Determining hominid handedness in lithic debitage: a review of current methodologies

• Autores: Lana Ruck, Douglas C. Broadfield, Clifford T. Brown
• Localización: Lithic technology, ISSN 0197-7261, Vol. 40, Nº. 3, 2015, págs. 171-188
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Handedness is inextricably linked to brain lateralization and language in humans, and identifying handedness in the paleo-archaeological record is important for understanding hominid cognitive evolution. This study reports on experiments for identifying knapper handedness in lithic debitage using three previously established methods: Toth (1985), Rugg and Mullane (2001), and Bargalló and Mosquera (2013). A blind study was conducted on lithic debitage (n = 631) from Acheulean handaxes (n = 10) created by right- and left-handed subjects. Blinded handedness predictions for flakes were compared to their true handedness in order to assess each method's reliability. In order to test replicability, multiple observers classified a sample of flakes and inter-observer agreement was assessed. None of the methods were better than chance in predictive accuracy, and there were significant issues with inter-observer agreement. This study suggests that identifying knapper handedness in lithic debitage is extremely difficult, but also that some existing methodological issues may have simple solutions; suggestions for future research on this topic are provided.