title: Quantifying traces of tool use: a novel morphometric analysis of damage patterns on percussive tools.
abstract: Percussive technology continues to play an increasingly important role in understanding the evolution of tool use. Comparing the archaeological record with extractive foraging behaviors in nonhuman primates has focused on percussive implements as a key to investigating the origins of lithic technology. Despite this, archaeological approaches towards percussive tools have been obscured by a lack of standardized methodologies. Central to this issue have been the use of qualitative, non-diagnostic techniques to identify percussive tools from archaeological contexts. Here we describe a new morphometric method for distinguishing anthropogenically-generated damage patterns on percussive tools from naturally damaged river cobbles. We employ a geomatic approach through the use of three-dimensional scanning and geographical information systems software to statistically quantify the identification process in percussive technology research. This will strengthen current technological analyses of percussive tools in archaeological frameworks and open new avenues for translating behavioral inferences of early hominins from percussive damage patterns.
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology, Geography & Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, WITS 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa.
authors.forename: Matthew V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Caruana
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States of America; Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Susana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States of America; Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Braun
authors.affiliation: Universität Tübingen, Abteilung Ältere Urgeschichte und Quartärökologie, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Darya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Presnyakova
authors.affiliation: Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haslam
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Will
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Archer
authors.affiliation: Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States of America; Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB), Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bobe
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States of America; National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya.
authors.forename: John W K
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Harris
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005580:Fossils; D011323:Primates / Q000502:physiology*