Towards Quantifying Teaching and Learning in Prehistory Using Stone Artifact Reduction Sequences

Abstract

While the prehistoric contexts of social learning have proven problematic to reconstruct, stone tools now appear to provide scope for examining teaching and learning technology in the past. This paper reviews research into social learning, with a focus on stone tools and reflects on the status and exciting future for this avenue of research. With reference to a case study of pressure flaked bifaces from north Western Australia, a new approach to quantifying levels of time invested into teaching and learning from stone tool assemblages is proposed. Procedural units identified within reduction sequences, accompanied by a model of the length of description of regularities within that sequence, can provide a quantified value of the relative time invested into teaching and learning technology. The value of this approach is discussed with existing modes of technological organization theory, and novel modes of teaching and learning contexts are proposed.