Tools and Evolution

Background

John Goodwin and Clarence van Riet Lowe published a seminal work in1929 which has influenced African archaeology ever since. EntitledStone Age Cultures of South Africa,Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe proposed that the Stone Age sequence be subdivided into the Early, Middle, and Late Stone Age (hereafter shortened to ESA, MSA, and LSA). By proposing their alternative scheme to the European sequence of Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic, Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe were emphasizing the distinctiveness of the African archaeological temporal sequences and typological assemblages.

The post-World War II period witnessed the beginnings of a major overhaul of the archaeological discipline. Beginning with the advent of radiocarbon dating in the 1950s and continuing with the New Archaeology's hypothetico-deductive-nomological model, archaeology drew upon and attempted to reorient itself within the hard sciences. Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe proposed a classificatory scheme that was formally approved by the Third Pan-African Congress held in 1955.

The classificatory schemes outlined above for Africa and Europe were taken a step further and recombined by J. D. Clark on the basis of dominant lithic technologies. His resulting Modes of Technology divide the history of stone tools into five modes. The modes are held to be reflective of raw material availability, functional differentiation and manifestations of hominin technological strategies. The table outlines the current status of lithic mode recognition and classification.

These technological strategies are manifestations of behavioral adaptations whereby knowledge and culture are transmitted through social learning. The accumulated repertoire limits the risks of invention in technological and cultural evolution, but permits their expression in a wide diversity of situations through socially mediated responses to particular internal or external stimuli.

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