What Do Lithics Tell Us About Cultural Evolution? Insights From the Central African Record

Abstract

While Western historical narratives often incorporate a biased vision of human evolution—driven by a progressive view tied to a progressively evolving state of culture—this paper proposes combining archaeological lithic data with epistemological reflections to critique the modern regime of historicity, where progress is assumed as rational. The reflection begins with archaeological technological evidence from various prehistoric societies of Central Africa, spanning over a million years of lithic technologies whose evolution, notably slow, took unconventional form. The analysis of these lithic artefacts outlines a cultural mosaic among hunter-gatherers, where certain technological trajectories run counter to a universalist narrative. By their very existence, instances of technical convergence challenge the notion of an evolutionary typology—a framework that has been used for decades to underpin scenarios of prehistoric cultural evolution in Africa. This calls into question how can lithics provide a greater understanding of cultural evolution?