Hafted tool technology

uman anatomy, physiology, and cognition co-evolve with technology, and hafted stone tools were a significant early development that had implications for the evolutionary trajectory of our species. Hafting enabled the introduction of stone-tipped projectile weapons, and the use of hafted tools in raw material procurement and craft activities transformed the way in which human muscles work to perform a task and the force that can be exerted during work. This facilitated the production of other objects and had diverse consequences for material culture. Stone tool hafting also features prominently in current debates about our cognitive evolution due to the planning depth and technical know-how required in the manufacture of multi-component tools and hafting adhesives.

The link between hafted tool technologies and human evolution means that reliable methods are needed for identifying once-hafted prehistoric tools. Handles and shafts were usually made from organic materials and rarely preserve archaeologically, and taphonomic bias distorts our view of earliest occurrences. At old sites as well as sites that do not favour organic preservation, stone tools are the only remaining components of hafted and composite tools.

The method developed in the 2000s by Veerle Rots for the analysis of hafting wear on lithic tools allows identifying hafted tools archaeologically and reconstructing the hafting system when the wear is sufficiently developed and preserved. This has led to significant advances in our understanding of the development of prehistoric technology and human reliance on it. In the current knowledge, hafted tools were introduced by 250 kya and used by Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans in Africa and Europe by 200 kya, with considerably older evidence being debated.

TraceoLab’s interest in hafting extends from the earliest hafted tool technologies and their development to the variability in choices made about tool hafting in different task mechanical, environmental, and social settings during more recent periods of prehistory. Our past and present archaeological research has involved studying hafted tool technologies at African MSA sites and investigating their local origins, explaining the variability in tool hafting strategies employed by Neanderthals in Europe, and detecting site-specific patterns in stone tool hafting in the Upper Palaeolithic. This work has demonstrated the considerable antiquity of hafting know-how among past populations and allowed examining hafted tool technologies in their environmental, social, and evolutionary contexts.

Hafting is a research topic that brings together various kinds of expertise: experimental archaeology, use-wear analysis, residue analysis, mechanical testing of different hafting materials, and simulation of taphonomic processes to increase the reliability of hafting wear interpretations.

Hafted tool technology

Further reading