chapter concludes with reference to archaeological evidence for social transmission in the Acheulean and a model of how knapping expertise is and was acquired.