A 1.4-million-year-old bone handaxe from Konso, Ethiopia, shows advanced tool technology in the early Acheulean
A 1.4-million-year-old bone handaxe from Konso, Ethiopia, shows advanced tool technology in the early Acheulean
复制标题
一把来自埃塞俄比亚孔索的140万年前的骨手斧，展示了早期阿舍利先进的工具技术
DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2006370117
复制
发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Suwa Gen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Sano Katsuhiro;Beyene Yonas;Katoh Shigehiro;Koyabu Daisuke;Endo Hideki;Sasaki Tomohiko;Asfaw Berhane;Suwa Gen
在过去的十年中，1Mya以前的早太古代一直是活跃研究的焦点。Acheulean岩屑组合已被证明可追溯到∼1.75Mya，岩芯还原技术取得了1.5Mya至1.4Mya的相当大进步。在这里，我们报告了一个来自埃塞俄比亚南部康索组的∼1.4Mya沉积物中的河马股骨的双面片状骨骼碎片(最大尺寸为∼13厘米)。大量的片状疤痕及其分布规律，以及锥体破裂的高频率，表明人为剥落成手斧状。使用磨损分析显示，沿着∼5厘米长的边缘朝向手斧尖端，出现准连续的交替微片疤痕、磨损抛光、边缘圆润和条纹补丁。在皮质面和内面上，纹状体主要与边缘倾斜，也有一些垂直。综合证据与这种骨伪影在纵向运动中的使用是一致的，例如在切割和/或锯切中。这把骨制手斧是已知的最古老的早更新世广泛剥落的样本。尽管缺乏形状良好的骨骼工具，但它在Konso的存在表明，∼1.4Mya不仅在一系列石材上实践了复杂的剥离，而且偶尔也在骨骼上进行剥离，从而扩大了有文献记载的非洲早期更新世人类的技术曲目。
In the past decade, the early Acheulean before 1 Mya has been a focus of active research. Acheulean lithic assemblages have been shown to extend back to ∼1.75 Mya, and considerable advances in core reduction technologies are seen by 1.5 to 1.4 Mya. Here we report a bifacially flaked bone fragment (maximum dimension ∼13 cm) of a hippopotamus femur from the ∼1.4 Mya sediments of the Konso Formation in southern Ethiopia. The large number of flake scars and their distribution pattern, together with the high frequency of cone fractures, indicate anthropogenic flaking into handaxe-like form. Use-wear analyses show quasi-continuous alternate microflake scars, wear polish, edge rounding, and striae patches along an ∼5-cm-long edge toward the handaxe tip. The striae run predominantly oblique to the edge, with some perpendicular, on both the cortical and inner faces. The combined evidence is consistent with the use of this bone artifact in longitudinal motions, such as in cutting and/or sawing. This bone handaxe is the oldest known extensively flaked example from the Early Pleistocene. Despite scarcity of well-shaped bone tools, its presence at Konso shows that sophisticated flaking was practiced by ∼1.4 Mya, not only on a range of lithic materials, but also occasionally on bone, thus expanding the documented technological repertoire of African Early PleistoceneHomo.