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The Nature of Culture pp 79–85Cite as

Tracing Group Identity in Early Upper Paleolithic Stone and Organic Tools – Some Thoughts and Many Questions

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Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

While discussions about identity in the Upper Paleolithic usually focus on art , decorated objects, and personal ornaments , regarding style as one crucial topic, organic tools and especially stone artifacts have been considered to a much lesser degree. This paper tries to assess the significance of stone and organic tools, representing the most common archaeological record beyond art and ornaments, for establishing group identity in the early Upper Paleolithic . It starts providing a short overview of some major contributions addressing style with regard to stone artifacts and then screens the archaeological record. Problems result from the lack of an unambiguous definition of ‘style’ and from the lack of applicable parameters to decide whether differences between tools have to be interpreted in terms of different styles or rather in terms of different types . In both cases it is not clear if and in which way identity is conveyed. Both stone and organic tools appear to be weak indicators for group identity and even with data added by other artifact categories such as personal ornaments , decorated objects and art objects the chance of getting positive results is rated to be rather low for the early Upper Paleolithic.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Miriam Haidle, Jürgen Richter, and Thorsten Uthmeier for very helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Research Center “The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans”, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Rümelinstraße 23, 72070, Tübingen, Germany

    Michael Bolus

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  1. Michael Bolus
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Correspondence to Michael Bolus .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany

    Miriam N. Haidle

  2. Department of Early Prehistory and Quate, Institute of Pre- and Protohistory and M, Tübingen, Germany

    Nicholas J. Conard

  3. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Human, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Michael Bolus

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Bolus, M. (2016). Tracing Group Identity in Early Upper Paleolithic Stone and Organic Tools – Some Thoughts and Many Questions. In: Haidle, M., Conard, N., Bolus, M. (eds) The Nature of Culture. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7426-0_8

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