Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK

Abstract

The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage. We provide the first detailed analysis of two Clactonian bone tools found by Warren and a previously unrecognized example recovered in 1934 during excavations directed by Mary Leakey. Microscopic examination of percussion damage suggests the bones were used as knapping hammers to shape or resharpen flake tools. Early Palaeolithic bone tools are exceedingly rare, and the Clacton examples are the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with a core-and-flake (Mode 1) lithic technology. The use of soft hammers for knapping challenges the consensus that Clactonian flintknapping was undertaken solely with hard hammerstones, thus removing a major technological and behavioural difference used to distinguish the Clactonian from late Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2) industries.

Bone tools, carnivore chewing and heavy percussion: assessing conflicting interpretations of Lower and Upper Palaeolithic bone assemblages

“…These finds are particularly significant as it was previously believed that this relatively simple lithic technology, which dates to ca 400 000 years ago, was an entirely ‘hard’ hammer industry focused on the production of flakes that were subsequently modified to create unstandardized cutting and scraping implements [ 39 ]. At Clacton, bone percussors were likely used for the final flaking or resharpening of Clactonian scrapers and other flake tools [ 40 ]. The discovery of these hitherto unrecognized bone tools suggests that the Clactonian technology was more complex and used a wider range of materials and techniques than had previously been suggested.…”

“…The specimens are accessible through a request to the curator in charge of the Palaeontology (fossil mammal) collections. Research materials, including images of the specimens and a dataset of the Gough's Cave horse phalanges (NHM collection) with a summary of taphonomic modifications observed by the authors, are available in the electronic supplementary material [ 161 ].…”