The hand and thought: are pre-human and human tools special?

Conference

Published on

08 November 2018

Updated on

04 December 2018

Colloquia

Human being ? An archeology of the origins

International conference, Friday 9 and Saturday 10 November 2018, at the Muséum de Toulouse.

See the programme

International conference "Human being ? An archeology of the origins" by Vincent Mourre, Inrap

Over the course of their evolution, many animal species have gained the ability to produce and use tools. Can a line be drawn between the technical realm of the oldest representatives of humanity and that of the remaining animal world? The debate, in recent decades, has seen two main schools of thought emerge: some researchers – including many ethologists – consider that there is no break between human, pre-human and animal production; other researchers meanwhile – including many archaeologists – deem that a qualitative and quantitative leap was made very early in the technical history of our lineage. In light of recent discoveries, is it possible for an archaeologist – human – to offer an objective view in this debate?

Vincent Mourre is an archaeologist in charge of operations and research at Inrap, and researcher at the TRACES laboratory (UMR 5608, Toulouse). As a prehistorian, he specialises in the study of the stone tool industries of the Ancient and Middle Palaeolithic period. He has participated in numerous field and study missions in Africa and, since 2015, has coordinated the Franco-Chadian archaeological mission ArRéLaT.

BibliographY

HARMAND S., LEWIS J.E., FEIBEL C.S., LEPRE C.J., PRAT S., LENOBLE A., BOËS X., QUINN R.L., BRENET M., ARROYO A., TAYLOR N., CLÉMENT S., DAVER G., BRUGAL J.-P., LEAKEY L., MORTLOCK R.A., WRIGHT J.D., LOKORODI S., KIRWA C., KENT D.V., ROCHE H. - 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya, Nature, vol. 521, 2015, p. 310-315.
MOURRE V. - Émergence et évolution de la prédétermination au Paléolithique, in: Normes techniques et pratiques sociales : "de la simplicité des outillages pré- et protohistoriques ", Astruc L., Bon F., Léa V. et al. (Dir.), XXVIe Rencontres Internationales d'Archéologie et d'Histoire d'Antibes, 20 - 22 octobre 2005, Antibes-Juan-les-Pins, 2006, p. 61-74.
PROFFITT T., HASLAM M., MERCADER J.F., BOESCH C., LUNCZ L.V. - Revisiting Panda 100, the first archaeological chimpanzee nut-cracking site, Journal of Human Evolution, in press, corrected proof, doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.04.016, 2018, p. 1-21.
ROCHE H., DELAGNES A., BRUGAL J.-P., FEIBEL C., KIBUNJIA M., MOURRE V., TEXIER P.-J. - Early hominid stone tool production and technical skill 2.34 Myr ago in West Turkana, Kenya, Nature, vol. 399, 1999, p. 57-60.