Stoneworking Modes A-I and Stone Tools in Human Evolution (updates)

This "Updated" file below summarizes and Stoneworking Modes A-I and presents any updates to that framework for describing large-scale lithic technological variability (Shea 2013 -also presented below).

October 1, 2013: Added a new, provisional, framework for describing variation among artifacts referable to Mode E3. This is, for now, mainly intended as an aid to New World prehistorians.  I will write this up and submit it to a journal at some point in the near future.  Meanwhile, suggestions for improvements are welcome.

April 28, 2014: Added an update to Modes A-I, recognized two new sub-modes of Mode D (D5 points, D6 tanged pieces) and subdivided F2 recurrent bifacial hierarchical cores into laminar (F2) and radial/centripetal (F3) variants.

November 26, 2014:  Replaced text in previous update with draft text from forthcoming book, Stone Tools in Human Evolution.  Added new sub-mode, D7 (cores-on-flakes).

March 8, 2015: Have modified the definition of Mode D4 from a size cutoff of <5 cm to <3 cm to align it more with current practices by other archaeologists.

January 3, 2016.  Added new Submodes for Mode 1 Groundstone Tools.

November 7, 2016.  Published Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates. This work uses Lithic Modes A-I to test hypotheses about the origins of behavioral differences between humans and non-human primates.

This file contains the data on occurrences of Modes among lithic assemblages  in Appendix 3.

December 2018.  I have decided to stop referring to Modes A-I as "Shea Modes A-I," and instead describe them as "Stoneworking Modes A-I." This makes the choice of whether or not to use them a bit less personal.  It also aligns well with my preference for using the term, "stoneworking" rather than "flintknapping," for stone tool production and use.  Flintknapping  references an Industrial Era craft (gunflint makers) and a modern craft/hobby, whereas stoneworking is a more inclusive term.

January 2020.  My book, Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide, is in press.  This book uses Stoneworking Modes A-I (including new submodes for Mode I) to describe data for more than 250 Eastern African lithic assemblages dating from 3.4 Million years ago to the end of the Iron Age.  This database is too large to fit in the book, so the publisher, Cambridge University Press had generously offered to post it on their webpage for the book.  I post include both MS Word.doc and MS Excel.xls versions of this database.

May 2020.  Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide is published.

March 2023.  Apparently, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology decided to borrow the term I coined for the Stone Tools in Human Evolution book, "technological primates," for the Lise Meitner Group Technological Primates Research Group.  I am not affiliated with said research group.

Stone Tools in Human Evolution Errata: 

Figure 4.3  I have uploaded a fixed version of Figure 4.3 below.  (I mistakenly sent an earlier draft of this figure with the final book artwork.)  The caption should read as follows:  Locations of important Plio-Pleistocene sites, the regions in which chimpanzees are currently found (shaded area bounded by dashed line), and chimpanzee stone-tool-use sites.  When I revise the book, I will swap in this figure.

Back cover: A last-minute production change resulted in different images used as cover art than those originally intended.  The artifacts shown are not from Omo Kibish, Ethiopia, but rather selected examples of “extreme” flintknapping (Chapter 7, Box 7, Page 176).  They are (left to right) a long core-tool from Mantes, France, thinned bifaces from Le Volgü, Frances, a fluted points and fluted point perform from the Fenn Cache, and a thinned biface from Byblos, Lebanon.

Page 131, Table 7.4, Left column, “Murray Springs, New Mexico” should read, “Murray Springs, Arizona”.

November 13, 2016. Modes A-I raw data used in Stone Tools in Human Evolution posted below (read only .xls file).

May 2, 2017. Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide is under contract with Cambridge University Press.  This book  uses Modes A-I to synthesize the lithic evidence from 268 Eastern African archaeological sites dating from 3.4 million years ago to Iron Age times.

June, 2017. In revising Modes A-I for use in forthcoming book, Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide, I have eliminated size cutoffs for definitions of artifacts referable to different modes. I thank Justin Pargeter for suggesting this.

October 13, 2017.  Published John J. Shea (2017) Occasional, Obligatory, and Habitual Stone Tool Use in Hominin Lithic Technology.  Evolutionary Anthropology 26: 200-217.  This work uses Modes A-I..