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Experimentally heat-treated silcrete nodule. Unheated silcrete (left ... |
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Dr Zenobia Jacobs . . . our findings certainly shed further light on... |
Researchers unearth origins of pyrotechnology
Early modern humans used fire to engineer tools from stone – a discovery that places complex cognition at 72,000 years ago and perhaps far earlier, according to an article to be published in the 14 August issue of the journal Science.
Two scientists from the University of Wollongong’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences – Dr Zenobia Jacobs and Dr Michael Meyer – are part of an international team of researchers who have reported on this controlled use of fire to increase the quality and efficiency of early modern humans’ stone tool manufacturing process.
The Science article is titled, “Fire as an engineering tool of early modern humans.” Dr Jacobs and Dr Meyer were responsible for dating the archaeological deposits containing the stone tools, using a method known as single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating.
“Our findings certainly shed further light on the notion of complex cognition early in the prehistory of our own species,” Dr Jacobs said.
She said that modern humans living 72,000 years ago -- and perhaps as early as 164,000 years – at Pinnacle Point in coastal South Africa, were early engineers who used carefully controlled fire-places in a complex process to heat stone in order to change its properties and improve its took-making capabilities.
The process of heat-treating the tools involves a long chain of technological tasks that the researchers argue requires complex cognition, and probably language, to learn and teach.
Heating transformed a fine-grained stone type called silcrete, which was rather poor for tool making, into an outstanding raw material that allowed the modern humans to make highly advanced tools.
Dr Jacobs said the team had unearthed the beginnings of the use of fire as an engineering tool, the origins of pyrotechnology, and the bridge to more recent ceramic and metal technology.
Prior to this latest research, heat treatment was widely regarded as first occurring in Europe at about 25,000 years ago – so this theory has now been pushed back at least 45,000 years and, perhaps, as much as 140,000 years at Pinnacle Point.
The Pinnacle Point site was at the centre of a previous discovery– reported in the 17 October 2007 issue of the journal Nature – of the earliest evidence for exploitation of marine foods and modification of pigments.
“Many of the oldest archaeological traces of complex modern human behaviour have emerged from sites in southern Africa, so this latest discovery further emphasises its importance as a region of prehistoric technological innovation,” Dr Jacobs said.
“UOW researchers, using the world-class single-grain optically stimulated luminescence dating facilities in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, continue to play a leading role in providing the chronological basis for unravelling when we started to behave in a way that is regarded as ‘modern’”.