谁是最早石质工具的制造者?

正在人类漫长的演化历史中,工具无疑扮演了一个非常重要的角色。工具的使用不但能弥补人类一些生理机能上的不足,还能在不断地被利用和改进中促进人类智力的发展。远古时代的工具可能纷繁多样,保留到今天的主要是不易腐烂的石质工具(通常所说的"石制品","石器")。石质工具是人类有意识制作的产品,通过石质工具,古人类能加工木质工具,能肢解动物尸体并敲骨吸髓,这是我们祖先能在复杂多变的环境中成功生存下来的重要原因。石质工具是古人类学家研究早期人类演化和生存行为的重要材料,因此探求最早的石质工具制造者是学术界长期关     

直立行走,人类演化及其他

人如何有别人于其他哺乳动物在数百万年的自然历史中 ,一种高级灵长类经历某种极其深刻的演化 ,最终脱胎于同类 ,成为动物界中的佼佼者 ,在自然选择中成为最成功的一支。谁都知道 ,以上我们所谈论的 ,正是我们人类自己。是什么特性把我们与其他灵长类分开 ?如果我们用一个具体的性状来替代上面第一句中的“某种极其深刻的 (演化 )” ,这个性状应该是什么 ,使我们在三百万年前独立于自然界的芸芸众生之外 ?在自然界中 ,从生物学的角度来看 ,人类其实并无特殊之处。黑猩猩的遗传组成 ,与我们之相似更胜于其与大猩猩。使我们异于其他高等灵长类…     

动物使用工具行为研究进展北大核心CSCD

使用工具曾被认为是人类独有的能力,然而,在过去的50年中,学界逐渐认识到工具的使用普遍存在于整个动物界。其中,使用工具最多的类群是哺乳类、鸟类和昆虫。动物使用工具有一定目标性,然而大多数动物仅考虑当前的目标,而非长远目标。动物使用工具的行为受到环境因素和动物自身认知能力、生理特点与进化历史的影响,并可能表现出一定的个体差异。有些动物使用工具的行为是与生俱来的,然而大部分高等动物通过试错学习获得使用工具的能力。通过模仿学习,一些使用工具的行为可以传播和演化,从而在种群中广泛分布。工具的使用是动物认知领域的核心概念之一,开展动物使用工具的研究,能够加深对动物认知能力和行为进化的理解。     

鸟类的认知行为（1）

很多动物与人类一样拥有非凡的"聪明才智"。虽然鸟类与人类的亲缘关系较远,但却与人类共享许多认知特征。研究鸟类的认知行为,有助于理解动物具有什么样的能力,并更好地理解"智慧"的运作和演化。本文从工具使用、心理时间旅行、因果推理、类别认知、语言能力及认知特征演化方面,综述了鸟类认知行为研究的最新成果,探讨了认知演化的可能原因。     

鸟类的认知行为（2）

很多动物与人类一样拥有非凡的"聪明才智"。虽然鸟类与人类的亲缘关系较远,但却与人类共享许多认知特征。研究鸟类的认知行为,有助于理解动物具有什么样的能力,并更好地理解"智慧"的运作和演化。本文从工具使用、心理时间旅行、因果推理、类别认知、语言能力及认知特征演化方面,综述了鸟类认知行为研究的最新成果,探讨了认知演化的可能原因。     

周口店,先祖生存与智慧之火曾经长燃不灭

人猿相揖别以来,人类已经走过了600多万年的演化里程。在这漫漫的历史长河中,人类以一系列开天辟地的创举昭告着自己与其他动物门类的截然不同,包括发明了复杂的语言、制作和使用工具、学会了用火、建筑房舍和进行艺术创作等。其中有控制地用火对人类的生存和演化至关重要,对我们身体机能的进化和技术文化与社会关系的发展,有着重大的影响...     

追溯历史——寻找最古老的石制品

<正>关注与探索人类起源和演化历史源于我们对自身认知的强烈愿望。从猿到人,我们的祖先行走暴露在茫茫大地之上,既没有食草动物惊人的奔跑速度,也没有食肉动物锋利的牙齿,我们的祖先是凭借什么生存并繁衍下来的呢?今天我们都知道,因为我们的祖先可以制作并使用工具,可以猎杀动物获取食物,工具对人类演化繁衍起着举足轻重的作用。然而这个认识到17世纪才开始形成于欧洲。有学者注意到一些似乎被打磨过、修理过的"奇石"常常与已经灭绝的     

有“文化”的猿猴

<正>从古至今,人类一直在认识自己、定义自己,并试图将自己和其他自然生命完全区别开。文化曾作为人类独特性之一,被定为唯人类所有。随着对动物的深入观察和研究,人们发现很多动物,尤其是非人灵长类(以下统称为灵长类)也同样具有文化。     

早期“北京人”文化滞后现象的探究

<正>人类演化的一个明显事实:人越来越聪明。不过,在局部空间里局部时间段的滞后发展乃至文化倒退现象的存在也是肯定的,早期"北京人"就是一例。人类有别于动物的特质是具有创造性,就是能把不同的概念组合起来,形成新的事物。人猿分道揖别,制作和使用石头工具曾经是界定的分水岭,目前,人类石器的最早记录发现在非洲     

生物演化基本规律与人类进化独特性(2)

生物历史和人类学资料等揭示,生物演化和人类进化是2种不同的改变形式,遵循不同的规律:生物演化以物种结构修改适应环境,环境变化主导物种演化,演化无方向性,它维持了物种与环境的依存关系;人类进化是脑和工具意识突破,即出现"依靠工具"意识,它带来了工具进步性方向改变,并产生了人体适应工具、文化等的结构修改以及人的环境关系性质改变。论述了生物演化基本规律和人类进化独特性、"演化"和"进化"的区别、人类进化的"转折点"等。     

Behavioral inferences from Early Stone artifact assemblages: an experimental model

A methodological approach for assessing the nature and palaeographic distribution of early stone artifact assemblages is presented, modeled after an approach originally used for faunal analysis. By combining experimental replicative studies with careful analysis of Palaeolithic archaeological occurrences, it is potentially possible to reconstruct entire technological systems and to assess what stages of lithic reduction may be preferentially represented at high density artifact concentrations that we normally call archaeological “sites”, and what stages of reduction are found in lower density (“off site”) scatters.Based upon the results of this approach, alternative explanations for certain stages of lithic reduction being preferentially represented at a number of Plio-Pleistocene archaeological sites at Koobi Fora, Kenya are considered and evaluated with regard to early hominid organizational patterns. It appears that hominid stone technology was a relatively complex system by 1·9 to 1·4 million years B.P., involving significant transport and carrying of stone artifacts representing various stages of reduction and suggesting more foresight and planning than observed among extant nonhuman primates.The application of this approach to other Palaeolithic occurrences should enable anthropologists to obtain a better understanding of the organizational patterns of tool-making hominids throughout the course of human evolution.     

Percussive technology in human evolution: an introduction to a comparative approach in fossil and living primates

Percussive technology is part of the behavioural suite of several fossil and living primates. Stone Age ancestors used lithic artefacts in pounding activities, which could have been most important in the earliest stages of stone working. This has relevant evolutionary implications, as other primates such as chimpanzees and some monkeys use stone hammer-and-anvil combinations to crack hard-shelled foodstuffs. Parallels between primate percussive technologies and early archaeological sites need to be further explored in order to assess the emergence of technological behaviour in our evolutionary line, and firmly establish bridges between Primatology and Archaeology. What are the anatomical, cognitive and ecological constraints of percussive technology? How common are percussive activities in the Stone Age and among living primates? What is their functional significance? How similar are archaeological percussive tools and those made by non-human primates? This issue of Phil. Trans. addresses some of these questions by presenting case studies with a wide chronological, geographical and disciplinary coverage. The studies presented here cover studies of Brazilian capuchins, captive chimpanzees and chimpanzees in the wild, research on the use of percussive technology among modern humans and recent hunter–gatherers in Australia, the Near East and Europe, and archaeological examples of this behaviour from a million years ago to the Holocene. In summary, the breadth and depth of research compiled here should make this issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, a landmark step forward towards a better understanding of percussive technology, a unique behaviour shared by some modern and fossil primates.     

Morphological affinities of the Australopithecus afarensis hand on the basis of manual proportions and relative thumb length

The hands of apes and humans differ considerably with regard to proportions between several bones. Of critical significance is the long thumb relative to other fingers, which is the basis for human-like pad-to-pad precision grip capability, and has been considered by some as evidence of tool-making. The nature and timing of the evolutionary transition from ape-like to human-like manual proportions, however, have remained unclear as a result of the lack of appropriate fossil material. In this article, the manual proportions of Australopithecus afarensis from locality AL 333/333w (Hadar, Ethiopia) are investigated by means of bivariate and multivariate morphometric analyses, in order to test the hypothesis that human-like proportions, including an enhanced thumb/hand relationship, originally evolved as an adaptation to stone tool-making. Although some evidence for human-like manual proportions had been previously proposed for this taxon, conclusive evidence was lacking. Our results indicate that A. afarensis possessed overall manual proportions, including an increased thumb/hand relationship that, contrary to previous reports, is fully human and would have permitted pad-to-pad human-like precision grip capability. We show that these human-like proportions in A. afarensis mainly result from hand shortening, as in modern humans, and that these conclusions are robust enough as to be non-dependent on whether the bones belong to a single individual or not. Since A. afarensis predates the appearance of stone tools in the archeological record, the above-mentioned conclusions permit a confident refutation of the null hypothesis that human-like manual proportions are an adaptation to stone tool-making, and thus alternative explanations must be therefore sought. One hypothesis would consider manipulative behaviors (including tool-use and/or non-lithic tool-making) in early hominines exceeding those reported among extant non-human primates. Alternatively, on the basis of the many adaptations to committed bipedalism in A. afarensis, we propose the hypothesis that once arboreal behaviors became adaptively insignificant and forelimb-dominated locomotor selection pressures were relaxed with the adoption of terrestrial bipedalism, human-like manual proportions could have merely evolved as a result of the complex manipulation selection pressures already present in extant non-human primates.Both hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, and even other factors such as pleiotropy cannot be currently discarded.     

丹江上游商丹盆地新发现的旧石器及其埋藏黄土地层

2010~2012年在东秦岭丹江上游商丹盆地(商洛-丹凤盆地)第三级阶地顶部黄土堆积地层中新发现9处旷野旧石器地点, 采集石制品211件, 部分石制品直接采自遗址黄土地层剖面上。加工石制品的原料来自于丹江河床的石英质砾石, 其次是石英岩和石英砂岩砾石, 砂岩、火山岩和硅质灰岩等砾石原料偶尔被使用。早期人类主要采取锤击法直接剥片, 砸击法剥片技术也被使用, 碰砧法剥片可能只是在偶尔的情况下才被采用。石核和石片以自然砾石台面者居多。石制品种类有石锤、石核、石片、工具和断块及碎片屑。工具中砍砸器数量最多, 其次是大型石片为毛坯加工而成的重型刮削器与小型刮削器, 石器中还有一定数量的石球、手斧和手镐, 商丹盆地的石制品可视为含阿舍利(Acheulian)器物组合类型的石器工业。根据遗址的黄土-古土壤地层序列, 初步判断商丹盆地丹江第三级阶地旧石器地点埋藏石制品的黄土-古土壤地层时代为中更新世中晚期, 在获得地层绝对测年结果之前, 石制品年代可暂置于旧石器时代早期偏晚阶段。     

更新世东亚人群连续演化的考古证据及相关问题论述

本文从考古文化的角度论证中国乃至东亚古人类演化的连续性。通过对石制品原料特点及开发利用方式、石器制作技术、石制品类型、形态与组合特点、区域文化传统演变等方面的分析,提出这里的旧石器时代文化一脉相承,古人群生生不息、连续演化。通过对中国旧石器文化体系中勒瓦娄哇技术制品、具有阿舍利风格的组合和石叶技术产品这些具有"西方元素"特点的文化成分的辨识与分析,指出更新世期间该地区石器生产基本维持在奥杜威模式内,来自西方的文化因素间或出现过,但从来没有成为主流,更没有发生对土著文化的置换,说明这一地区没有发生过大规模移民和人群更替事件;基因混合与文化交流可能发生过,但其过程是融合而非替代。秦岭诸遗址、北窑、大地湾、徐家城、乌兰木伦、织机洞、井水湾、黄龙洞等遗址的地层和测年数据表明东亚不存在距今10~4万年间的材料空白,人类演化的链条没有中断过。古气候和古生物信息也对末次冰期导致本土人群灭绝的论断提出否定。这些考古材料与信息对中国乃至东亚古人群连续演化及现代人类"连续进化附带杂交"的理论提供了强有力的论证和支持。"综合行为模式"等学说的提出强化了对本土人群生存能力的论述。对人类独特的行为特点与社会属性的观察和思考,也对本土人群与西方同类的隔离问题及不同地区人群长时期维持在同一物种内的可能性与动因提供了有益的启示。     

Modeling the formation of Early Stone Age artifact concentrations

The nature of stone artifact concentrations at early Plio-Pleistocene sites in East Africa is evaluated with regard to hominid transport behaviors responsible for their formation. These archaeological occurrences indicate ranging behaviors involving deliberate and repeated transport of flaked stone artifacts. The stone transported to archaeological sites within the time range of Homo habilis indicates planned transport of tools or material for tool manufacture to an extent far beyond transport behaviors reported among living apes, even stone hammer-using chimpanzees. Analysis of technological evidence in a lithic assemblage at a Plio-Pleistocene site at Koobi Fora (c. 1·5 ya) indicates on-site manufacturing activities and transport of flaked stone both to and from the site locale. Possible explanations for transport of stone artifacts are discussed in view of hominid strategies of environmental exploitation and resource utilization. A model is proposed for planned, habitual transport of artifacts by hominids positively correlated with distance of planned foraging range. In this model, larger-scale sites tended to develop at locales favorably located near abundant resources, where stone imports were high but export was relaxed due to the proximity of resources to be processed.     

Paleopediatrics: Or when did human infants really become human?

Modern human children take about twice as long as their closest biological relative, the chimpanzee, to mature. One standard explanation for the evolution of “delayed maturation” at an early stage of human evolution is that it provided the time necessary for immature individuals to learn complex skills, most notably those relating to tool-making abilities. However, after comparing dental maturational profiles of early hominids from South Africa (who apparently did make and use stone tools) (Susman [1994] Science 265:1570–1573) to those of extant humans and chimpanzees, we find no evidence to document an association between “delayed maturation” and tool-making abilities in the early stages of human evolution. This also suggests that the assumed association between prolonged childhood dependency and other behaviors often associated with the advent of tool-making such as cooperative hunting, food sharing, home bases, sexual division of labor, etc., is also suspect. Instead, we must look for other, or additional, selective pressures for the evolution of “delayed maturation,” which may postdate the australopithecine radiation. © 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

First GIS Analysis of Modern Stone Tools Used by Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in Bossou,Guinea, West Africa

Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary roots of technology during human evolution. However, detailed analyses of chimpanzee stone artifacts are still lacking, thus precluding a comparison with the earliest archaeological record. This paper presents the first systematic study of stone tools used by wild chimpanzees to crack open nuts in Bossou (Guinea-Conakry), and applies pioneering analytical techniques to such artifacts. Automatic morphometric GIS classification enabled to create maps of use wear over the stone tools (anvils, hammers, and hammers/ anvils), which were blind tested with GIS spatial analysis of damage patterns identified visually. Our analysis shows that chimpanzee stone tool use wear can be systematized and specific damage patterns discerned, allowing to discriminate between active and passive pounders in lithic assemblages. In summary, our results demonstrate the heuristic potential of combined suites of GIS techniques for the analysis of battered artifacts, and have enabled creating a referential framework of analysis in which wild chimpanzee battered tools can for the first time be directly compared to the early archaeological record.     

安徽省宁国市安友庄旧石器遗址调查及发掘简报

2003-2004年,安徽省文物考古研究所对地处水阳江流域的宁国安友庄遗址开展野外调查及考古发掘,发掘面积250 m²,调查采集石制品3件,发掘出土石制品49件。石制品原料以中津河（水阳江一级支流）二级阶地底部砾石层中产出的石英岩砾石为主,少量为石英。石制品类型包括石核、石片和石器。石制品均为使用硬锤直接剥片。石制品主要出自中国南方地区常见的网纹红土和均质红土中,根据长江中下游地区第四纪红土风化壳的相关研究结果,初步推断安友庄遗址古人类生存与活动的年代延续中更新世中、晚期一段时间。虽然安友庄遗址发现石制品数量不多,但其中存在模式2技术产品,如剥取大石片的大石核、长度大于或等于10 cm的大石片,以及以手斧、大型石刀等为代表的大型切割石器,特别是比较典型的两面加工手斧在水阳江流域尚不多见。安友庄遗址的发现,为进一步讨论早期人类在长江下游地区的扩散与技术发展具有重要的科学意义。