Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques

Abstract Research into human uniqueness is gaining increasing importance in prehistoric archaeology. The most striking behaviour unique to early and modern humans among other primates is perhaps that they used fire to transform the properties of materials. In Archaeology, these processes are sometim...

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Autor principal:	Patrick Schmidt
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Springer Nature 2021
Materias:	History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Social Sciences H
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/a7c08bed2cc0405eab473fb10b36b768
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:a7c08bed2cc0405eab473fb10b36b7682021-11-21T12:28:21ZSteak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques10.1057/s41599-021-00971-y2662-9992https://doaj.org/article/a7c08bed2cc0405eab473fb10b36b7682021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00971-yhttps://doaj.org/toc/2662-9992Abstract Research into human uniqueness is gaining increasing importance in prehistoric archaeology. The most striking behaviour unique to early and modern humans among other primates is perhaps that they used fire to transform the properties of materials. In Archaeology, these processes are sometimes termed “engineering” or “transformative techniques” because they aim at producing materials with altered properties. Were such transformative techniques cognitively more demanding than other tool making processes? Were they the key factors that separated early humans, such as Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, from other hominins? Many approaches to investigating these techniques rely on their complexity. The rationale behind this is that some techniques required more steps than others, thus revealing the underlying mechanisms of human uniqueness (e.g., unique human culture). However, it has been argued that the interpretation of process complexity may be prone to arbitrariness (i.e., different researchers have different notions of what is complex). Here I propose an alternative framework for interpreting transformative techniques. Three hypotheses are derived from an analogy with well-understood processes in modern-day cuisine. The hypotheses are about i) the requirement in time and/or raw materials of transformative techniques, ii) the difficulty to succeed in conducting transformative techniques and iii) the necessity to purposefully invent transformative techniques, as opposed to discovering them randomly. All three hypotheses make testable predictions.Patrick SchmidtSpringer NaturearticleHistory of scholarship and learning. The humanitiesAZ20-999Social SciencesHENHumanities & Social Sciences Communications, Vol 8, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Social Sciences H
spellingShingle	History of scholarship and learning. The humanities AZ20-999 Social Sciences H Patrick Schmidt Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
description	Abstract Research into human uniqueness is gaining increasing importance in prehistoric archaeology. The most striking behaviour unique to early and modern humans among other primates is perhaps that they used fire to transform the properties of materials. In Archaeology, these processes are sometimes termed “engineering” or “transformative techniques” because they aim at producing materials with altered properties. Were such transformative techniques cognitively more demanding than other tool making processes? Were they the key factors that separated early humans, such as Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, from other hominins? Many approaches to investigating these techniques rely on their complexity. The rationale behind this is that some techniques required more steps than others, thus revealing the underlying mechanisms of human uniqueness (e.g., unique human culture). However, it has been argued that the interpretation of process complexity may be prone to arbitrariness (i.e., different researchers have different notions of what is complex). Here I propose an alternative framework for interpreting transformative techniques. Three hypotheses are derived from an analogy with well-understood processes in modern-day cuisine. The hypotheses are about i) the requirement in time and/or raw materials of transformative techniques, ii) the difficulty to succeed in conducting transformative techniques and iii) the necessity to purposefully invent transformative techniques, as opposed to discovering them randomly. All three hypotheses make testable predictions.
format	article
author	Patrick Schmidt
author_facet	Patrick Schmidt
author_sort	Patrick Schmidt
title	Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
title_short	Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
title_full	Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
title_fullStr	Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
title_full_unstemmed	Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques
title_sort	steak tournedos or beef wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of stone age transformative techniques
publisher	Springer Nature
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/a7c08bed2cc0405eab473fb10b36b768
work_keys_str_mv	AT patrickschmidt steaktournedosorbeefwellingtonanattempttounderstandthemeaningofstoneagetransformativetechniques
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Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques

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