Re: Lokalalei vs Flores (Re: Importance of Flores Overstated?)

From: Lee Olsen (paleocity_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/17/04 

Date: 16 Nov 2004 17:18:59 -0800

Dar_83001@yahoo.com (Daryl Habel) wrote in message news:<d24f0b9f.0411152322.3ddb6e42@posting.google.com>...
> paleocity@hotmail.com (Lee Olsen) wrote in message news:<40a73547.0411151209.528ee2f7@posting.google.com>...
> > Dar_83001@yahoo.com (Daryl Habel) wrote in message news:<d24f0b9f.0411140349.6ef14b8f@posting.google.com>...
> > > paleocity@hotmail.com (Lee Olsen) wrote in message news:<40a73547.0411131931.74ff117@posting.google.com>...
> > > > Dar_83001@yahoo.com (Daryl Habel) wrote in message news:<d24f0b9f.0411121240.4666e94f@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > paleocity@hotmail.com (Lee Olsen) wrote in message news:<40a73547.0411112040.5015e48e@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > > From: Dar_83001@yahoo.com (Daryl Habel) Newsgroups wrote: Message-ID
> > > > > > <d24f0b9f.0411101647.407647c6@posting.google.com>
> > > > > >
> > > > > > >Yes, but hominids at Lokalalei (whatever their brain-size)
>
> > > > > > Sileshi Semaw, The World's Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia:
> > > > > > Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of
> > > > > > Human Evolution Between 2.6-1.5 Million Years Ago. Journal of
> > > > > > Archaeological Science (2000) 27, 1197-1214.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well, I can't dig that ref out if I have it, but I've got Semaw's JHE
> > > > > (2003) aticle "2.6-million-year-old stone tools and associated bones
> > > > > from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia" >
> > > I finally found the Semaw (2000) JAS paper and the illustration with
> > > the 10 artiacts. In addition to Semaw (2000, 2003) and the Roche
> > > (2000) and Roche et al. (2003) I referenced in another post in this
> > > thread yesterday, I found another relevant paper by: Ignacio de la
> > > Torre (2003)[correction: 2004]. Omo Revisited: Evaluating the
> > > technological skills of
> > > Pliocene hominids. Current Anthropology 45 (4): 439-465.
> >
> > Ah, de la Torre (2004), we don't want to trick anybody.
>
> My mistake. Yes de la Torre (2004), which I've corrected above
>
> > >
> > > I haven't re-read the de la Torre paper recently, but published in CA
> > > it has the added bonus of additional comment by experts
> >
> > One thing I like about you already is your laid-back humor.
>
> I presume you make reference to my use of the term "experts".

The comments made by the "experts" that are not doing original
research on the Africa material don't know any more about the
situation than we do. These people certainly are "experts" in some
focused area, to be sure, but their off-handed opinions are just that.
Every once in a while some reviewer will throw in an original data
table, but it doesn't happen very often. Where is Roche, Toth, Jones?

>
> > > We're going to go well over 500 lines here,

> >
> > The grass needs trimming. I'll try to save the citations, but near
> > agreements need to go.
>
> I'm trimming some more, but will save references.
>
> > > >
> > > > Semaw cites Wood, B. A., (1997) The oldest whodunnit in the world,
> > > > NATURE 385, 292-293.
> > <snip>
> >
> > > I'll have to go back over the Morwood Nature paper since I can't
> > > remember where he said anything about declaring an "industry",
> >
> > No, he didn't say industry per se. But he needs more than just small
> > blades to be declaring microblades. It's safe to say the term
> > microblade usually means industry from what I've seen.
>
> He does call the small blades microblades. Whether microlithic (< 5
> cm) blades can properly be termed microblades when the industry itself
> is not a formal microblade industry (which, as far as we can tell, Lia
> Buang is not), I cannot say. I'll remember to find out about this.
> For now, you can have it your way.

OK, in return I'll start working on my public retraction when he
proves me wrong. Don't forget to remind me, I have a tendency to
forget when I'm wrong. I'm more like a New York cab driver: "all
those accidents you see on my driving record weren't my fault."
>
> >
> > > > > > Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, New Series, vol. XXXV. The
> > > > > > University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: Cambridge, 1969
> > > > > > Edited by Prof. J. G. D. Clark
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Margaret Leakey, An Acheulean Industry with Prepared Core Technique
> > > > > > and the Discovery of a Contemporary Hominid Mandible at Lake Baringo,
> > > > > > Kenya.
> >
> > McBrearty & Brooks "The Revolution That Wasn't"
> > > > > (JHE 39. 5. 453-563. Nov. 2000) Table 1 (listing all known "Later
> > > > > African Hominidae"), with a reference to Leakey 1969 (your ref above).
> > > > > McBrearty & Brooks put it in their Group 1 with everything from
> > > > > ergaster, erectus, H. leakyi (OH-9 skull) to Kabwe. > >
> > >
> > <random snips>
> >
> > > And you would put the Lokalalei 2C (with the relatively more elaborate
> > > knapping scheme) outside the Oldowan?
> >
> > No, I'm saying Lokalalei 2C (at 2.34 Ma) is enough different than
> > Semaw's 2.6 to 2.0 Gona tools (and presumably any where else in this
> > time slot, but I admit I haven't seen or read all the cited material)
> > to say that Semaw had better be careful lumping what he has with the
> > "2.0 -1.5 Ma" Oldowan industry. What he is calling "similar" is not
> > similar at all in my mind.
>
> de la Torre (2004:455): "Now the sample from West Turkana has been
> broadened to include Lokalalei 2C (Roche et al. 1999, 2003), IN WHICH
> FEATURES VERY SIMILAR TO GONA HAVE BEEN OBSERVED" [my caps of course).
> I haven't examined this issue closely enough to have an opinion.

I agree with the authors, the basics are there early. The angles,
material choices, the multiple hits in succession etc were all in
place, if we didn't have those, we wouldn't know knapping was being
done at all. So in that sense they are SIMILAR :-). But how much more
does one have to have to know to get 50 flakes out of one cobble? A
lot more. And similar is not the same as. How can this be tested? By
"middle range research" as Lew Binford would say and like Toth would
do--- just go out and make one. Then keep track of the time needed to
learn what it takes to do what is seen in the record. So, I would
suggest de la Torre and Semaw make a few of these 50-flake cores and
then see if they still say SIMILAR.

> I
> don't think I could be comfortable with characterizing 1 million years
> of lithic development as a period of stasis.

Right on.

> And I'm definitely not
> in agreement with the characterization of Acheulean as a period of
> stasis either, but a lot of people seem to think it is, and there's
> been very little inclination by anyone to sub-divide "Acheulean
> industry" into separate industries.
>
> > > Following Roche's suggestion
> > > that there were two cognitively-different hominins responsible for
> > > Lokalalei 1 and 2C (less than 1 km apart), I suppose you'd have
> > > reason.
> >
> > Sounds like fodder for a new thread.
>
> Well, down below I've amended Roche's suggestion (above)(paraphrased)
> from there were to possibly were.
> >
> > > But I'd still disagree with prepared platform cores at
> > > Lokalalei 2C. There are no prepared platforms.
> >
> > "Unidirectional or multidirectional removals are flaked on a single
> > debitage surface, from natural or PREPARED PLATFORMS (Lee's caps of
> > course) (Fig. 4)." Roche, Nature/Vol. 399/ 6 May, 1999:59.
> >
> > Now, is Roche trying to trick me? One fig. is worth a thousand words.
> > Fig. 4 caption says again: "...from natural or PREPARED CORES (yep, my
> > caps again)." I do not have a 8 X 10 glossy photo here, but I cannot
> > eliminate the possibility that the arrows pointing to the edge of
> > flake b is not prepared.
>
> I don't know, I don't have the 1999 Nature paper.
>
> >
> > By the way, do you know what the definition of *prepared* is?
>
> Of course. I am. I'm an old Boy Scout :-) Perhaps you could be more
> specific.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/Anthro/anth240/chipped_stone.pdf
Nice brief paper on stone tools. Page 5 and 9 give the definitions and
explain the core reduction process. So if the Lokalalei creatures
even struck the cobble once, to get it into two pieces before they
started a series of flakes, that would be preparation. This looks to
me what happened in fig. 4 (Roche 1999), but this depends on how the
person who does the analyzing decides which order the flakes were
removed. Notice the author in the pdf says over 100 flakes from a
volume of flint the size of a volleyball for a modern knapper. The
Lokalalei creatures were getting 50 from a volume somewhat smaller,
not bad.

<snip>

> I think others have been more vocal about the
> > different species idea, although I don't have those other papers of
> > hers in front of me.
>
> Roche (2000). In the last sentence of the abstract (refering to
> Lokalalei 1 and 2C differences), quoting: "we will discuss the fact
> that they may also result from diversified cognitive capacity and/or
> technical choices, among different hominid species or within the same
> hominid species." Another quote from the very last paragraph: "In
> conclusion, given the variability observed in the chaines opertoires
> of lithic productions, it is not possible to confine pliocene and
> early pleistocene productions to a single vast technocomplex [{note 4
> - she refers to Semaw et al. 1997)], within which stone-knapping did
> not vary and did not evolve. Is this so surprising, considering the
> period of time in question (more than one million years), the distance
> between the concerned areas (hundreds miles), and the increasing
> diversity of hominids forms present during this period of time in
> these areas" (p. 103). If not directly saying cognitively different
> hominids, she's certainly suggesting it as a possibility.

Yep.

>

<snip>
> > <snip>
> [more snip]
> > >
> > > No prepared platforms at Lokakalei 2C.
> >
> > Yes, "prepared platforms" in Nature 1999. Tell you what, find where
> > *she* made a retraction later and then I'll know she was trying to
> > trick me.
>
> I can't find a retraction in the 2 I have. Only an apparent omission
> of "prepared". All I have is her quote from Roche (2000), published
> later,

Sometimes the "date received" is published. Could you check to see if
we really are dealing with a 2000 paper that is actually newer than
the 1999 Nature article (which was first received 21 December 1998)?

> which omits "prepared" and reads (requoted from above)"This
> knapping scheme implies the selection of cobbles with a specific
> morphology - with a triangular or quadrangular section and at least
> one flat surface - and a natural, adequate platform." Maybe she's
> tricked me.

Or me. So I guess the moral of the story is that one should read as
many papers as they can.

> (snip).
>
> I might have implied those cores were every bit as
> > sophisticated as the alleged microblades from Flores, but I don't
> > remember, nor can I find where I used the term "blade core" at
> > Lokalalei.
>
> You didn't use blade core.
> >
> > > Probably because all they were
> > > trying to produce was a sharp edge on a flake.
> >
> > An orang can do that. What Lokalalei 2C creatures were after was
> > getting every last flake they possibly could from a single core, and
> > that is pretty human-like thinking, and far more difficult to learn
> > than making a small flake from a flores type core.
>
> I agree. But certainly by making this point, I hope you are not
> implying that the Lokalalei 2C hominins lacked equivalent skills.

Than who, the orang or F. floresiensis?

>
> > The fact that from
> > a typological standpoint the Flores flake may look MP/UP transitional
> > to you doesn't mean there is anything cognatively complicated about
> > making one.
>
> Well, to this I'll only say I take a gradualistic view of Paleolithic
> technological development, meaning I'm not one of those that sees
> punctuated cognitive advances for the overwhelming adoption of blade
> industries at the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic or for any other
> development in lithic technology during the earlier periods of the
> Paleolithic. Once learned, people tend to retain knowledge and pass
> it along to the next generation. Looking at it like this, there's no
> reason to jump to a conclusion that the Flores people were not able to
> practice raw material conservation and efficiency if they needed.
> What's your real beef?

Considering this last round of clarifications, I don't have any real
beef with you at all (so far :-).

>
> [snip]
> > > > 1) D. A. E. Garrod and D. M. A. Bate, The Stone Age of Mount Carmel,
> > > > excavations at the El_Mughara, Vol. 1, Oxford, At the Clarendon Press,
> > > > 1937: Plate XLI
> > > > Implements from Et_Tabun. Layer Eb, Upper Acheulean (Micoquian) Most
> > > > of the blades shown could easily be tossed into the late Flores group
> > > > and you wouldn't know the difference. Some of them are quite superior
> > > > in workmanship. No. 4 is virtually identical to fig. 5,b at Flores.
> > > >
> > > > 2) Fig. 11, e, in Margaret Leakey cited above. It really doesn't
> > > > matter what the age of her cores are, even if they were Mousterian,
> > > > they still would be much earlier than the Flores prepared cores.
> > > >
> > > > 3) http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth427/427_527a/notes/brantingham.pdf
> > > > Take a look on page 4,d----which is a pretty nice Middle Paleo blade
> > > > (older than 45 kya), if punched indirectly, would be more
> > > > "sophisticated" than what you are looking at in Flores fig. 5 and if
> > > > not, certainly equal to it. Fig. 3, g, although initial Upper, could
> > > > be as much as 27,000 years earlier than Flores.
> > > >
> > > > If a person wants to spend the time, I don't think it would be too
> > > > hard to bury the sophistication level seen at Flores with material
> > > > considerably older. I think one of the problems is the fact that
> > > > southeast-Asia turned out so much lithic junk in the last 50,000
> > > > years, anything that can beat a geofact looks "sophisticated" down
> > > > there.
> > >
> > > Yes, I agree there are numerous Middle Paleolithic assemblages where
> > > you could pick and choose to come up with a selection that would
> > > resemble the artifacts at Lia Buang that have so far been illustrated.
> > > So maybe Morwood has been selective just to fool we speculators :-)
> > > I suppose we'll have to wait for a better description and a proper
> > > data analysis of the assemblage to know for sure
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Dar

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