Stone tools found in prehistoric habitats that shed light on the dark ancient times of humanity seem to have two life cycles: First, they are processed and used, and then they are discarded before they can be used again. A new study puts forward a different hypothesis as to what might be the reason for this.
According to the research published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports, the use of these prehistoric tools in a recycled state means that they function as “memory objects” that help remind places, events and individuals, and represent the relationship with past and previous generations. he sees. Although it is a rather different thesis, the research provides a lot of evidence to support this hypothesis.
Tools may be of sentimental value
Relating to a layer of sediment estimated to be about 500,000 years old from the famous Revadim site south of the Israeli Coastal Plain Examining the chemical coating that precipitated on 49 flint tools, archaeologists determined that these objects had two different lifetimes.
After microscopic analysis, it was understood that the tools, which were found to have two active edges, one of which is the old glutton, were used for the second time, and their second use was for more effortless works such as scraping soft materials such as leather and animal meat, rather than cutting and chopping. As a result, researchers began to question why prehistoric humans might have reintroduced tools made, used, and then discarded by their predecessors.
Archaeologist Bar Efrati from Tel Aviv University in Israel, who mentioned that the reason was not a clear shortage of raw materials in an era and region when it was easy to find solid quality pebbles, said: “Motivation it was only functional because recycled tools were neither unusual in shape nor uniquely suitable for any particular special use.”
Moreover, it seems that when these tools were put to use for the second time, a lot of changes were made to them. The changes were kept very minimal.The fact that the impact marks from their first use were largely preserved showed that it was valuable to preserve the appearance of these tools.
Based on these clues, the researchers concluded that the tools carried an emotional cost for the people of that time; may have collected these instruments because of the memories they evoke and their special contacts with the past. He began to think that he would know.
Human ancestral tools were a reminder of the past
Archaeologist Ran Barkai from Tel Aviv University said, “500,000 years ago, an ancient stone tool “Imagine a prehistoric man walking in view when it catches your eye,” he says. “The vehicle means something to him – it bears the memory of his ancestors or evokes an association with a sensible place.” He uses his words. Accordingly, the researchers suggest that the prehistoric people who found the tool inherited from their ancestors may have taken the tool to their dwelling, and instead of changing the general form of the tool, they may have changed only one edge and used it in this state in honor of the first person who created the tool.
It is also possible that these ordinary tools were used again, as it requires less effort than creating new ones from scratch; However, the fact that in addition to the 49 reused objects analyzed here, there were also many newly created tools, the main thing that made the researchers doubt. In addition, renovating an old vehicle was not so easy than creating a new one from scratch.
In other words, primitive humans who lived about 500,000 years ago were not that different from us in the way they collected memories. Functional memories that worked were also reminders of things that happened in the past.
On the subject, Barkai says, “In a modern analogy, prehistoric man may be likened to a young farmer who still plows his fields with his great-grandfather’s rusty old tractor, changing the cuts in the middle, but keeping the nice old machine intact, for it is his family’s It symbolizes the bond with the land”.