Lithics

Question 1

What is a lithic

Answer 1

Any modified stone

Question 2

Earliest lithics where + when (3)

Answer 2

Africa
Lomekwi in Kenya
3.3 million years ago

Question 3

Why lithics important to humans (4+)

Answer 3

Modern buildings
Diet
New form of tech - tool to make a tool
Making fire

Question 4

Why lithics important to archaeologists (2)

Answer 4

Establish long chronology
Found with extinct animals

Question 5

Where lithics found (2)

Answer 5

Kent’s cavern in uk
St acheul in France

Question 6

Hawkes ladder of inference what (5)

Answer 6

Religious / spiritual
Social/ political
Subsistence
Technology/ production
Ease of inference + value of inference

Question 7

Behaviour: replication what (5+)

Answer 7

Pioneered by Francois borders in 1950s
What behavioural capacities needed to make tools
Can/ do living NHP make them
Functional rep: what used for
What parts of brain recruited during manufacture

Question 8

Use-wear analyses (4)

Answer 8

Microwear + edge analysis + traceology
Replicate tools = use them in different ways
Microscopic analysis = Observe how edges + surfaces alter from these different uses
Analogous alterations

Question 9

What use-wear tells you (3)

Answer 9

Raw materials being cut at site
Actions that are being used
Hafting = was lithic attached to handle

Question 10

Behaviour: language (3+)

Answer 10

Symbols = major component of
language
Are symbols just culturally agreed
conventions
Recurrent lithic forms culturally agreed?

Question 11

Summarise (3)

Answer 11

Lithic tech played an important role
in human evolution
Lithics played a key role in establishing
deep chronology
We identify lithics through organised
patterns of behaviour