Posted on 03/14/2015 4:01:07 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A new intensive survey of the Messak Settafet escarpment, a massive outcrop of sandstone in the middle of the Saharan desert, has shown that stone tools occur "ubiquitously" across the entire landscape: averaging 75 artefacts per square metre, or 75 million per square kilometre.
Researchers say the vast 'carpet' of stone-age tools -- extracted from and discarded onto the escarpment over hundreds of thousands of years -- is the earliest known example of an entire landscape being modified by hominins: the group of creatures that include us and our ancestral species.
The Messak Settafet runs a total length of 350 km, with an average width of 60 km. Parts of the landscape are 'anthropogenic', or man-made, through build-up of tools over hundreds of thousands of years.
The research team have used this and other studies to attempt to estimate the volume of stone tools discarded over the last one million years of human evolution on the African continent alone. They say that it is the equivalent of more than one Great Pyramid of Giza per square kilometre of the entire continent (2.1 x 1014 cubic metres of rock)...
At the simple end, large flakes of stone would have been opportunistically hacked from boulders to be used for cutting or as weapons. At the more sophisticated level, researchers found evidence that specific tools had been used to wedge into the stone in order split it...
The researchers say that if -- as seems likely -- the success of Stone Age communities depended significantly on tool technology, there would be enormous advantage to knowing, remembering and indeed controlling access to areas with a "super-abundance" of raw materials, such as the Messak Settafet.
(Excerpt) Read more at pasthorizonspr.com ...
“Counting stone tools in a 1 meter square is a helluva job. But...I get a truck, plenty of chances to get away from it all, and that grant money has to go to someone. May as well be me!”
You completely neglected to mention that that the "Peak Stone Era" had a disproportionately harmful effect on minority hunter-gatherers, was particularly severe on members of the hunter-gatherer LGBTG Community, and negatively impacted women, who must have felt stonewalled in their search for equal pay, their advancement curtailed by a glass (well, stone) ceiling.
Furthermore, although your photographic evidence clearly showed the effects of massive Global Warming leading to total deforestation, your monograph obtusely ignored the subject. You did hint at economic hegemony, but in our opinion, did not forcefully condemn it.
BTW, you are under arrest.
“BTW, you are under arrest. “
giggle...snort...
LOL. Mine too. But ya' know I was always happy to let them use my tool because I knew they were doing something constructive.
Stone age swap meet?
Sounds just like my Dad. He left them where he finished with them. I never understood that. I can still find them scattered up and down the hillside of the home place.
He was always trudging up and down the hill looking for a tool.
Oop was their ally.
That's a bit mind-blowing to a lithicist from the New World...
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BTW, there are several other interesting lithics aricles linked at the bottom of the posted page -- including
"oldest-butchery-tools-drove-human-evolution"
I had a good chuckle at the knapping demo movie, where the Brit post-doc in psychology points out his planned striking platform -- and then hits 'way to his left of it, and right on the edge. (Of course, the thin edge just crumbles and produces nothing but shattered debris...)
Instead of saying something meaningful (like "Ugh!") and taking another shot, he tries to bluff his way through by picking up a thumbnail-sized shard, and pontificating on it -- as if that was what he intended to make! LOL!!
But, he redeems himself by doing it right on the second shot.
Been there -- done that! <GRIN>.
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Again, thanks for a most interesting post!
Quite a few years ago there was an article in the journal TECHNOLOGICAL FORECASTING AND SOCIAL CHANGE that traced improvements in flint tools over the ages. The measure of improvement was centimeters of cutting edge per kilogram of flint consumed in the manufacture of the tools. Steady progress over a period of several hundred thousand years. Our ancestors weren't stupid.
:-[
,,,, when my father was working outside I was the tool go-for and when he was done I had to clean up and put everything away . He would say things like this ,,,,,, go in the shop and get that thing of the work bench . I would return with a half a dozen items or more hoping I had the right thing . He used to tell me to help him find small tools he was using like a folding ruler while all the time he had it in his back pocket or looking for his glasses while he was wearing them . I’m glad I don’t take after him ,, my shop is always in good order .
,,,,, are you sure this man isn’t on the red planet of Mars ? I can see the Rover in the back ground of the last photo .
Some good memories never go away. Dad and I could work for what seemed like hours together without saying much at all but we were not alone with our thoughts. It felt like we could have a whole conversation and never say a word. I rode with him, worked with him, fished, took many a rough canoe trip and later as many motorcycle trips with him as I could. He was always Dad and he had all my respect. I sure miss him and I’d be happy to pick up his tools any time if he were still around.
I see what you did there 0_o
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