Anders Högberg

Lithic technology and behavioural modernity: New results from the Still Bay site, Hollow Rock Shelter, Western Cape Province, South Africa

The Hollow Rock Shelter site in Western Cape Province, South Africa, was excavated in 1993 and 2008. This study presents new results from a technological analysis of Still Bay points and bifacial flakes from the site. The results show that Still Bay points from the site are standardized tools. The points in the assemblage consist of a complex mixture of whole and fragmented points in all phases of production. The fragmentation degree is high; approximately 80% of the points are broken. A high proportion of bending fractures shows that several of the points were discarded due to production failures, and points with impact damage or hafting traces show that used points were left in the cave. This illustrates that the production of points as well as replacement of used points took place at the site. The result also shows that worked but not finished preforms and points were left at the site, suggestive of future preparation. The points were produced within the framework of three different chaînes opératoires, all ending up in a typologically uniform tool. This shows that the manufacture of Still Bay points should be regarded as a special bifacial technology, only partly comparable with other bifacial technologies. A raw material analysis shows that locally available quartz and quartzite were used in the production, and that points made of silcrete were brought to the site. Based on the technological analysis, a discussion of behavioural modernity, focusing on hypotheses about social interaction, experimentation, different strategies for learning to knap, and landscape memories, results in an interpretation that behavioural modernity was established at Hollow Rock Shelter in the Still Bay phase of the southern African Middle Stone Age.

The Past is the Present - Prehistory and Preservation from a Children's Point of View

Abstract A historic-didactic study is presented that examines aspects of historical consciousness among 11-year-old school children who have participated in cultural environment education projects. A short description of the projects and an analysis of the results is followed by a concluding section with reflections on archaeology, and meetings with school children in the course of contract archaeological work. The results of the study show that, for the students, the past is not about then, it is about now. It is claimed that this demands a shift in focus for public archaeology within cultural environment education projects: from stories about the past told in the present to stories about the present referring to the past.

Knowing, Learning and Teaching-How Homo Became Docens

This article discusses the relation between knowing, learning and teaching in relation to early Palaeolithic technologies. We begin by distinguishing between three kinds of knowledge: knowing how, knowing what and knowing that. We discuss the relation between these types of knowledge and different forms of learning and long-term memory systems. On the basis of this analysis, we present three types of teaching: (1) helping and correcting; (2) showing; and (3) explaining. We then use this theoretical framework to suggest what kinds of teaching are required for the pre-Oldowan, the Oldowan, the early Acheulean and the late Acheulean stone-knapping technologies. As a general introductory overview to this special section, the text concludes with a brief presentation of the papers included.

The Archaeology of Teaching and the Evolution of Homo docens

Teaching is present in all human societies, while within other species it is very limited. Something happened during the evolution of Homo sapiens that also made us Homo docens—the teaching animal. Based on discussions of animal and hominin learning, we analyze the evolution of intentional teaching by a series of levels that require increasing capacities of mind reading and communication on the part of the teacher and the learner. The levels of teaching are (1) intentional evaluative feedback, (2) drawing attention, (3) demonstrating, (4) communicating concepts, and (5) explaining relations between concepts. We suggest that level after level has been added during the evolution of teaching. We demonstrate how different technologies depend on increasing sophistication in the levels of cognition and communication required for teaching them. As regards the archaeological evidence for the different levels, we argue that stable transmission of the Oldowan technology requires at least teaching by demonstration and that learning the late Acheulean hand-axe technology requires at least communicating concepts. We conclude that H. docens preceded H. sapiens.

Still Bay Point-Production Strategies at Hollow Rock Shelter and Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter and Knowledge-Transfer Systems in Southern Africa at about 80-70 Thousand Years Ago

It has been suggested that technological variations associated with Still Bay assemblages of southern Africa have not been addressed adequately. Here we present a study developed to explore regional and temporal variations in Still Bay point-production strategies. We applied our approach in a regional context to compare the Still Bay point assemblages from Hollow Rock Shelter (Western Cape) and Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter (KwaZulu-Natal). Our interpretation of the point-production strategies implies inter-regional point-production conventions, but also highlights variability and intra-regional knapping strategies used for the production of Still Bay points. These strategies probably reflect flexibility in the organisation of knowledge-transfer systems at work during the later stages of the Middle Stone Age between about 80 ka and 70 ka in South Africa.

Children, Teaching and the Evolution of Humankind

Abstract Social learning is essential for human evolution. To achieve such learning, cultural processes which trigger the development of active teaching and intergenerational transmission and accumulation of knowledge are needed. The understanding of how such systems and processes were developed over a long time is essential for our understanding of human evolution. The identification of childrens learning activities in the archaeological record is crucial for how we may develop this understanding.

No future in archaeological heritage management

ABSTRACT Although the future is mentioned frequently in overarching aims and visions, and it is a major drive in the daily work of archaeological heritage managers and indeed heritage professionals more generally, it remains unclear precisely how an overall commitment to the future can best inform specific heritage practices. It seems that most archaeologists and other heritage professionals cannot easily express how they conceive of the future they work for, and how their work will impact on that future. The future tends to remain implicit in daily practice which operates in a continuing, rolling present. The authors argue that this needs to change because present-day heritage management may be much less beneficial for the future than we commonly expect.

To renegotiate heritage and citizenship beyond essentialism

The heritage sector all through Europe and beyond is historically linked to the task of providing nations with glorious myths of origin within a metaphysical framework of essentialism. This is now shifting. With ambitions to pluralize the past, archaeology and the heritage sector are transforming within the nation state. Heritage in present-day societies has increasingly come to serve citizens with a range of cultural identities to chose from. But what is actually new in the way archaeology and the heritage sector address issues of heritage and citizenship? This text discusses how the heritage sector tends to renegotiate the essentialism of the nation state in theory, but at the same time maintain essentialism as the driving force in professional practices and interpretative frameworks. I suggest a new way for archaeology to work within another framework than essentialism. This suggestion does not go beyond the nation state, but inspires archaeology to rethink its narratives on how heritage links to citizenship.

The Heritage Sector in a Multicultural Society: A Discussion from a Swedish Perspective

The last 10 years have seen an increased awareness within heritage studies and the heritage sector concerning questions of community and identity, and heritage as a political issue within a multicultural society. This has of course influenced the way the sector addresses and works with these issues. In a recently conducted research study, I have analyzed how the Swedish heritage sector has worked with issues of heritage, identity, and heritage management in a multicultural, plural society over the last 10 years (2002–2012). Based on results from this study, I will discuss how the heritage sector understands, deals with, and works with heritage and plurality. How are the empirical and theoretical interpretations that heritage represents transformed into day-to-day work? How is cultural identity understood in relation to heritage and multiculturalism? How is this understanding manifested in management, stewardship, and administration? How is an understanding of the dynamics between the local, regional, national, and supranational demonstrated? By comparing results from the Swedish case study with global issues on heritage and identity, I will draw conclusions on issues concerning heritage politics, practices, and narratives that crystallize as urgent for the heritage sector and heritage studies to address.

Evolutionary mechanisms of teaching.

We argue that Klines analysis does not account for the evolutionary mechanisms that can explain the uniqueness of human teaching. We suggest that data should be complemented by an analysis of archaeological material with respect to what forms of teaching are required for the transmission of technologies over generations.