In light of the recent Oldowan discoveries and given the advances in Cognitive Primatology and Primate Archaeology, the application of a methodology that maximizes the inferences acquirable from the study of the Oldowan Percussive Stone Tools is now unavoidable.
This proposal aims to analyse the Percussive Stone Tools assemblage coming from the Oldowan site of Nyayanga (Homa Peninsula, Kenya), through the application of an innovative methodological framework combining use-wear and residues analysis with 3D modelling ad micro spatial analysis. In this way it will be possible to provide a detailed interpretation regarding the use of these tools at the site, combining both qualitative and quantitative data, enhancing our current knowledge regarding the use these tools during the African Early Stone Age, thus contributing to better understand the behavioural traits characterizing the early human groups occupying the area ca. 2.6 Mya.
With this proposal the project aims to apply a ground-breaking methodology to the functional analysis of the PSTs found in a recently excavated Oldowan site, Nyayanga (Homa Peninsula, Kenya). This novel methodology, that combines the complete qualitative use-wear analysis with a new quantitative approach, was recently applied in the analysis of Proto Aurignacian retouchers and hammerstones coming from Fumane Cave (Italy), with exceptional results (Caricola et al. 2018). Our proposal aims to apply a similar combination of qualitative (use and prehension wear analyses) and quantitative (3D scanning and spatial analysis) approaches to investigate the use of the extremely well-preserved PSTs of Nyayanga.
This project will produce, for the first time, new and crucial data, which will contribute to understand the functional role of PSTs in the life of Oldowan hominin groups, further enhancing our current knowledge on their behavioural traits. We will highlight the activities carried out with PTSs at Nyayanga; the possible overlapping of activities carried out in different times, which may or not suggest a possible multifunctional role of these items; the type of grasping of these tools; their eventual correlation with butchering events inferred by the faunal analysis and the activities performed with the knapped implements found at the site (ongoing use-wear analysis by the proponent (C.L.; see also Lemorini et al. 2014, 2019).