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

The paper begins by addressing the ongoing debate surrounding human uniqueness in prehistoric archaeology. Early models focused on a late onset of behavioral modernity, defined by specific artifact categories. However, this has been criticized for inconsistencies and methodological issues. Alternative concepts like behavioral variability, metaplasticity, and complex cognition have emerged, but lack a quantitative means of comparing behaviors. The paper introduces "transformative techniques," which involve altering material properties (e.g., heat treating stone, reddening ochre, making glue) rather than just shape. These are distinguished from simple shape transformations of raw materials. The author argues that understanding these transformative techniques is crucial for understanding the development of human uniqueness and cultural evolution, but existing approaches based on complexity are often subjective. The paper aims to provide a framework for quantitatively comparing transformative techniques, based on an analogy with modern cooking.

The introduction reviews several existing theories attempting to explain human uniqueness, including the now-refuted concept of a late onset of behavioral modernity and more recent alternatives such as behavioral variability, metaplasticity, and complex cognition. The paper notes that while these theories offer valuable insights into the processes involved in specific artifacts or behaviors, they lack a standardized, quantifiable way to compare different behaviors and their significance in defining human uniqueness. The review also establishes the significance of transformative techniques in Stone Age archaeology and highlights the challenges in understanding their development and cultural implications due to the lack of understanding of the involved processes.

The core methodology is an analogy between cooking techniques (steak tournedos vs. beef Wellington) and Stone Age transformative techniques. The author identifies three key differences between preparing these dishes: 1. **Resource and Time Investment:** Beef Wellington requires more ingredients and preparation time than steak tournedos. 2. **Difficulty and Risk:** Beef Wellington has a higher chance of failure due to the complexity and less immediate feedback during the process compared to the steak's readily observable cooking progress. 3. **Purposeful Invention:** Beef Wellington is likely a later invention, building upon pre-existing techniques, while searing might be an older, more readily discovered technique. These differences are translated into three testable hypotheses for Stone Age techniques: 1. **Hypothesis 1 (Resource Investment):** Some transformative techniques require greater time and resource investment than other contemporaneous techniques. 2. **Hypothesis 2 (Technological Evolution):** Some transformative techniques reflect a higher degree of technical evolution than others, indicating a potential for cultural transmission and cumulative culture. 3. **Hypothesis 3 (Fidelity Copying):** Fire-based transformative techniques involving invisible processes may require higher fidelity copying than other techniques. The author suggests ways to test these hypotheses using archaeological evidence and experimental replication. This involves quantifying time and resource needs, analyzing chemical markers to identify production pathways, and comparing success rates of different techniques between experts and novices.

The paper does not present original archaeological or experimental data. Instead, it focuses on proposing a new framework for interpreting existing data. The key findings are the three hypotheses formulated based on the cooking analogy and the suggested methodologies for testing them. The author emphasizes that quantifying the complexity of Stone Age techniques through the number of steps is problematic due to the difficulty of ascertaining the actual number of steps used in the past. The suggested approach focuses on observable proxies such as time and resource investment, success rates, and evidence of technological evolution.

The proposed framework offers an alternative to the often arbitrary interpretation of complexity in Stone Age techniques. By focusing on measurable aspects such as time investment, success rate, and evidence of cumulative culture, the hypotheses provide a more quantitative and less subjective method for comparing different techniques. This approach allows researchers to evaluate the significance of transformative techniques in human evolution more objectively. The implications of supporting these hypotheses would suggest that some transformative techniques were more valuable, technically advanced, and reliant on cultural transmission than other techniques.

The paper concludes by summarizing the three hypotheses and outlining the methodological steps needed for future research to test them. The author argues that this approach, while focusing on more limited aspects compared to broader discussions of behavioral modernity, provides a solid foundation for understanding the importance of transformative techniques in the context of testable data. This approach helps to better understand the role of these technologies in shaping human evolution.

The primary limitation is that the paper does not present new empirical data. The hypotheses are proposed as a theoretical framework for future research. Testing these hypotheses will require significant further archaeological investigation and experimental work to gather data on the required time, resources, and success rates of different techniques in various contexts. The interpretation of evidence for technological evolution might also be context-dependent and require careful consideration of various factors influencing technological change.