Bargalló Amèlia, Mosquera Marina, Lozano Sergi
University College London, Institute Archaeology, London, Great Britain, UK.
Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain; IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social, Tarragona, Spain.
J Hum Evol. 2017 Oct;111:18-32. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2017.06.001. Epub 2017 Jul 27.
The aim of this paper is to apply a previously published method (Bargalló and Mosquera, 2014) to the archaeological record, allowing us to identify the hand laterality of our ancestors and determine when and how this feature, which is exhibited most strongly in humans, appeared in our evolutionary history. The method focuses on identifying handedness by looking at the technical features of the flakes produced by a single knapper, and discovering how many flakes are required to ascertain their hand preference. This method can potentially be applied to the majority of archaeological sites, since flakes are the most abundant stone tools, and stone tools are the most widespread and widely-preserved remains from prehistory. For our study, we selected two Spanish sites: Gran Dolina-TD10.1 (Atapuerca) and Abric Romaní (Barcelona), which were occupied by pre-Neanderthal and Neanderthal populations, respectively. Our analyses indicate that a minimum number of eight flakes produced by the same knapper is required to ascertain their hand preference. Even though this figure is relatively low, it is quite difficult to obtain from many archaeological sites. In addition, there is no single technical feature that provides information about handedness, instead there is a combination of eight technical features, localised on the striking platforms and ventral surfaces. The raw material is not relevant where good quality rocks are used, in this case quartzite and flint, since most of them retain the technical features required for the analysis. Expertise is not an issue either, since the technical features analysed here only correlate with handedness (Bargalló and Mosquera, 2014). Our results allow us to tentatively identify one right-handed knapper among the pre-Neanderthals of level TD10.1 at Gran Dolina (Atapuerca), while four of the five Neanderthals analysed from Abric Romaní were right-handed. The hand preference of the fifth knapper from that location (AR5) remains unclear.
本文的目的是将先前发表的一种方法（巴尔加洛和莫斯克拉，2014年）应用于考古记录，以便我们能够确定祖先的用手习惯，并确定这一在人类中表现最为明显的特征是在何时以及如何出现在我们的进化史上的。该方法侧重于通过观察单个敲击者制造的石片的技术特征来识别用手习惯，并确定需要多少石片才能确定其用手偏好。这种方法有可能应用于大多数考古遗址，因为石片是最丰富的石器，而石器是史前时期分布最广且保存最完好的遗迹。在我们的研究中，我们选择了两个西班牙遗址：格兰多利纳 - TD10.1（阿塔普尔卡）和阿布里克罗马尼（巴塞罗那），它们分别被前尼安德特人和尼安德特人群体占据。我们的分析表明，要确定同一个敲击者的用手偏好，至少需要八个石片。尽管这个数字相对较低，但从许多考古遗址获取这个数量的石片相当困难。此外，没有单一的技术特征能提供关于用手习惯的信息，而是有八个技术特征的组合，这些特征位于打击面和腹面上。在使用优质岩石（在这种情况下是石英岩和燧石）时，原材料无关紧要，因为它们中的大多数保留了分析所需的技术特征。专业知识也不是问题，因为这里分析的技术特征仅与用手习惯相关（巴尔加洛和莫斯克拉，2014年）。我们的结果使我们能够初步确定在格兰多利纳（阿塔普尔卡）TD10.1层的前尼安德特人中，有一名右利手敲击者，而从阿布里克罗马尼分析的五名尼安德特人中有四名是右利手。该地点第五名敲击者（AR5）的用手偏好仍不清楚。
