Finn Stileman
@finnstileman.bsky.social
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Archaeologist & PhD candidate @ University of Cambridge He/him
reposted by
Finn Stileman
James Clark
about 1 month ago
I am delighted to share our new paper on measuring complexity across the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic records, with an amazing team of co-authors - including the excellent
@lucytimbrell96.bsky.social
and
@ceciliapad.bsky.social
! Short 🧵 below /1
doi.org/10.1007/s108...
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The Tool Systems Approach: Measuring Complexity in the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic Records - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
Measuring technological complexity across species, as well as across temporal and spatial scales, is an ongoing challenge among authors who work on primatological, archaeological, and/or ethnographic questions. Researchers in these individual fields have developed a number of innovative ways of approaching this issue that reflect the specific affordances of their data with a known set of limitations. However, comparability between these approaches is often difficult. One such field-specific approach is the techno-unit method of Oswalt et al. (1976), which has had a massive impact on our interpretation of ethnographic technology over the fifty years since its publication. Nevertheless, this method has issues with its compression of variability and the different pathways to “complexity”. Here, we review a number of different ways technological complexity has been measured in non-human primates, the archaeological record, and modern human foragers, in order to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. We suggest that the approach deployed in any given study should continue to follow the data and research questions under consideration, but that we lack an easily-applicable method that allows explicit comparisons between fields of study. In this context, we introduce the Tool Systems Approach as one possible way of doing so, which decomposes tool manufacture into its constituent steps (i.e., Tool Systems Total) and discrete forms of action (i.e., Total Discrete Actions). We apply the approach to a number of different technologies across the three fields, to explore the practicalities of its application, as well as its limitations. Plotting these different technologies with regards to their maximum complexity through time reveals trends that may map onto important changes in cognitive evolution, which are also reflected in ever-growing variability in the complexity of individual artefacts. The ramifications for the study of technological complexity as a whole are discussed.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09779-z
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Out today making handaxes for an upcoming experiment. Always surprised by the frequency of canonical ‘blades’ - a useful reminder to not rely too heavily on typology!
about 1 month ago
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Been playing with clay silver which is magic! Here’s a ring impressed with a 13th century seal I found when I was a kid
about 1 month ago
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Casts are too expensive so I am making terracotta skulls instead - this one with the help of Levallois flakes!
2 months ago
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New open access paper 🎉🎉 Acheulean Expediency Potential: Handaxe Manufacturing Costs, Covariates and Skill
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
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Acheulean Expediency Potential: Handaxe Manufacturing Time Costs, Covariates and Skill
Despite decades of replicative experiments, the fundamental question “how long did it take to make an Acheulean handaxe” remains poorly understood. Archaeologists routinely base influential Pleisto...
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01977261.2026.2633089
2 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Katerina Harvati
4 months ago
The artwork that illustrated our PNAS paper on the oldest wooden tools was made by Gleiver Prieto, who has also worked with me on illustrations for previous projects, including the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of Marathousa 1. Gleiver's art really brings Pleistocene Megalopolis to life ✨ 🤩
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Annemieke Milks
4 months ago
It was such a privilege to get to work on this amazing material from an incredible site and team - now the earliest handheld wooden tools in the archaeological record, taking evidence back to 430,000 years!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Evidence for the earliest hominin use of wooden handheld tools found at Marathousa 1 (Greece) | PNAS
The Middle Pleistocene (MP; ca. 774 to 129 ka) marks a critical period of human evolution, characterized by increasing behavioral complexity and th...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2515479123
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Nature Portfolio
4 months ago
Early humans in central China may have been making sophisticated stone tools as early as 160,000 years ago, according to research in Nature Communications. This discovery challenges the perception that stone tool technology in Asia lagged behind Europe and Africa during this period. 🏺 🧪
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Technological innovations and hafted technology in central China ~160,000–72,000 years ago - Nature Communications
Stone tools illustrate behavioural complexities in Middle Pleistocene hominin populations. Here, the authors present small dimensional flakes and hafted tools from Xigou, central China, dated to ~160–72 thousand years ago that demonstrate early, complex technological advancements.
https://go.nature.com/4q8av3n
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes
4 months ago
🧪🏺 WOWWWW New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications: - nature of early aesthetics, innovations - relationship to oldest known Australian settlement? - and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of
#Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi - Nature
A hand stencil painted on a cave wall on a small island off the coast of Sulawesi more than 67,800 years ago suggests a very early occupation of Wallacea.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09968-y
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My mum just came back from a walk around a field with this, saying it’s probably not old but she wanted to show me just in case. It’s an early medieval stirrup mount! Landowner contacted and shortly off to local Finds Liaison Officer! Always worth keeping one eye on the ground!
4 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Dr Matt Pope
4 months ago
More Breaking Palaeo-news! 🐘 Boxgrove preserved oldest Elephant Bone beyond Africa. 🐘 Early Neanderthals using bone to shape beautiful tools. 🐘 New research from Simon Parfitt
@uclarchaeology.bsky.social
Silvia Bello of the
@nhm-london.bsky.social
. 🦣🏺🐘https://share.google/20WUjY5TybDAr4QoT
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Prehistoric tool made from elephant bone is the oldest discovered in Europe
A remarkable prehistoric hammer made from elephant bone, dating back nearly half a million years ago, has been uncovered in southern England and analyzed by archaeologists from UCL and the Natural His...
https://share.google/20WUjY5TybDAr4QoT
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Annemieke Milks
6 months ago
Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear.....
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
UoL EvoAnth Seminar Series
6 months ago
Please join us next week, Thursday 13h November, for our next talk. We will be joined by Finn Stileman, University of Cambridge. More details 👇 Please register here: liverpool-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/regi... We hope to see you there!
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Cambridge Archaeology
7 months ago
📣 PUBLISHED OPEN ACCESS 📣 An international team, including our own Finn Stileman, have published a new study in Nature Communications on a monumental rock art tradition in northern Arabia dating between 12,800 and 11,400 years ago.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
📸
@finnstileman.bsky.social
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Michael Petraglia
8 months ago
New discovery! Here
@mariaguagnin.bsky.social
and our team report on 12,000-year-old life-size camel rock art engravings in the Saudi desert.
#GreenArabia
@griffith.edu.au
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Maria Guagnin
8 months ago
Our new paper is out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
12,000 year old camel engravings marked water sources in the desert. A great team effort
@mdpetraglia.bsky.social
@finnstileman.bsky.social
@stewiestewart.bsky.social
et al!
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Monumental rock art illustrates that humans thrived in the Arabian Desert during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition | Nature Communications
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63417-y
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Was great to present a poster at
#ESHE2025
!
8 months ago
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Happy to share the first paper from my PhD! Open access in a special issue of JAS, 'The Mind in Deep Time: Interdisciplinary explorations of cognitive evolution' When less is more: risk, reward and optimisation in Acheulean handaxe manufacture and the impact of skill
share.google/hj43OR6QWXtc...
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When less is more: risk, reward and optimisation in Acheulean handaxe manufacture and the impact of skill
As the most numerous manifestations of technology across the Palaeolithic record, linking stone tool artefacts to past hominin cognition and expertise…
https://share.google/hj43OR6QWXtckeDWG
8 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
James Clark
9 months ago
Thrilled to share our latest article on the Lower Palaeolithic occupation of Fordwich Pit, Old Park - including at least one likely glacial occupation in MIS12!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Hominin glacial-stage occupation 712,000 to 424,000 years ago at Fordwich Pit, Old Park (Canterbury, UK) - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The authors report Acheulean hominin occupation of eastern Britain during glacial marine isotope stages 17–16 and again in glacial marine isotope stage 12 via stone tools in sediments dated to 712,000...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-025-02829-x
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More ceramics! So fun to work with!
10 months ago
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Picked up a stone-textured dish at a pottery market that perfectly nests a porcelain handaxe; makes me think of the tool latent within a nodule before being shaped to fruition
10 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes
11 months ago
🏺🧪🦣
#Neanderthal
Fat Factory! V. exciting to see new, massive evidence of this grease-rendering behaviour which we've long believed was going on. (someone once commented I use the word "fat/fatty" a lot in the narrative/poetic sections of
#Kindred
, THIS IS WHY)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA)
11 months ago
#Neanderthals
Ran “Fat Factories” 125,000 Years Ago. Groundbreaking discovery by
@paleomonrepos.bsky.social
@unileiden.bsky.social
@leizarchaeology.bsky.social
and the LDA in Saxony reveals large-scale fat processing by Neanderthals:
idw-online.de/de/news854632
#archaeology
#paleolithic
#prehistory
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Neanderthals Ran “Fat Factories” 125,000 Years Ago
https://idw-online.de/de/news854632
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My latest weekend pastime has been to model clay replicas for my little museum! Particularly fond of the Neanderthal (La Ferrassie 1) skull!
11 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Chris Stringer
11 months ago
40,000-year-old mammoth tusk boomerang is oldest in Europe — and possibly the world
www.livescience.com/archaeology/...
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Stone Age boomerang is oldest in Europe — and possibly the world
A new analysis of a carved mammoth tusk first discovered four decades ago reveals it may be the world's oldest boomerang.
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/40-000-year-old-mammoth-tusk-boomerang-is-oldest-in-europe-and-possibly-the-world
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Ellery Littlewood
11 months ago
Finally got round to finishing this drawing of a 300,000 year old
#handaxe
from Stoke Newington, London, found by S.H. Warren in 1894. Now this little-un, along with others from Stoke Newington that I've drawn, lives at the British Museum
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Chris Stringer
11 months ago
'Scientists discovered a new kind of human with its pinkie bone. Now we have a skull'
www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...
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This is the first ever confirmed skull of a Denisovan
Finally, we can put a face on a Denisovan.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/controversial-dragon-man-skull-confirmed-to-be-a-denisovan
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Tomos Proffitt
11 months ago
Calling all palaeolithic archaeologists. Come and work with me on a really exciting new survey and excavation project in Uganda:
euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/348570
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INTERNATIONAL TENDER FOR THE RECRUITMENT OF A POST-DOCTORAL ASSOCIATE RESEARCHER
International tender to recruit one (1) ) post-doctoral initial level researcher to perform duties in the scientific area of Palaeolithic Archaeology or related areas, under the research project “ERC ...
https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/348570
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And here's the scan from the same handaxe! A razor (tranchet sharpened) tip!
11 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Alice Roberts
12 months ago
Giant egos, hidden fossils and Machiavellian scheming in the academy - in this tale about what might (or might not) be the oldest hominin. A thrilling read!
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
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The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/27/the-curse-of-toumai-ancient-skull-disputed-femur-feud-humanity-origins
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Spent the day with master flint knapper, John Lord, to 3D scan handaxes. Some were made by him, but this one was collected from a quarry spoil heap at Lynford and dates to 65,000 years ago! Fresh as the day it was made!
11 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Ellery Littlewood
12 months ago
More delightful flint fingerprints, c.300,000 years old.
#handaxe
#lowerpalaeolithic
#illustration
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes
12 months ago
🧪 But seriously, this one study has more clear creations of form as a means of 'marking' a medium (in this case, water) than we have for the entirety of the
#Neanderthal
archaeological record. If they can control the shape enough to make the perfect O, then the other forms may be intentional too?
add a skeleton here at some point
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Been trying my hand lately at the 'coup de tranchet' ("slicing blow") technique that's famously abundant on Boxgrove handaxes. A tricky detail that testifies to complex cultural transmission 500,000 years ago!
add a skeleton here at some point
11 months ago
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A wet knapping session with intresting flint! Any ideas what the inclusion could be??
12 months ago
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My favourite thing to make has always been handaxes! This making process is my central research interest; how do knapping kits affect tool forms, and what drives hammer choice? Can we infer cultural variation not only from handaxes but also from the broader technologies that support flint knapping?
12 months ago
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reposted by
Finn Stileman
ICArEHB
12 months ago
Don't miss it — Dr Eduardo Paixão's
#LEXA
seminar is this Tuesday, 3 June at 14:00 WEST! 🪓 Join us on Zoom!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Finally abandoned 'X' and back to sharing some knapping! I've got some lovely vibrant flint left over from experiments to play with!
12 months ago
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