Testing Brantingham’s Neutral Model: The Effect of Spatial Clustering on Stone Raw Material Procurement

Changes in the frequency of stone tool raw materials are observed in stone age records across the world and throughout time. These are normally interpreted as showing important changes in human behavior. Brantingham (2003) proposes a neutral model to explain observed data on stone tool raw material procurement as an alternative to behavioral interpretations of raw material changes, but his model used unrealistic distributions of raw material across a landscape. Here we provide the results of investigating how real source locations, and their spatial clustering affect the raw material pattern outcome of the neutral model. Our findings suggest that spatial distributions mimicking empirical data challenge the validity of the neutral model. More specifically, increasing the source clustering increases the amount of time where the forager is without raw materials. In terms of foraging behavior, it is not realistic to expect that foragers go extended periods of time without raw materials to create and repair tools if a stone cache is not available to return too.

[1]  Steven L. Kuhn,et al.  "Unpacking" Reduction: Lithic Raw Material Economy in the Mousterian of West-Central Italy , 1991 .

[2]  Simen Oestmo.  A Neutral Model of Stone Raw Material Procurement (Version 1) , 2013 .

[3]  W. Andrefsky.  Raw-Material Availability and the Organization of Technology , 1994, American Antiquity.

[4]  S. Kuhn.  Mousterian Lithic Technology: An Ecological Perspective , 2014 .

[5]  A. Close.  Backed Bladelets Are a Foreign Country , 2008 .

[6]  Paul Sillitoe,et al.  Living Lithics: ethnoarchaeology in Highland Papua New Guinea , 2003, Antiquity.

[7]  C. Marean,et al.  An early and enduring advanced technology originating 71,000 years ago in South Africa , 2012, Nature.

[8]  S. Kuhn.  Upper Paleolithic raw material economies at Üçağızlı cave, Turkey , 2004 .

[9]  Peter Ditchfield,et al.  Raw material quality and Oldowan hominin toolstone preferences: evidence from Kanjera South, Kenya , 2009 .

[10]  C. Marean,et al.  A Middle Stone Age Paleoscape near the Pinnacle Point caves, Vleesbaai, South Africa , 2014 .

[11]  S. Wurz.  The Howiesons Poort Backed Artefacts from Klasies River: An Argument for Symbolic Behaviour , 1999 .

[12]  D. Stout.  Skill and Cognition in Stone Tool Production , 2002, Current Anthropology.

[13]  T. Minichillo.  Raw material use and behavioral modernity: Howiesons Poort lithic foraging strategies. , 2006, Journal of human evolution.

[14]  D. Bamforth.  Settlement, raw material, and lithic procurement in the central Mojave Desert , 1990 .

[15]  Peter J. Nilssen,et al.  The stratigraphy of the Middle Stone Age sediments at Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (Mossel Bay, Western Cape Province, South Africa). , 2010, Journal of human evolution.

[16]  Richard A. Gould,et al.  Lithic Procurement in Central Australia: A Closer Look at Binford's Idea of Embeddedness in Archaeology , 1985, American Antiquity.

[17]  C. Marean,et al.  Melting ice sheets 400,000 yr ago raised sea level by 13 m: Past analogue for future trends , 2012 .

[18]  D. Henry.  The Neanderthal Legacy: An Archaeological Perspective from Western Europe , 1997 .

[19]  Jehanne Féblot-Augustins,et al.  Mobility strategies in the Late Middle Palaeolithic of central Europe and western Europe: elements of stability and variability , 1993 .

[20]  T. Minichillo,et al.  Middle and late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age lithic technology from Pinnacle Point 13B (Mossel Bay, Western Cape Province, South Africa). , 2010, Journal of human evolution.

[21]  J. Kinahan.  The historical archaeology of nineteenth century fisheries at Sandwich Harbour on the Namib coast , 1991 .

[22]  R. Fullagar,et al.  Weapons and Wunan: Production, Function and Exchange of Kimberley Points , 2002 .

[23]  P. Jeffrey Brantingham,et al.  A Neutral Model of Stone Raw Material Procurement , 2003, American Antiquity.

[24]  Margaret Nelson,et al.  The Use of Chipped Lithic Material in the Contemporary Maya Highlands , 1981, American Antiquity.

[25]  M. Clendon.  Worora gender metaphors and Australian prehistory , 1999 .

[26]  Lewis R. Binford,et al.  “Righteous Rocks” and Richard Gould: Some Observations on Misguided “Debate” , 1985, American Antiquity.