Browsing by Author "Brown, Kyle S"

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    An experimental investigation of the functional hypothesis and evolutionary advantage of stone-tipped spears
    (Public Library of Science, 2014) Wilkins, Jayne; Schoville, Benjamin J; Brown, Kyle S
    Stone-tipped weapons were a significant innovation for Middle Pleistocene hominins. Hafted hunting technology represents the development of new cognitive and social learning mechanisms within the genus Homo , and may have provided a foraging advantage over simpler forms of hunting technology, such as a sharpened wooden spear. However, the nature of this foraging advantage has not been confirmed. Experimental studies and ethnographic reports provide conflicting results regarding the relative importance of the functional, economic, and social roles of hafted hunting technology. The controlled experiment reported here was designed to test the functional hypothesis for stone-tipped weapons using spears and ballistics gelatin. It differs from previous investigations of this type because it includes a quantitative analysis of wound track profiles and focuses specifically on hand-delivered spear technology. Our results do not support the hypothesis that tipped spears penetrate deeper than untipped spears. However, tipped spears create a significantly larger inner wound cavity that widens distally. This inner wound cavity is analogous to the permanent wound cavity in ballistics research, which is considered the key variable affecting the relative ‘stopping power’ or ‘killing power’ of a penetrating weapon. Tipped spears conferred a functional advantage to Middle Pleistocene hominins, potentially affecting the frequency and regularity of hunting success with important implications for human adaptation and life history.
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    New experiments and a model-driven approach for interpreting Middle Stone Age Lithic Point Function using the Edge Damage Distribution Method
    (Public Library of Science, 2016) Schoville, Benjamin J; Brown, Kyle S; Harris, Jacob A; Wilkins, Jayne
    The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is associated with early evidence for symbolic material culture and complex technological innovations. However, one of the most visible aspects of MSA technologies are unretouched triangular stone points that appear in the archaeological record as early as 500,000 years ago in Africa and persist throughout the MSA. How these tools were being used and discarded across a changing Pleistocene landscape can provide insight into how MSA populations prioritized technological and foraging decisions. Creating inferential links between experimental and archaeological tool use helps to establish prehistoric tool function, but is complicated by the overlaying of post-depositional damage onto behaviorally worn tools. Taphonomic damage patterning can provide insight into site formation history, but may preclude behavioral interpretations of tool function. Here, multiple experimental processes that form edge damage on unretouched lithic points from taphonomic and behavioral processes are presented. These provide experimental distributions of wear on tool edges from known processes that are then quantitatively compared to the archaeological patterning of stone point edge damage from three MSA lithic assemblages--Kathu Pan 1, Pinnacle Point Cave 13B, and Die Kelders Cave 1. By using a model-fitting approach, the results presented here provide evidence for variable MSA behavioral strategies of stone point utilization on the landscape consistent with armature tips at KP1, and cutting tools at PP13B and DK1, as well as damage contributions from post-depositional sources across assemblages. This study provides a method with which landscape-scale questions of early modern human tool-use and site-use can be addressed.
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    The sword in the stone : lithic raw material in the Middle Stone Age at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, southern Cape, South Africa
    (2011) Brown, Kyle S; Braun, David R; Sealy, Judith
    This thesis presents a description and analysis of the lithic artefacts from the recently excavated site of Pinnacle Point 5-6, Mossel Bay, from a sequence dating between ~50-85ka. PP5-6 has been excavated to the highest contemporary standards, enabling a more detailed analysis of the lithics than is possible for Klasies. Although the PP5-6 lithic sequence conforms with the overall trends of MSA artifact manufacture, a number of differences from other sites are identified here for the first time - a significant step towards understanding behavioral variability and complexity among early modern humans.