ANTH 204 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Geochemistry, Lower Paleolithic, Oldowan
20 Sep 2016
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Document Summary
In order of importance: well-defined hearth features, fire hardened wood artifacts, burnt or charred bone in the hearth feature. Zhoukoudian, china: 700-500 kya (biostratigraphy), cobble tools and flakes, and homo erectus fossils. Extensive lenses or bands of ash found across floor of cave. Charred bones, bat guano: binford: hearths resulted from natural layer of bat guano burning slowly in-situ, goldberg: geochemical analyses failed to id wood charcoal or ash, but did id manganese staining of bones and surrounding sediment. Hand axes, cleavers, picks found with faunal remains (mostly baboons) Catastrophic death assemblage, suggests all members of troop died, not just weak (old and young) and not just prime-aged. But, variation in weathering suggests not all died at once. Cut marks and battering marks on bones, especially leg bones, suggests butchery. Clear evidence for scavenging, equivocal evidence for hunting. Oldowan and acheaulean traditions make up the lower paleolithic. Homo erectus emerges in east africa by 1. 8 mya, using acheulean tradition.
