AUSTRALOPITHECINES AND EARLY HOMO

That record begins 4.5 mya with A. ramidus, and extends to c.1.8 mya, after which large-brained hominids with modern bipedal, striding gaits and a complex technology had evolved. A hominid dispersion from Africa had either occurred, or was soon to do so (Larick and Ciochan 1996). The intervening period—that of the early hominids—is a critical phase for human evolution as it is when some of the major behavioural distinctions between us and chimpanzees arose, notably bipedalism, the manufacture of stone tools, and a substantial contribution of meat in the diet.

During this period, there was a considerable diversity of hominid species, which fall into two main groups —the australopithecines and early Homo (Jones et al. 1992). The fomer include A. afarensis, made famous by the find of ‘Lucy’ by Johanson in 1974, and A. boisei, first discovered by Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge in 1954. Such was the diversity of species overlapping at any one particular point in time that it is not clear which species—or group of species—is responsible for the butchered bones and stone artefacts of the archaeological record (Figure 6. 2) (Susman 1991; Wood 1997). There can be little doubt, however, that the early members of the Homo genus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis, were responsible for many of the stone artefacts and butchered animals found in the archaeological record, simply due to the pervasiveness of tool making among all later members of Homo.

The lifestyles of the first members of Homo have been subject to intense debate for the last two decades. Models for their behaviour have varied from being essentially modern in form, with home-bases, division of labour and food sharing, to being one of marginal scavenging with social patterns more similar to those of living apes than humans (e.g. Binford 1981; Isaac 1978; Potts 1988). Similarly, the tools of the Oldowan culture have been seen as a technological breakthrough, as little different from the tools made and used by apes, or as something between these two extremes (e.g. Mithen 1996:96–98; Toth 1985; Wynn and McGrew 1989).

While these controversies continue, there is no doubt that the first Homo had a brain significantly larger than that of the australopithecines, reaching about 50 per cent of that of modern humans, was a habitual maker and user of stone tools, and included a substantial amount of meat within his diet (Schick and Toth

1993). Do these features imply abilities at creative thinking? This is the question that Mark Lake addresses in his contribution to this volume.

Lake adopts a different approach from Byrne by beginning with an assumption that creative thinking is found in humans but not in primates. Consequently he asks whether this is an attribute of the Homo genus, in which case we should find evidence in the behaviour of the first members of that genus, or whether it is something that is just restricted to the final member(s) of that genus. His task is perhaps more challenging than Byrne’s, for Lake cannot observe the behaviour of these hominids—he must work with the material residues of behaviour. And those residues may have taken many thousands of years to accumulate and have been transformed by a range of site-formation processes. Nevertheless, Lake shows how the concepts about creativity that Boden discusses in her chapter—those about the exploration of conceptual spaces, and of historical and psychological creativity—are useful for asking questions about the archaeological record of early Homo. He examines two issues—the transport of stone and bones across the landscape, and the making of Oldowan artefacts. Lake finds that the data pertaining to the former of these pose ‘insurmountable obstacles’ in assessing the degree of creative thought, ultimately due to the poor time resolution of archaeological finds, and the constraints on developing a true landscape archaeology. But the situation regarding Oldowan technology seems more favourable towards assessing creative thinking in early Homo.

Figure 6.2 An Oldowan chopper from layer I, Olduvai Gorge

One of the early Homo species identified in East Africa, H. ergaster, is thought to have been a direct ancestor to H. erectus and to have been the first hominid species to move out of Africa (Larick and Ciochan 1996). The record of Eurasian colonisation is notoriously difficult to assess. The last few years have seen claims of c.2-million-year-old artefacts from Pakistan (Dennell et al. 1988)—which may not be artefacts, or may not be 2 million years old, may be neither of these, or both; the redating of H. erectus in Java to 1.8 million years old (Swisher et al. 1994)—but which may be substantially younger; and claims for H. ergaster in China (Wanpo et al. 1995), the evidence for which, however, may not be Homo remains at all (Culotta 1995). In Europe, an emerging consensus arose in the early 1990s that there was no occupation prior to 500,000 years ago (Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1994), which was then challenged by hominid remains from Atapuerca in Spain more than 750,000 years old (Bermúdez de Castro et al. 1997; Parés and Pérez González 1995).

If the date of Homo dispersal from Africa is unclear, then so too are how many species of Homo existed after 2 mya and their phylogenetic relationships. Some believe that H. ergaster should be included within H. erectus, while others think that H. erectus should be designated as a species evolving in Asia rather than Africa. The new finds from Atapuerca have been claimed to be H. antecessor (Bermúdez de Castro et al. 1997), the first species to leave Africa, which was ancestral to H. heidelbergensis in Europe and archaic H. sapiens in Africa. But one can question whether the Atapuercan finds are sufficiently different to constitute a new species; perhaps they should be subsumed within H. heidelbergensis.

Now while this brief summary may suggest that we know very little about this period of human evolution, this is in fact far from the case. It is clear that Homo did leave Africa soon after 2 million years ago, and that there was a considerable diversity of hominid species. The remarkable find of the Nariokotome boy has given excellent insights into the anatomical adaptations of H. ergaster, while it is now clear that modern brain size appeared between 600,000 and 150,000 years ago (Ruff et al. 1997). As regards past behaviour, many inferences can be drawn from the fossil remains. The archaeological record is also becoming increasingly well known and understood, particularly from excellently preserved sites such as Boxgrove (Roberts 1986), and ambitious programmes of field work such as at Olorgesailie (Potts 1989).

Perhaps the most notable feature of this archaeological record is the appearance of Acheulian technology at c.1.4 mya (Asfaw et al. 1992), including handaxes made by the bifacial flaking of nodules of stone or large flakes. This technology shows a substantial advance over that of the Oldowan, as for the first time we find the imposition of form: the distinctive triangle or ovate shape of the handaxe.

Handaxes (Figure 6.3) are one of the great enigmas of our prehistory. As Thomas Wynn (1995) explained, they are completely different from any items of modern culture. On the one hand they seem to encapsulate the absence of creativity—the repetition of the same technology, and often the same form, over many thousands of years and across vast expanses of space, probably made by several different species (Wynn and Tierson 1990). Yet a moment’s reflection suggests that handaxes may be indicating the precise opposite —a very creative mind in terms of creativity as interpretation and understanding. For while the hominids making them appear to have been aiming for very similar results, they began with nodules of stone of different shapes and sizes and needed to undertake a different sequence of knapping actions to have arrived at this result. We seem to be seeing a creative manipulation of a limited set of knapping actions and technological ideas, which reminds us of the relationship between constraint and creativity introduced by Boden and to which later chapters will return.