Sheesh! Handy Items, Handaxes. Or Maybe Not. Beyene et al. and the oldest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia

From: "The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia," by Yonas Beyene et al.
PNAS, published online before print January 28, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1221285110

I hafta hand it to the early stone age archaeologists and their enablers. They persist in identifying artifacts such as the one shown above as "tools" [in this case a hand axe] without ever having demonstrated that these artifacts were used as tools. It's the conventional wisdom. Who can blame them? The latest voodoo archaeology comes to us from the pages of PNAS, in an article claiming the earliest Acheulean assemblages ever discovered---1.75 Ma! That's a fab result on the dating side, but not so much on the artifact typology side. [You might have expected me to say as much.]
     In the case of the unit shown above, it's a wee bit of a reach to call this a 'hand' axe. It might better be described as a two-handed axe or, perhaps, a two-fisted axe. Or, better still: a mangler. It's on the large side, it seems to me, to have been used one-handed. Most of the other so-called hand axes illustrated in the Bayene et al. article are similarly size grande, as are the so-called cleavers and picks. The image below is a montage that I made from three of Beyene et al.'s figures. I've adjusted their sizes to present them at the same scale [plus or minus my ability to observe when the red smudges lined up in the three photographs]. I've also oriented them with what I infer is the distal [or bulb of percussion] end of the original flake at the bottom.
     I've chosen to present these artifacts in this way so it might be easier for the reader to observe that the range of variation in dorsal outline amongst these three classifications---'hand axe,' 'cleaver,' and 'pick'---could easily be a function of the number of times the original flake was whacked, as opposed to the ultimate intention. For example, if the so-called handaxes in the top row were in fact just cores, it's easy to see how one attempt more or less to remove useful flakes could easily result in a shape that would be considered more like a cleaver or a pick. I'd love to see those inevitable lumps of bifacially flaked rocks from Konso that the excavators didn't view as 'tools.' I'm fairly certain they were there, and sufficiently amorphous that they were simply deemed cores and not tools. They would very likely fill in the gaps in the range of shapes, producing a continuum from discoid through to pick-oid.

Upper row: Dorsal view of a chronological series of artifacts classified as Tools/hand axes. Earliest at left. Bottom row, from the left: Dorsal view three artifacts classified as cleavers; Dorsal view of six artifacts classified as picks (From "The characteristics and chronology of the earliest Acheulean at Konso, Ethiopia," by Yonas Beyene et al.PNAS, published online before print January 28, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1221285110) [scale in cm]. 

In the past I've received a little back-chat having to do with the Oldowan classification, which still retains the vestiges of the formed tool paradigm. I think it's fair to say that those classifications are still present in the minds of lower palaeolithic archaeologists. To give you an idea of how far back in time such categories as handaxe, cleaver and pick are pushed, have a look at the illustration below, from CJ Lepre, et al. "An earlier origin for the Acheulian." Nature 477(7362):82-5, . 2011. doi: 10.1038/nature10372. I'm fairly sure that to call this assemblage Acheulean is a bit fantastic.

Supplementary Figure 2: World’s oldest known Acheulean (ca. 1.76 Ma) from KS4, West Turkana (Kenya). Photo P.-J.Texier © MPK/WTAP, from Supp. Ref. 5. Top: Partial crude handaxe made on a flat large phonolite cobble. Middle: Pick-like tool with a trihedral section, made on a thick split phonolite pebble. Bottom: Partial crude handaxe made on a thick split phonolite pebble. From CJ Lepre, et al. "An earlier origin for the Acheulian." Nature 477(7362), 82-5, 2011. doi: 10.1038/nature10372.

"Partial crude handaxe? You've gotta be joking! Pick-like tool?? Then another partial crude handaxe!? This was the best they could come up with as examples of the Acheulean at 1.76 Ma? No wonder Beyene et al. are a little suspicious of Lepre et al.'s characterization of the Kokiselei assemblage as Acheulean. If this is the best they've got... they really have no leg to stand on. From what their readers are presented, there's nothing here but a few Oldowan cores. The point here is that the archaeologists imbued these crudely flaked lumps of rock with the finished artifact paradigm that permeates the post-Oldowan periods, and as a result they've fallen prey to their own presuppositions.

I'm going to stop now. Cross your fingers that the next Very Important Article that comes within my sight has something to do with an area and a time other than the Pleistocene of Africa and Asia.

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World's Biggest Handaxe? You Betcha! [Warning! Here Follows a Short Treatise on Best Archaeological Practices]

Photo courtesy of Shelby Graham

I lied. It's not a handaxe. Clearly it's a pick, according to any authoritative Lower Palaeolithic typology.

Actually, this is today's object lesson in archaeological site formation. The above is [to my eye] an artist's impression [in grand style] EITHER of what happens to an artifact on the surface of a predominantly clay substrate when the clay becomes dessicated and cracks form, OR of [for example] a peri-glacial environment when the frozen ground expands due to the presence of liquid water and [again] cracks form in the surface. In either case, should the crack open just a smidgeon wider [and those enormous wedgy things holding it up be removed], the artifact, which might have been dropped last week, will suddenly become encased in dirt that was deposited at some unknown time in the past--perhaps many thousands of years in the past. And, who's going to be able to infer the depositional circumstances once the ground closes back up, and before the crack fills in with aeolian or colluvial sediments in the here and now to make it visible in profile for the archaeologist to recognize? [The illustration on the right, below, is an example of a frost wedge that's only visible because it has been filled in before it could close up.]

Dessication cracks in clay soil (Photo source)

Frost wedge (Photo source)

     The answer lies in the encasing sediments, and in the palaeoecological indicators found within them. If there's wooly mammoth skeletal remains in the same context, you can be sure it was a cold environment that would have been susceptible to frost cracking. If, on the other hand, you were to find the remains of terrestrial vertebrates AND crocodiles or other water-loving animals, you might suspect that the encasing substrate had been susceptible to periods of drying and the development of cracks such as the ones in the photo above, left. In either case the archaeologist should know to be wary of making any hasty conclusions as to the contemporaneity of [in this case] the pick and the animal bones.
     That's what I love about archaeology. You really have to have your head on straight and pay attention to the things that can mess with associations. So, if you're digging in a pan, or in the Perigord, you should. Be. Careful.  

[Forgive me if this ended up looking like a case of the preacher preaching to the choir. Something tells me this may not obtain in every reader's case, and therefore I was emboldened to hold forth.]  

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