WEBVTT - Stone Age Technology with Dietrich Stout 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.200 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.160 your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.200 And today we have for you an interview episode, an 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:24.240 episode where we sat down and talked to an expert 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:28.720 on paleolithic technology. And I'm really excited for you all 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.040 to hear this one because this conversation was a lot 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.279 of fun. A stone age technology is so much more 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.559 fascinating than you would think, Yeah, because in looking at it, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.080 we're looking really at the roots of a human invention 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.080 and innovation, Like where does the entire tree of human 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.800 technology spring from? Yeah, and how did ancient technology shape us? 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.640 So this is going to be a conversation with Dr 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.920 Dietrich Stout. Dietrich Stout is an Associate Professor of anthropology 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:01.080 at Emory University, where his Paleolithic Technology labor tory investigates 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.520 the role of technology and human evolution. Dr Stout is 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.280 also Associate director of Emory's Cross Disciplinary Center for Mind, 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:12.720 Brain and Culture, which promotes diverse and integrative research into 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.919 human nature and experience. His research focus on Paleolithic stone 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:20.880 toolmaking and brain evolution integrates field research at Early Stone 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.960 Age archaeological sites in Ethiopia with laboratory and museum research 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:31.000 including artifact analysis and experimental replication, functional and structural neuroimaging, 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.720 behavioral analysis, and psychometric testing. Now, if you want to 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:38.880 check out those centers I mentioned the Paleolithic Technology Laboratory, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.479 you can find that at Scholar Blogs dot Emery dot 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.440 e d u, slash Stout Lab, and then the Center 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:47.720 for Mind, Brain and Culture. You can just go to 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.960 c MBC dot Emery dot e d U. Yeah, this 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.680 is a super fun interview. I should stress this was 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.240 an in studio interview. Yeah, one of a couple of 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:00.360 interviews we recorded about a month ago where we said, hey, 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.960 let's let's reach out to some local experts on some 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.200 various topics. We don't necessarily we enjoyed jumping on the 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.280 phone with with folks, but why not have some some 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:12.640 local talent coming to the studio. And that's what we 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.000 did here. It was a lot of fun, uh, and 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:17.399 I think you will really enjoy it. So I'd say, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.920 without any further ado, let's go straight to our conversation 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:26.520 with Dietrich Stout. Hey, Dietrich, thank you so much for 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:28.880 joining us on the podcast today. Can you start by 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.600 telling our listeners a little bit about who you are 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.480 and what you do. Yeah. Well, I'm an associate professor 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:40.880 of anthropology at Emory University. I'm also the associate director 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.920 of the Center for Mind, Brain and Culture at Emory 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:49.600 as well, which is a center that promotes interdisciplinary research 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.080 on mind, brain, and culture. And those are basically my 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.480 interests come at it from the direction of archaeology and 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.080 the hope that we can learn something from the past 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.120 about made us the way we are today. So how 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:07.720 did you first get interested in Stone Age technology? Well, um, 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.519 it's not something that you typically encounter in most high 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.480 schools around the country. Uh. So, you know, when I 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.880 went to uh to college, I really had no idea 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.840 of the possibilities that where they are for anthropology, for 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.040 the archaeology of human origins. I did know that I 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.040 was interested in the way the human mind works, in 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:27.720 the nature of human experience. Uh And at the time, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.120 I thought that meant that I wanted to be a philosopher. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:35.080 When I got to school, I realized what I said before, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.640 that a lot of the way we can understand how 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.960 we are today and the nature of human experiences to 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.360 understand the evolutionary processes that brought us to where we are. UH. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.920 And I had a really great UH professor as a 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.240 freshman and a freshman seminar. He told me to take 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.800 some archaeology classes. I did, and I still I just 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.120 remember one lecture that my professor gave. I know, she 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.960 was talking about these ancient stone tools in a particular 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.320 kind called a little vow wa technique UM, and he 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.600 was pointing out that you could see every individual action 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.600 and and blow against the core that this person had 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.200 done something like fifty or a hundred thousand years ago, 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.160 and you could reconstruct what they were thinking, the plans 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.400 that they made. And that just struck me as as 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.000 an incredible window on the past and how our minds 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:21.719 became the way that they are today. And that's what 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.440 got me started on it. Like seeing into a dead 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.800 person's imagination. Yeah, to be able to recapture that, I mean. 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:29.520 And now I've worked at sites that are half a 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:32.599 million years old where you can literally trace individual decision 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.440 making processes. It's it's it's pretty incredible. Actually held a 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.240 core at one of these sites. I was looking at 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.479 it and I was wondering why they didn't do something 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.039 that that I would have done with that core, that 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:47.440 piece of rock, and I twisted it around to look 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:48.839 at where I was thinking about, and so that they 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:52.920 actually had tried well I was thinking, but it didn't work. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.000 So both of us made the same mistake, separated by 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.520 half a million years. That's almost a little spooky. Um. So, 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:04.600 obviously we know that the Stone Age means stone tools. 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.160 But what as an expert in the area, what does 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.440 the Stone Age mean to you? What do you think 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.160 about when when this age is conjured? Uh? Yeah, Well, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.880 I think really of the time period uh, for which 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:22.320 we have evidence of human behavior in the forms of archaeology, 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.159 but extending way back into the past so that we 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:29.039 have information, but it's also an evolutionary time depth. You know, 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.440 we're talking millions of years, more than three million years 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.279 at this point of time. Uh. So that's what gets 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.440 me excited about the Stone Age. Uh. And of course 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.080 you know it's called the Stone Age for a reason. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.200 Most of what we have are the best evidences of 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.920 stone tools for behavior. Um. So that's what I've focused on. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.120 And when you think about the very beginning of the 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.839 Paleolithic obviously we're talking about hominid ancestors then, but not 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:01.440 not Homo sapiens, right, And so when these organisms were alive, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.560 when when they were trying to survive and and stone 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.440 tools began to play a role in their lives? What 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.039 was that role? What was the earliest role you think 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:15.080 stone tools played in in these organisms survival? Yeah, well, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.320 I should say at the outset, there's a lot of 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.119 things we don't really know with any great certainty about 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.599 the earliest Paleolithic. Uh. I think that there is strong 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.760 evidence that some of the earlier tools were used for 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.679 for butchery of animals, because you can recover actual cut 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.400 marks on bones when somebody accidentally nicked a bone as 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.000 they were butchering an animal, and so that's a direct evidence. 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.159 Now what else they were used for is much harder 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.239 to say because the plant materials, all those things are gone. 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.200 So there's very limited evidence of that. And it's only 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.320 in the past couple of years that that it's been 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.279 reported a much earlier site. We used to think the 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:58.040 earliest stone tools were two and a half million years old. 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.240 I've worked at some of those sites, but now they 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.400 go back to three point three million years and we 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.360 as yet have very little evidence of what they might 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.640 have done with those tools. Hopefully in the next few 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.320 years there'll be the kinds of evidence that I was 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.440 talking about, but it's just not there yet, so a 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.440 lot of unknowns. If I had to say, these things 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.800 are cutting tools, and the most important thing probably for 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.680 early humans to be able to cut was animal flesh 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.440 to access that, but they could have used them for 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:31.520 a lot of other things, including making other tools. Uh. 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.760 One of the great things about having a cutting edge 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.000 is your ability to shape other tools. For instance, in 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.480 would if you have a knife in the form of 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.920 a stone flake, you can make a spear. You can 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.000 make a digging stick. Again, though the wood's not there anymore. 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:46.200 So if they did that, we have a hard time 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.880 knowing for sure. And when you mentioned those dates a 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.520 minute ago that's referring to, Uh, is that that modified 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.160 stone tools we're not talking about like found stone tools. No, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:00.680 And in fact, it would be nearly impossible to identify 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.880 and differentiate a found stone tool from a rock at 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.520 this point. Um, So that's all right. We know chimpanzees 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.200 use rocks as tools, and so it's you know, likely 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.440 that are very early ancestors did. Um. But yeah, by 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.600 by three point three we have evidence of them actually 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.480 fracturing rock on purpose in a controlled way to produce 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.760 cutting edges. And that's something that we can definitively separate 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.560 from a natural process, so we know it it occurred 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.079 at that point, Um, correctly if I'm wrong. But are 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:36.199 there are there broad stroke um classifications for the different 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.439 levels of tool creation, Like I want to say, it's 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.880 something like nature, fact, artifact, etcetera. Uh, could you walk 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.520 our listeners through that? Yeah? Well, um, you know, of 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.319 course you could have on modified rocks used as tools, 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.480 for instance, to crack open and nut as uh as 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.160 chimpanzees and some monkeys maccaque monkeys do that as well. Um, 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:00.720 that's a tool, you know, it's a stone tool. Um. 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:05.480 But what we see by three point three million years 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.640 is the actual modification of the rock on purpose in 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.760 order to make a different kind of tool. Uh. And 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.560 that's generally a process simply of fracturing the rock to 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:22.000 produce sharp shards or flakes of stone that then become knives. Um. 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.880 And so that's loosely called like mode one. Uh. The 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.000 most well known industry that does that is the Old 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.760 One named after Old of I Gorge where Mary and 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.360 Louis Leaky worked. Uh. And that's a very simple form 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.480 of stone toolmaking. Uh. It does require quite a bit 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.720 of coordination. It's not easy to break rocks. Um. They're hard. 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:45.840 You have to hit them just right and with a 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.679 lot of force. UM. But it's pretty conceptually simple. You're 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.600 not gonna make flakes. Um. And then after that you've 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.280 got what variously is called like mode to or loosely 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.160 called Julian after a site where it was first described 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:02.760 in Europe, is the manufacture of these things that archaeologists 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.959 call hand axes. And that's where you're not just shattering 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.640 the rock into flakes, but you're actually shaping the rock 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.160 to make a tool. UM. The classic tool from this 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.120 sort of stage or time period is uh the hand axe, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.960 which would be a flat rock UM with cutting edge 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:22.840 most of the way around the perimeter and a tip 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.520 at one end can be good again we think for 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:29.280 a large animal butchery. Uh. And so that's where you've 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:31.960 moved then to actually having the intention, having a goal 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.280 in mind, and the techniques that you have. The control 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.800 over the stone that's required is more um Uh. Following 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.640 that you have what we call prepared core technologies, in 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.800 which you shape the rock in a careful way so 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.600 that you can remove one final piece that's already pre 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.000 shaped the way you want it to be, and then 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:52.400 you can do that over and over again, so it 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.320 becomes a very efficient way of making tools. And then 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.000 there's all sorts of variations on that um and that's 0:10:58.040 --> 0:10:59.920 the point in which we think there's a big change 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.640 that they start actually putting these things on sticks, for 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.760 instance hafting. Right, So you have composite tools, and you 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.839 have all sorts of other techniques and materials that then 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:13.400 enter the process and things become much more complex. So 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:16.000 you mentioned the hand as, I'm interested to know a 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:19.160 little bit more about that. I may be mistaken, but 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.400 there there have been identified, I think, different schools of 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.120 hand as construction. Is that right? Well, yeah, I mean 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.400 there are different ways of making something that we call 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.800 a hand ax. Um. Now we also, I would be 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.280 very careful about that. We should always remember that when 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:37.920 we call slaying a hand act, that's a name that 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.200 we came up with to describe a bunch of things 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.400 that we think are all similar to each other. That 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:46.040 doesn't necessarily map onto what anybody was thinking in the past, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.040 or whether they knew each other or or whatever. So 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.600 it's a tool, but we have to be careful about it. 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:52.800 And you put a name on something, you think you 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.360 understand it. Uh. But yeah, So, as I mentioned, the 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.080 hand acts has a particular form. There's a lot of 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:00.920 different ways you could achieve that, and a lot of 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.200 different starting points. For instance, I might start with just 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.439 a big rock and then shape that rock into appointed 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.640 in hand ax, uh you know. Or I could start 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.040 with an even larger rock and then I knock off 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.280 a giant flake, you know, more than more than ten 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.760 centimeters long is generally they cut off, and that's almost 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:23.480 already what I need. You know, it's got a big 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:25.760 cutting edge all the way around the edge. And then 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.400 I shape that flight just a little bit right. And 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.360 that's a very different way of making a tool that 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.079 in the end probably as a similar function and looks 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.320 quite similar. And then there's all sorts of different sub 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.680 variants of ways of doing that. Uh. So that's what 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:41.959 I think when you're talking about different schools, is these 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.280 different methods of making the hand access. Now there's as 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.520 a raging debate over what the variation actually means, you know, 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.280 the sort of naive ascension early on was every time 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:53.920 you find a different way of doing something, that's a 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.440 different quote culture, even though we don't really know what 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.840 we mean by that term at that point. Now now 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.080 there's you know, people saying that these are just recurring 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:06.000 rediscoveries of simple solutions to the same kind of problems. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.800 They don't necessarily imply any sort of cultural continuity or 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.040 contact between people. There's even been suggestions that there was 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.280 some kind of large genetic component to the way that 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.120 people made these these hand axes. So now it's up 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.800 for debate. But the variation is what we we study 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.960 to try to understand what was going on in the past. 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.120 That's where we have a sort of an insight into 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.880 what was what was happening. Well, I was definitely going 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.440 to ask you the naive question about whether that's a 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.560 result of culture, But is there so if we don't 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.440 make that assumption that the different forms or shapes or 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.280 approaches to hand axes are necessarily the result of cultural 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:46.960 traditions or cultural contact, is there anything that you think 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.040 looking at tools like this Stone age tools could possibly 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:54.840 tell us about the culture of the creatures that made them. Yeah, well, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:56.440 and so this is where we have to get into 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:02.120 the sort of stuff that you can learn through experimental archaeology. UM. 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.080 For instance, how difficult is it to discover and use 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.960 particular techniques, you know, so you know, if they're if 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.480 there's two people that do something the same way, if 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.000 it's an obvious answer, then there's no reason to think 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:17.640 they learned it from each other. But if it's this 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.680 really sort of obscure and and and hard to learn 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.600 technique that they share, and then it's much more likely 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.000 that they learned it from each other. So I mean, 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.480 so there's this thing in in the issue in a 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:34.160 uh sort of a geographic patterning um to where you 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:40.160 have far fewer hand axes in East Asia than you 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:45.120 do in Africa and Western Asia and Europe. And also 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.200 none of them really to appear to be as refined 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.160 as some of the nicest examples from from further west UM. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:54.920 And so people have debaded for a long time with 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.520 this geographical patterning means, and I tend to interpret it, 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.080 you know, in terms of there are some techniques that 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.640 are pretty hard to discover on your own and some 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.000 that are easy, you know, and so you have a 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.680 lot of reinvention of sort of easy hand acts making 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.600 here there in the other place. You know, but these 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.720 particular advanced techniques may only have been invited it once 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:19.320 or twice or a couple of times, and so their 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.360 geographic spread is more restricted. So that's sort of the 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:24.840 way that you make a relationship between understanding the way 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.480 that you actually make the tools and then how they 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:33.480 might spread through ancient populations. So you mentioned experimental archaeology. Um. 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:35.520 I know a lot of people probably when they think 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.600 about the data collection part of archaeology, they probably think 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:41.880 primarily about digging. Um. But but tell us a little 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:46.640 bit about what experimental archaeology means and what what what 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:48.720 kind of things that has helped us understand that we 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.800 couldn't understand just from looking at actual artifacts. Yeah. Well, 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:54.920 you know, what you can understand from just looking at 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.960 the artifact is actually a bit limited. You know, these 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.360 things they don't they don't come out of the ground 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.160 with with labels on them. Uh uh. You know. I 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:05.880 like to do this when I give a presentation that 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.800 you show a picture full of a table full of 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.400 a bunch of old one stone tools and say like Okay, 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.360 now what does this tell us? And in most people, 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:16.240 you know, you can't even tell that there are anything 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.160 other than just rocks if you're not used to looking 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.480 at them. So what you have to do to understand 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:23.680 what these tools that we dig up can actually tell 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:28.360 us is, uh, basically experimental archaeology. We use analogies, We 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.080 try to learn how to make them ourselves, and then 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.800 you can manipulate. Well, if I make it this way, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:35.920 then it looks like that. If I make it this way, 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.240 it looks like that. If I use it this way, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.800 this happens to it. Um. So then we make these analogies, 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:45.000 these sort of inferential arguments that processes we can observe 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.360 and manipulate experimentally now are the same ones that produce 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.840 the same effects in the past. Uh. I mean, if 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.200 you think about it, we do this you know any time, 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:57.200 even in more recent time periods, when you look at 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.000 an artifact, I mean, you're making an analogy with something 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:05.000 you're familiar with. Usually even it's just implicit. You know, obviously, um, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.199 this is a sword. You know, I've seen things like 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.080 that before, and now you don't really know that you're right, 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:11.480 but it's similar enough to things with which you're familiar. 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.240 That that that's you know, that's reasonable. When you dig 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:16.040 off something from two and a half million years ago, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.080 you've got nothing to go on, right, So we have 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.560 to actually do some of this work to establish robust 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.639 or strong analogies that we can use. Now you've mentioned 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:31.199 your own experiences creating stone tools. How long does it 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.320 take you to create a hand axe? Oh? Yeah, I 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.159 mean it takes me maybe half an hour. I'm a 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:40.679 little bit slow with that. Uh, and uh, you know, 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.480 it depending on how nice you want to make it. 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.520 And that's already assuming that I'm I'm sitting in my 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.520 outdoor lab with a pile of rocks right next to me, 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.360 and I just start making the thing. You know, if, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.280 of course, in prehistory you would have had to go 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:56.800 get the rocks and all these other things to take 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.200 a lot more time. But yeah, uh something that's that's 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.760 quite good. It at it nine twelve to fifteen minutes, 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.720 you can yeah. Yeah, So you mentioned that we think 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:09.240 a lot of these early stone tools were used in 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:12.680 butchering meat. Have you ever had food prepared with stone 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:16.720 tools you've made? Uh, well, let's see myself. Uh yeah, 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.960 only actually recently, one of my colleagues had a pig 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:21.840 roast where we used some of the stuff that I 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.240 had made. Yeah, but back in uh in in graduate school, 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.400 and it's quite common in these labs and places where 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.000 people do this sort of work to have the occasional 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:35.320 animal roast where you uh and you you learn things 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.280 like you know that obsidian um is really sharp and great, 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.240 but it also crumbles and leaves little bits of like 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.960 glassy kind of gridgy stuff. Yeah, not so great. I 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.199 like flint, right, So do we find uh, do we 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:55.160 find little grains of obsidian and ancient teeth? I'm not aware. Um, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.600 you know, there's always I'm not well versed in later 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.280 prehistory and so as possibly there's something out about that 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.719 I'm not aware of them actually getting any dental wear 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.439 from the stone tools. Of course, you get very similar 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:09.240 looking dental where when you you eat like a TUBERSI 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.680 dug out of sandy ground, so you do get cut 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.679 marks on teeth, which is very interesting because uh way 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.639 commonly to eat things if you don't use silverware or 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:21.679 chop sticks or anything like that, is you hold it 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:23.200 up to your mouth, you clench it in your teeth, 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.919 and you cut away from from there, so you're cutting 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:28.000 right next to your mouth, and occasionally they did hit 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.480 their teeth um, and so you get these little little 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.960 cut marks on the front teeth and fascinatingly sorry, yeah, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.159 a lot of things can take the gross but one 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:39.359 of the one of the cool things you can actually 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.679 infer which hand was used, because there's a you know, 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:46.159 a sort of an ergonomics. You're slicing down and in 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:48.560 one direction, so you can tell. And so people have 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:52.639 used that to identify really examples of predominantly right handed populations. 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.159 Even the gross stuff, there's always something you can you 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:57.919 can get out of it. You know, we encourage you 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.280 to mention all the gross stuff. We're not we shy 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:02.960 away from that here. So how is the study of 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:07.399 modern stone tool users such a such as a stone 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.119 tool users in New Guinea? How has this informed our 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.720 understanding of ancient stone tool use. Basically, the whole goal 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:18.360 of experimental archaeology is to generate analogies that we can 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:22.640 observe in the modern day, uh to understand the past. Um. 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.040 One of the things we have to be careful about, though, 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.040 is that when you design experiments and you control things, 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.000 you build in a lot of your own assumptions, even 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.119 if you're not aware of them, about how things are 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.360 done or why things are done and so forth. You're 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.480 also dealing with a very artificial environment in the lab 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.480 and without any social context or anything like that. UM. 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.240 So another source of analogy UM that you can use 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:48.520 to understand the past is UH ethnographic observation UM. And 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:50.440 by that, I would stress it you you can include 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:52.760 also people, for instance, in the United States that do 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.240 this as a hobby. There's a community, there's things we 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.040 can learn from them. I was lucky enough to UH 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:01.040 to visit some modern tool acres in New Guinea that 0:21:01.119 --> 0:21:06.199 are part of a different tradition UH back in I 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.560 was there UM. And one of the things that that 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.520 that just broadens the number of different examples of ways 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.600 to do things UM that we can use to understand 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:16.760 the past UM. And one of the one of the 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:19.199 really cool things about it was I was expecting this 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.359 to be a very uh you know, very foreign experience, 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:24.399 experience to be in the highlands of New Guinea, and 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.760