This text gives an overview of how lithic technology studies have approached the topic of finding and interpreting the work of children in lithic assemblages. It focuses on examples from Scandinavian and European contexts. A selection of published studies is presented. Methods used in lithic technology studies and results from these studies are discussed. Achievements made and obstacles that still needs to be resolved by future research are discussed.

The future has seldom been an object of archaeological study even though there are some very profound and deep-reaching links between past, present, and future. At the same time, archaeologists work to preserve places, environments, and associated values and knowledge for future generations. But although it is not far-fetched to claim that the future will differ from what we are used to in the present, in managing archaeological heritage, most assumptions about the future do not build on an understanding of how the future will be different from today. We argue in this paper that archaeologists should not only promote historical consciousness but also future consciousness.

Although it is sometimes suggested that modern-day chimpanzee nut-cracking behaviour is cognitively similar to early stone-tool-knapping behaviour, few systematic comparative studies have tested this assumption. Recently, two further techno-behaviours were reported that could both represent intermediary phases in hominin cognitive evolution pertaining to our ultimate technological astuteness. These behaviours are that of bearded capuchin monkeys pounding rocks and very early stone-tool knapping from Lomekwi 3. Here we use a multi-model approach to directly compare cognitive aspects required for 11 techno-behaviours, ranging from the simplest capuchin pounding behaviour to the most complex chimpanzee nut-cracking and Lomekwi 3 knapping behaviours. We demonstrate a marked difference in broad-spectrum cognitive requirements between capuchin pounding on the one hand and Lomekwian bipolar knapping on the other. Whereas the contrast is less pronounced between chimpanzee nut-cracking scenarios and basic passive-hammer knapping at Lomekwi 3, the escalation in cognitive requirement between nut cracking and bipolar knapping is a good indication that early hominin flaking techniques are cognitively more taxing than chimpanzee nut-cracking behaviour today.

The Still Bay, with its carefully crafted bifacial points, is one of the most enigmatic technocomplexes in the later Middle Stone Age of the southern African subcontinent. Heat treatment of silcrete has been documented in the Still Bay but it has recently been suggested that its application was restricted to the later stages of the production of points. This would confer a special role to heat treatment in the Still Bay if compared to the following Howiesons Poort technocomplex. In this paper, we analyse the silcrete assemblage from Hollow Rock Shelter for heating proxies to provide a first picture of the prevalence of heat treatment in the Still Bay and to investigate whether points were treated differently in terms of heat treatment than other end-products. Our results show no evidence of later-stage heat treatment but, on the contrary, comprehensive data to support heat treatment in an early stage of reduction. Relatively less silcrete was heated in the Still Bay than in later Howiesons Poort, revealing technological differences between both phases. We found a significant number of silcrete pieces that exploded during heat treatment and were still knapped afterwards, indicating a heating process that involved fast heating rates. We also found that points were not treated differently than the other end-products. These findings have implications for our understanding of the fabrication of bifacial points and the Still Bay chaîne opératoire in general.

In this contribution, we address a major puzzle in the evolution of human material culture: If matur-ing individuals just learn their parental generation’s material culture, then what is the origin of keyinnovations as documented in the archeological record? We approach this question by coupling alife-history model of the costs and benefits of experimentation with a niche-construction perspec-tive. Niche-construction theory suggests that the behavior of organisms and their modification ofthe world around them have important evolutionary ramifications by altering developmentalsettings and selection pressures. Part ofHomo sapiens’niche is the active provisioning of childrenwith play objects—sometimes functional miniatures of adult tools—and the encouragement ofobject play, such as playful knapping with stones. Our model suggests that salient material cultureinnovation may occur or be primed in a late childhood or adolescence sweet spot when cognitiveand physical abilities are sufficiently mature but before the full onset of the concerns and costsassociated with reproduction. We evaluate the model against a series of archeological cases andmake suggestions for future research.