Thousands of stone tools discovered in a South African cave reveal that Ice Age humans had developed sophisticated fabrication techniques about 20,000 years ago, according to a report in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology.
Looking closely at the tools’ chipped blades as well as the larger rocks from which they were formed — what archaeologists call a core — the scientists surmised how the tools were made. That, in turn, reveals much of the makers’ know-how.
“When your average person thinks about stone tools, they probably focus on the detached pieces, the blades and flakes,” Sara Watson, a postdoctoral scientist at the Field Museum in Chicago and an author of the paper, said in a press release. “But the thing that is the most interesting to me is the core because it shows us the particular methods and order of operations that people went through in order to make their tools.”
Sharing Tool-Making Knowledge in the Ice Age
Archaeologists working in the cave overlooking the ocean. (Credit: Sara Watson)
Both the precision of the blade-making methods, as well as a variety of techniques used to make them, led Watson and colleagues to hypothesize that the Paleolithic people there shared tool-making knowledge with each other — and perhaps even learned from other groups.
“In a lot of these technologies, the core reduction is very specific, and it’s something that you are taught and learn, and that’s where the social information is,” said Watson. “If we see specific methods of core reduction at multiple sites across the landscape, as an archaeologist, it tells me that these people were sharing ideas with one another.”
For instance, Watson noticed that one particular method of breaking tiny bladelets off of a core found in the South African cave resembled a style discovered hundreds of miles away in Namibia and Lesotho, according to the release.
“Same core reduction pattern, same intended product,” Watson said. “The pattern is repeated over and over and over again, which indicates that it is intentional and shared, rather than just a chance similarity.”
Read More: Stone Tools Question the Evolution of Ancient Human Culture and Technology
Hunting With New Tools and Weapons
When the blades were fabricated between 24,000 years and 12,000 years ago, Earth was a vastly different place. Since so much of Earth’s water was frozen in glaciers and ice caps, the sea level was lower, placing the caves a few miles inland rather than right on the water, where they are today.
The caves then would have been a few miles inland, near vast plains with plenty of animals, such as antelope. “People hunted those animals, and to do that, they developed new tools and weapons,” said Watson.
Gaining access to the caves was a treacherous task. It required a 75-foot climb, safety ropes, climbing harnesses, and stairs made of sandbags. The archaeologists made many trips up the sandbag staircase, laden with 50-pound backpacks full of excavation equipment. Removing some of the tiny, fragile items was challenging as well.
Read More: Ancient Neanderthal and Paleolithic Teeth Show Signs of Childhood Stress
Paleolithic Technology
“Since these are extremely, extremely old sites, from before the end of the last Ice Age, we had to be very careful with our excavation,” Watson said. “We used little tiny dental tools and mini trowels so that we could remove each little individual layer of sediment.”
Such techniques — and the ability to share how they were developed — show that Paleolithic people may have been more technologically sophisticated than previously thought. And the reach of these techniques, as evidenced by similarity-seeming tools at several sites, shows Paleolithic people likely taught skills within their own groups as well as gained knowledge from others.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
