Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Summary
Abstract
Kromdraai A and B are two Plio-Pleistocene sites within thirty metres of each other and within two kilometres from Sterkfontein in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, South Africa. Hominid remains representing nine individuals have been recovered from Kromdraai B, and until recently all of these were attributed to Paranthropus robustus. No hominid remains have been recovered as yet from Kromdraai A (KA), but stone tools have been recovered from both Kromdraai A and Kromdraai B, representing Developed Oldowan and early Acheulean industries.
Recent work suggests that early Homo is represented at Kromdraai B. The possibility that robust australopithecines used artefacts is not excluded. A hypothesis is presented to suggest that hominids at KA scavenged from carcasses of animals killed by large carnivores such as Dinofelis.
Résumé
Kromdraai A et B sont deux sites d’âge Plio-Pléistocène, distants de trente mètres, et situés à environ deux kilomètres de Sterkfontein, en Afrique du Sud, dans une zone inscrite sur la liste du Patrimoine Mondial de l'Unesco: le Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Des restes d'hominidés fossiles représentant neuf individus ont été découverts à Kromdraai B (KB) et étaient, encore récemment, attribués à Paranthropus robustus. Aucun reste d'hominidé n'a encore été découvert à Kromdraai A (KA). Des outils en pierre proviennent des deux sites et correspondent à de l'Oldowayen évolué et de l'Acheuléen ancien. Une étude récente suggère la présence d’Homo habilis à KB. Nous proposons que les hominidés de KA pratiquaient le charognage sur des carcasses d'animaux tués par des grands carnivores tels que Dinofelis et n'excluons pas la possibilité que Paranthropus robustus soit l'artisan des outils découverts dans ce site.
Introduction
In April 1965, Professor Phillip Tobias delivered his Presidential Address to the South African Archaeological Society of South Africa, on the subject ‘Australopithecus, Homo habilis, tool-using and tool-making’. He described newly discovered hominid fossils in the context of morphology and phylogeny, and stated a case ‘for associating the new hominine species, Homo habilis, with the Oldowan culture’.
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- Information
- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 229 - 237Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005