From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans

A number of researchers have tried to characterise the anatomy and behavioural systems of early hominid and early modern human populations in an attempt to understand how we became what we are. Can archaeology, palaeo-anthropology and genetics tell us how and when human cultures developed the traits that make our societies different from those of our closest living relatives? In which cases are these differences substantial, and when do they simply reflect our definitions of culture, species, the image we have of their evolution or of ourselves? From Tools to Symbols, a collection of twenty-seven selected papers from a South African-French conference organised in honour of the well-known palaeo-anthropologist Phillip Tobias, provides a multidisciplinary overview of this field of study. It is based on collaborative research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa by South African, French, American and German scholars in the last twenty years, and represents an excellent synthesis of the palaeontological and archaeological evidence of the last five million years of human evolution.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Profile of Professor Tobias List of participants Foreword Justice Edwin Cameron Address Bernard Malauzat Keynote address Phillip V. Tobias Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics Francesco d’Errico and Lucinda R. Backwell The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions Nathan Schlanger Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal Charles K. Brain Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids Frédéric Joulian Tools and brains: which came first? Phillip V. Tobias Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us Marion K. Bamford Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy Brigitte Senut The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures Lee R. Berger Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity Kathleen Kuman, Ryan Gibbon, Helen Kempson, Geeske Langejans,Joel Le Baron, Luca Pollarolo and Morris Sutton Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands Dominique Gommery Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens Sandrine Prat Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa Francis Thackeray and José Braga The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions Lucinda Backwell and Francesco d’Errico Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene Nicholas J. Conard From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals Curtis W. Marean New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition David Lewis-Williams Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity Marie Soressi Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson’s Poort at Klasies River Sarah Wurz Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave Christopher Henshilwood Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa Zenobia Jacobs From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape John Parkington, Cedric Poggenpoel, Jean-Philippe Rigaud and Pierre-Jean Texier Chronology of the Howieson’s Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence Chantal Tribolo, Norbert Mercier and Hélène Valladas Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues Bonny S. Williamson Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments Marian Vanhaeren Personal names index Subject index

About the Author :
Francesco d'Errico is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifi que (CNRS) and Research Professor at the Department of Anthropology, George Washington University. Lucinda Backwell is a researcher in the Instituto Superior de Estudios Sociales (CONICET), Tucumán, Argentina and an Honorary Researcher in the Evolutionary Studies Institute and DSI/NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.