Stone tools and cognition

Nicholas TOTH and Kathy SCHICK, The Stone Age Institute/Indiana University

This paper examines the relationships between the fossil hominin record and the Early Stone Age prehistoric archaeological record in Africa and Eurasia, considering cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors. A model of hominin evolution is presented that includes consideration of the origins and evolution of flaked stone technologies, the emergence of the genus Homo (as well as the robust australopithecine lineages), the paleoneurological evidence, and the spread of hominins into Eurasia. This model is also informed through insights gleaned from experimental archaeological research, including teaching modern apes to make stone tools, and from primate studies in the wild. Ralph Holloway et al.’s major stages of hominin brain evolution, based on fossil cranial endocast studies, are incorporated into this model. Early hominin biological and cognitive evolution can be better understood in the larger context of adaptive and behavioral changes reflected in the archaeological record.