Episode 4 - A Paleolithic Swiss Army Knife

Reconstruction of what the local environment of ‘Ubeidiya may have looked like during interglacial periods. Note the stream and marshy lake shore, exposed cliff faces, and diverse fauna drawn to the lakeside. Also note the group of hominins in the bottom center carving up an animal carcass. Hominin sites would have been scattered throughout this field and beyond. (Credit: Herrera, pg. 146)

In this episode, we take a look at the most important site from the core region of the Early Paleolithic Near East: the Levantine site of ‘Ubeidiya. From its 400,000 years of occupation, we get a look at one of the most critical technological revolutions in hominin history, and foreshadowing of what Near Eastern humans will later achieve.

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Locations of Dmanisi and ‘Ubeidiya

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Examples of pebble core choppers. Note the bulky size, variable shape, and rough, obtuse, asymmetrical cutting edges. (Credit: Didier Descouens; Source Link)

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Typical example of a long core tool (biface). Note the thin, tear drop shape, long, acute cutting edge, and symmetry. (Credit: José-Manuel Benito Álvarez; Source Link)

Sources

Books

1. Ayala, F. J., & Conde, C. J. C. (2017). Processes in Human Evolution: The Journey from Early Hominins to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Oxford University Press.

2. Bar-Yosef, O., Gilead, I., & Goren-Inbar, N. (1993). The Lithic Assemblages of 'Ubeidiya, A Lower Palaeolithic Site in the Jordan Valley. Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

3. Dennell, R. (2008). The Paleolithic Settlement of Asia. Cambridge University Press.

4. Enzel, Y., & Bar-Yosef, O. (Eds.). (2017). Quaternary of the Levant: Environments, Climate Change, and Humans. Cambridge University Press.

5. Herrera, R. J., & Garcia-Bertrand, R. (2018). Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations. Elsevier Academic Press.

6. Horowitz, A. (2001) The Jordan Rift Valley. Lisse: Balkema.

7. Laland, K. N. (2017). Darwin's Unfinished Symphony (pp. 151-155). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

8. Matthews, R. (2000). The Early Prehistory of Mesopotamia, 500,000 to 4,500 BC. (Subartu V) (pp. 1-149). Brepols.

9. Renfrew, C., & Bahn, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Cambridge World Prehistory. Cambridge University Press.

10. Roberts, J. M., & Westad, O. M. (2014). The Penguin History of the World, 6th Edition. Penguin Random House.

11. Shea, J. J. (2013). Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East: A Guide. Cambridge University Press.

12. Shea, J. J. (2016). Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates. Cambridge University Press.

13. Wenke, R. J., & Olszewski, D. (2006). Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press.

Research Papers

1. Bar-Yosef, O. (1992). The role of western Asia in modern human origins. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 337(1280), 193-200.

2. Corbey, R., Jagich, A., Vaesen, K., & Collard, M. (2016). The acheulean handaxe: More like a bird's song than a beatles' tune?. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 25(1), 6-19.

3. Dowsett, H., Thompson, R., Barron, J., Cronin, T., Fleming, F., Ishman, S., ... & Holtz Jr, T. (1994). Joint investigations of the Middle Pliocene climate I: PRISM paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Global and Planetary Change, 9(3-4), 169-195.

4. Gaudzinski, S. (2004). Subsistence patterns of Early Pleistocene hominids in the Levant—taphonomic evidence from the'Ubeidiya Formation (Israel). Journal of Archaeological Science, 31(1), 65-75.

5. Machin, A. J., Hosfield, R. T., & Mithen, S. J. (2007). Why are some handaxes symmetrical? Testing the influence of handaxe morphology on butchery effectiveness. Journal of Archaeological Science, 34(6), 883-893.

6. Muller, A., & Clarkson, C. (2016). Identifying major transitions in the evolution of lithic cutting edge production rates. PloS one, 11(12), e0167244.

7. Stout, D. (2011). Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1050-1059.

8. Stout, D., & Chaminade, T. (2012). Stone tools, language and the brain in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1585), 75-87.

9. Vaesen, K. (2012). The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 203-218.