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

我将在阿舍利人开始时研究双面人的起源：一种持续了150万年的技术，与人类大脑体积的大幅增加相吻合。正如我在研究计划中概述的那样，它的出现有两种主要理论：用作切割工具（特别是在屠宰中）和用作芯（每体积原料比以前的卵石芯生产更多的薄片）。后一种理论的倡导者认为，双面面和鹅卵石芯可以放在相同的尺寸和延伸率的滑动尺度上（Shea 2010），这将使双面面成为现有技术的异速延伸。一个合乎逻辑的推论是，早期的阿舍利组合应该显示出岩心技术的连续变化范围，从简单的卵石岩心到双面岩心，而不是离散的断裂。我计划在早期的阿舍利组合中使用3D几何形态测量学来测试这一点。此外，我还将开展实验工作，填补现有文献的空白。我希望量化卵石岩心和双面岩心之间每体积可用薄片数量的差异，以及每种薄片的形态差异。最后，我将研究双面岩心和鹅卵石岩心在切削能力方面的差异，因为后者具有使双面岩心成为良好切削工具的许多特征，但这一点尚未得到研究。相似性会削弱双面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.