What can lithics tell us about technological complexity? Reflections on and around the Hoabinhian phenomenon in the cobble world

Abstract

For a long time, scientific discussions of the behavioral, technological, cultural, and cognitive complexity of Homo sapiens have been Europe- and Africa-centered for their abundant archaeological discoveries related to behavioral modernity and cultural diversity of H. sapiens. However, the techno-cultural complexity of H. sapiens is still poorly understood in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. In the East, the Paleolithic industries are famous for the long-lasting cobble-tool industry, also called “chopper-chopping tool tradition” by Hallam L. Movius in the 1940s. Under this historical recognition, which is still widely accepted, it seems that no evident technological changes could be identified in the Paleolithic industries. In this paper, we take the Hoabinhian phenomenon as an example to question the idea of using terms like simplicity, archaism, and crudeness to describe the stone tools and paleo-cultures born in the cobble world, and also discuss the behavioral and technological complexity of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers seen in and beyond stone tools. We conclude that more integrative studies should be conducted on stone artifacts to deepen our understanding of the complexity of the Hoabinhian and other phenomena represented by the simple-looking technologies.