DISCUSSION 2: Transitions: Behavioral Change in the Early Pleistocene

Abstract

Like all periods, the Palaeolithic is subdivided into smaller units, and these tend to form the main units of study as blocks of relatively static behavior. This volume takes a different approach by focusing attention on the transitions between periods, when hominin behavior, or some component of the environment, changed over a relatively short period of time. This chapter reviews four of the volume contributions on transitions: the first looks at the earliest evidence for stone tools ca. 2.6-2.9 Ma: the second examines the transition from the Developed Oldowan of East Africa to the Early Acheulean; the third reviews the apparent coexistence of two traditions of making stone tools throughout much of the Early Palaeolithic; and the fourth examines the relationship between faunal and archeological change in the Levant. Each poses very different conceptual and methodological problems, and usefully illuminates the problems and benefits of studying transitions as phenomena in their own right.