大象传媒

I'm having great fun rummaging around all the different pages and sites for this enterprise and am still finding my feet. some minor problems. a few days ago I came across the possibility of downloading tapescripts. I can now no longer find it. Can you direct me back to it. I'm lost in AHOW and can't find where I want to go. thanks for any help you can give.
also a question facility would be useful. I could have asked my previous Q there and not interrupted this message about something totally different. Agian is there is already one of these I can't find it... but I'm a bit of a luddite really!!

This series is just wonderful. Makes what really is dead objects come to life. Thanks from Los Angles.

Hi,

This presentation is very, very good news. I listened to the first five programs yestereve and look forward to catching up further soon.

However, as when any data from any interesting 'Thing' is introduced to the little grey cells known as mine, in a flurry of electro-chemical activity, a host of questions arise. I have no expectation that the staff of the British Museum are going to devote their time to answering these but if anyone can give answers or where they can easily, authoritatively and specifically be obtained, then I shall be grateful.

So:

i. What sort of rock is this? It is very different from the flint type of rock which I am used to associating with Palaeolithic flint tools.
ii. Because it is of that type of rock does that make it easier or less easy to work?
iii. Is it a rock local to the site where it was found?
iv. Are most of the stone tools of the same era of the same sort of rock or do they vary according to the location?
v. There is plenty of comment on how it fits to the hand but how well does it fit to a child鈥檚 hand, or am I wrong in my understanding that that would approximate the stature of the hominids of the time?

Hi,

Following on from my queries arising from looking at and listening to the presentation about chopping tool, These thoughts bug me on the Olduvai handaxe 1.2 - 1.4 million years-old, would anyone care to enlighten me?

i. Is the 鈥榟ard, green lava called phonolite鈥� from which it was made, local to the site where it was found?
ii. My understanding is that it is a general feature of these tools, throughout their million year history and worldwide distribution, that they are sharp down both long edges. (Cf. a BM Highlight which is the Hoxne handaxe Lower Palaeolithic, about 400,000 years ago, from Hoxne, Suffolk, England.) If this is so then it surely negates the comment by Sir Dyson that this is an impractical tool and probably for show. However he is obviously right to say that it looks remarkably difficult to grasp firmly to strike something with it. How is this explained?
iii. Have they been inspected to see if there is any evidence of their being grasped by a hand protected by some material?
iv. As the commentary says it is a puzzlement as to how this style of implement became so widely spread but does it also suggest that the evolution of the hominid features which it supported, e.g., of diet, was less during that million years than during the previous half-million?

Hi,

Would anyone venture to express an idea on these puzzlements to me.

Swimming reindeer About 13,000 years-old
i. It is a considerable leap, even for a deer, from the one-million-plus era to about ten thousand years ago. Is it thought that the distribution of the findings of artefacts reflects the hominid population density, or the ways in which individuals were clustered, and that that changed considerably either according to the area they were in or the period?
ii. If so, did those changes show some form of progression?
iii. This is the first of these 鈥楬undred Things鈥� where the following applies. When the presenter waxes lyrical about the skills and artistry of the creator of the artefact I hear a strange buzzing in my ears. This is caused by the rapid rotation of a Brian Sewell ancestor who was reasonably contemporary with said craftsman and is saying: 鈥� You can not be serious. You have obviously no idea of the wonders created by Afthah and Btijkaon in the nearby hills of Kniabtock. They really do show something of the concerns of the time when the Nomkivol were closing in on these pathetic examples of out-dated peasantry.鈥� Does this sort of experience bother anyone else?
iv. Is the presentation of these reindeer antlers as lying along the back accurate observation or artistic licence, enforced by the nature of the material? Obviously those of the Caribou pictured would not do so if his nose were at water level.

Hi,

The following wraps up, you may be glad to know, what has intrigued me most about the first weeks presentations of this excellent series. I'll be pleased to see any slight enlightenment on:

Clovis spear point About 13,000 years-old
i. I have a problem with the explanation of when and how homo sapiens entered the North American continent:
During the last Ice Age, water, which previously flowed off the land into the sea, was frozen up in vast ice sheets and glaciers so sea levels dropped. This exposed a land bridge that enabled humans to migrate through Siberia to Alaska.
My problem is that when the ice sheets were reducing the water levels they reached below fifty-five degrees north over northern Europe to more recent dates than 13,000 B.C. Alaska reaches out to Siberia and/or vice versa well north of that (the Bering Strait is at sixty-eight degrees north). Where was there a land bridge that wasn鈥檛 covered by massive ice sheets?
ii. Is it thought that however and whenever homo sapiens reached North America, he then invented to clovis point style of tool? If he had done so before he made this migration it will presumably be found in the areas of Asia from whence he came. Has it been? If it was invented after he arrived, is there a known reason?
iii. Obviously the impact of homo sapiens on the larger herbivores is an early instance of his substantial effect on the ecosystems he entered. When a bunch of lads and lasses had slain such a large beast was there not some competition for access to the carcass? In the African savannah of today you would not be able to sit back to enjoy the After Mints when you had gorged yourself without some very serious heavy breathing in your ear. What evidence is there as to how they remedied this situation?

Answers to questions about the Olduvai chopping tool from rfastjr from Jill Cook, Curator at BM.
The chopping tool is made of basalt, a dark greyish, black volcanic lava. It is harder to work than flint and has a slightly coarser texture. Basalt is found in the area of site on which this was found but some materials have been carried from sources up to 15 miles away.The materials used for toolmaking apart from basalt include other types of lava, quartzite and quartz. The proportion of each may vary from location to location but all are present at most localities.
We have little evidence to judge hand size on because the little bones in the hands and feet so rarely survive in the fossil record. However,despite their slghtly smaller stature, hominin hands were not smaller than ours and certainly above child-size. Remember that chimpanzees have been taught to use chopping tools and the fit is the same as for one of us.
Hope this helps.
Jill

Reply to rfastjr questions on Olduvai handaxe from Jill Cook BM curator:
The phonolite is found in the area of the site. Although most of the many thousands of handaxes made over a long period of time were good, efficient tools, some are extremely large and on many the quality of the finish adds nothing to its functional efficiency. The suggestion made in the programme is that this things are more about communicating ideas than being entirely task efficient.The big Olduvai handaxe has a good, staright low angled edge which would slice meat well but a smaller, less well finished handaxe would do the job equally,if not more effectively. The absence of chipping on the edges indicates that it was not used as a hammer. The hand might have been protected by a piece of leather but this leaves not evidence and hands hardened to outdoor life are not as soft as ours.
Hope this helps
Jill

More for rfastjr from Jill Cook BM curator:
You must remember that we only have 100 objects for the whole of human history. Like most curators, I could have chosen 100 pieces to reflect just the early collections but we can only present key items. Of course, it is a big leap from over a million ago to 13,000 years ago and much has happened in between. The reindeer remind us of this very fact. By 10,000 years ago fully modern people with brains like our own have spread out around the world with the exception of some Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Antarctica. The capacity to adapt to so many different environments comes about through our unique intelligence and our ability to shape the world around us through things and cope mentally by using our imaginations.
Jill

Answer to rfastjr about the swimming reindeer from Jill Cook BM curator:
The rounded shape of the reindeer antler antlers show that this is the Arctic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus). The male antlers are the correct length on the sculpture but they do not branch as much as in life - this is artistic licence which allows us to see a big stag without depicting the complete antler. To have done this and shown the antlers raised of the back the artist would have had to make the sculpture much smaller. For example, the sculpture of a standing horse in ivory with its legs carved out in the round measures only 7cms. With the reindeer, the artistic has been more ingenious in carving a natural scene which made the best use of the raw material.
This object is currently on display in a special exhibition in Room 3 just inside the main door of the museum and you will find pictures of how it was made on the website.
Jill

Another answer for rfastjr from Jill Cook BM curator:
The land bridge between Siberia and North America was acors what is now the Bering Strait and as dry land it is known Beringia. The land emerged as global sea levels dropped in response to cooling. Despite its latitude, Beringia remained ice free because the predominant southwest winds coming up from the Pacific pass up over and shed rain/snow on the Alaskan mountain ranges. By the time they hit Beringia, they are dry. Without precipitation there could be no ice sheet but at the Glacial Maximum conditions were extremely hostile to life.
The distinctive Clovis point form was probably invented in America based on types used in ancestral lands. As northeast Siberia and the adjacent regions are sparsely populated and have been difficult to explore, relatively little is known about their archaeology. Some point forms which may be relevant are known but much more research is needed to trace Clovis origins.
Yes, wolves, sabre toothed cats and bears would all show an interest in an easy lunch and tooth marks from such predators are found on the remains of human kills. Fire, weapons, care and cunning were probably the best protection.
Jill