A technological investigation of biface origins in Africa: A novel geometric morphometric approach.

我将调查阿舍利时代开始时的双面起源：一项持续了150万年的技术，与人类大脑尺寸的大幅增加相吻合。正如我的研究计划中所概述的那样，它的出现有两个主要理论：用作切割工具（特别是在屠宰场）和用作核心（与之前的卵石核心相比，每体积原料产生更多的薄片）。后一种理论的一位倡导者认为，双面和卵石核可以放在相同的尺寸和伸长率的滑动尺度上（Shea 2010），这将使双面成为现有技术的异速扩展。一个合乎逻辑的推论是，早期阿舍利组合应该显示出连续的变化范围内的核心技术，从简单的卵石核心双面，而不是离散的休息。我计划在早期阿舍利组合中使用3D几何形态测量来测试这一点。此外，我还将进行实验工作，以填补现有文献中的空白。我希望量化的差异，在数量上可用的薄片每卷芯之间的卵石芯和双面，以及形态差异的薄片的每一个。最后，我将研究双面和球芯在切削能力上的差异，因为后者具有许多使双面成为好的切削工具的特性，但这还没有被研究过。相似性会削弱双面人在切割任务中的初始作用。

I will investigate biface origins at the start of the Acheulean: a technology which persists for 1.5 million years, coincidingwith a large increase in hominin brain size. As outlined in my research proposal, there are two main theories for itsappearance: use as cutting tools (particularly in butchery) and use as cores (to produce a greater number of flakes pervolume of raw material than preceding pebble cores). One advocate of this latter theory suggests that bifaces and pebblecores can be placed on the same sliding scale of size and elongation (Shea 2010), which would make bifaces allometricextensions of existing technologies. A logical corollary of this is that early Acheulean assemblages should show acontinuous range of variation in core technology, from simple pebble-cores to bifaces, not discrete breaks. I plan to testthis using 3D geometric morphometrics within early Acheulean assemblages. Furthermore, I will also carry outexperimental work to fill existing gaps in the literature. I wish to quantify the differences in number of useable flakes pervolume of core between pebble-cores and bifaces, as well as morphological differences in the flakes of each. Finally, Iwill investigate the differences in cutting ability between bifaces and pebble-cores, because the latter possess many ofthe characteristics that make bifaces good cutting tools, yet this has not been investigated. Similarities would underminean initial role for bifaces in cutting tasks.