Blowing Leaves in Archaeology—The Multidimensionality of Technological Complexity in Human Origins Research

Abstract

Technological complexity has been a continuous trope in archaeological research from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. Based on a concept of unidirectional cultural evolution, archaeological material was ordered along a linear progression from simple to complex. While creating hierarchies of extant populations based on the complexity of their tools is not overtly practiced in archaeology anymore, the same is not true for the deep past. The concept of behavioural modernity and research on human cognitive evolution is still partly founded on technological complexity. The turn away from technological complexity to symbolic behaviour in pursuing questions surrounding behavioural modernity and humanness was less a reaction to criticisms of the concept but served to maintain the hierarchical ranking between modern humans and extinct hominins. Here, we propose an alternative view on technological complexity that attempts to overcome linear hierarchies and lingering progressivist notions. By reviewing several measures of complexity alongside their analytical units and underlying definitions, we show that technological complexity is not suitable for creating a single hierarchy of artefacts, assemblages, or hominin species. The multitude of existing definitions, methods, and measures does not imply a fundamental flaw in these approaches but exemplifies the multidimensionality of technological complexity. We propose a new way of understanding multiple, justified measures for technological complexity through a heterarchical structure that allows various kinds of ranking to exist depending on context, need, scale, or function, including the potential for competing or even contradictory hierarchies. A heterarchical perspective on technological complexity asks ‘How were technologies or hominins complex?’ rather than ‘How complex were technologies and hominins relative to another?’ This approach can shed persistent historical bias and overcome simplistic dichotomies such as ‘us’ and ‘them’ in deep-time archaeology that hinder our ability to engage with questions about the becoming of humans in a meaningful way.