Stone tool use and function on the margins of northern Europe, 400,000 years ago

Four hundred thousand years ago, East Anglia lay at the northern extremity of the European hominin range. Sites from this time are rare across the continent, but exceptional conditions of preservation make Eastern England a region of international importance for studying hominin adaptations. Decades of research have revealed details of palaeoenvironmental conditions, where hominins lived, what kinds of stone tools they made, but a large gap in knowledge remains: what were the tools used for? No functional studies have been undertaken since the 1970s on tool-use, and the field of use-wear analysis has developed greatly since these pioneering studies. This project addresses that gap in knowledge by applying an integrated approach of functional and spatial analysis of key stone tool assemblages from a selection of sites from East Anglia including Beeches Pit and Barnham East Farm.
Functions will be determined utilising the current state of the art methods of stone tool functional analysis. The analytical approach combines optical and metallurgical microscopy to assess the formation of characteristic use-wear traces on the edges of stone tools. These traces are then compared with those from a purpose built comprehensive reference collection of experimental replica tools of known use, the analysis of which will be assessed using blind testing. A high-quality reference collection underpins the reliability of the interpretative process and enables use-wear analysis to be conducted with greater scale and precision.
Use-wear analysis will address a long-running debate about the behavioural significance of two contemporary traditions of tool-making in the region. One tradition is recognised by symmetrical, bifacially shaped tools of the Acheulean Industry (handaxes) and the other, by the absence of handaxes and stone flake dominated toolkits of the Clactonian Industry. Debate revolves around the hypothesis that the two traditions represent different coexisting cultural groups, as opposed to functionally different tools in the repertoire of a single cultural tradition. Functional analyses offer a means of resolving this ongoing debate, whilst simultaneously contributing information about the role of technology in adapting to northern habitats.