A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine Implications for the Origins of Symbolism

A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine:Implications for the Origins of Symbolism

instruments (Turk 1997). For some proponents of thediscontinuity model, many of the objects often inter-preted as symbolic are in actuality the result ofnatural processes, e.g. carnivore activity, chemicalalterations, root marking, etc. This view has beensupported in some cases by comparing bone objectspossessing putative anthropogenic engravings or per-forations from Lower and Middle Palaeolithic siteswith bone fragments altered by known causes(Chase 1990; d’Errico 1991; d’Errico & Villa 1997;d’Errico et al. 1998b). In addition, discontinuityproponents argue that, even if humanly made, someobjects described as ‘symbolic’ by the gradualistscan have a purely utilitarian function (Chase & Dib-ble 1992). The paucity and uniqueness of these ob-jects is taken as further proof of the absence of asymbolic tradition which would require a spatialand temporal continuity in the production and useof symbols (Chase & Dibble 1992; Noble & Davidson1996, 210).

A further critique of the gradualist viewpoint isthat ‘art’ objects are often not considered in the con-text of the assemblage as a whole. A contextual ap-proach is needed to ‘eliminate the possibility thatthe piece, far from being an idiosyncratic example of

Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10:1 (2000), 123–67

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Francesco d’Errico & April Nowell

This article addresses the nature of the evidence for symbolling behaviour among hominidsliving in the Near East during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. Traditionally, Palaeolithicart and symbolling have been synonymous with the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe. TheBerekhat Ram figurine, a piece of volcanic material from a Lower Palaeolithic site in Israel,described as purposely modified to produce human features, challenges the view of a lateemergence of symbolic behaviour. The anthropogenic nature of these modifications, how-ever, is controversial. We address this problem through an examination of volcanicmaterial from the Berekhat Ram site and from other sources, and by experimentallyreproducing the modifications observed on the figurine. We also analyze this material andthe figurine itself through optical and SEM microscopy. Our conclusion is that this object

was purposely modified by hominids.

In Palaeolithic archaeology much debate surroundsthe origin and development of hominid symbolicbehaviour. For some researchers the emergence ofthis capacity is associated with the transition fromthe Middle to Upper Palaeolithic in Europe (e.g.Chase & Dibble 1987; Davidson & Noble 1989; 1993;Noble & Davidson 1996; Mellars 1989; 1991; 1996;White 1989; 1992; 1993; Stringer & Gamble 1993; Byers1994; Klein 1996; Mithen 1996a). According to theseauthors, anatomically modern humans arriving inEurope developed the use of body ornaments and acomplex repertoire of abstract and depictional art.These behaviours imply the use of symbols for thefirst time. An alternative view is that the emergenceof symbolling is a gradual process whose roots canbe traced back to the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic(Marshack 1976; 1988; 1991b; 1995a; Bednarik 1992;1994; 1995; 1997; Bahn 1996; Duff et al. 1992; Simek1992; Hayden 1993; Wolpoff & Caspari 1996).

Taking a discontinuist or gradualist approachdepends greatly on one’s evaluation of the evidencefor symbolling prior to the Upper Palaeolithic. Thisevidence includes utilized pieces of colorant, ‘curated’fossils, crystals and shells, putative engraved andperforated bones and stones, and possible musical

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a rare behaviour, is only an individual within a popu-lation of similar but less striking [natural] phenom-ena’ (d’Errico & Villa 1997, 28). Finally, the mostcommon critique made by advocates of discontinu-ity is that, owing to their small size, body ornamentsand engraved objects may be found in older layersas a consequence of post-depositional disturbances.It has been shown experimentally and confirmedthrough refitting studies that the vertical displace-ment of small objects is likely in sediments that wereunconsolidated at the time of the occupation (Gifford-Gonzalez et al. 1985; Villa & Courtin 1983).

Gradualists counter that the rarity in these earlyperiods of objects documenting the use of symbolsover a long period of time is the consequence oftaphonomic processes. These processes deprive thearchaeological record of objects made of perishablematerials and dramatically reduce the number ofthose produced on more durable ones (Bednarik 1992;1995). Gradualists also believe that discontinuistsemploy stricter criteria when evaluating objects fromthe Lower and Middle Palaeolithic than those fromlater periods (Bednarik 1995). Furthermore, they as-sert that discontinuists use the Upper Palaeolithic asa measure for establishing the kinds of artefacts thatshould be discovered in earlier periods to demon-strate the use of symbols. Finally, these researchersargue that the discontinuists’ view of the transi-tion from Middle to Upper Palaeolithic is coloured

by an overemphasis on the West European recordwhere the relatively sudden appearance of caveart and body ornament gives the impression of arupture between these two periods that is not ap-parent in other regions.

In recent years, claims for symbolic objects fromoutside Western Europe dating to the Lower andMiddle Palaeolithic have added fuel to this debate.Recently, in Bulgaria, a slab engraved with parallellines was found associated with a transitional indus-try between the last Mousterian and the firstAurignacian levels (Crémades et al. 1995). The levelfrom which the object derives has been attributed to50,000 BP. According to one of the scholars in chargeof the excavation, however (Guadelli pers. comm.),this slab could be younger. The only conventionalradiocarbon date available for the level in questionindicates a minimum age of 38,700 BP (Gd-4687). Theolder age has been suggested on the basis of astratigraphic correlation with levels dated by TL butthese levels were excavated in an area of the cavethat is 30 m away from the pit where the slab wasfound. At Prolom II, a Middle Palaeolithic cave sitein the Eastern Crimea, engraved and perforated bonefragments have been reported (Stepanchuk 1993). InSlovenia, claims (Turk et al. 1995; Turk 1997) havebeen made for the earliest musical instrument, a Ne-anderthal bone flute, but several scholars suggestthat this object is simply a heavily carnivore-gnawed

Figure 1. Berekhat Ram figurine. Four views (scale = 1 cm).

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A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine

bone (see Chase & Nowell 1998; d’Errico et al. 1998b;in press). Engraved ostrich eggshells, clear bone tools,serially notched objects and hundreds of pieces ofutilized ochre were found in a Middle Stone Agecontext at several sites in South Africa (Wendt 1974;Singer & Wymer 1982; Knight et al. 1995; Henshil-wood & Sealy 1997). In Libya, researchers foundfragments of ostrich eggshell beads that are appar-ently associated with Acheulean tools (Bednarik1997). Researchers have also reported engraved pa-rietal art in Australia possibly dating to 75,000 BP

(Fullagar et al. 1996), a continent where the oldestevidence of body ornament now dates back to morethan 30,000 BP (Morse 1993).

The most striking discoveries, however, havecome from the Near East, where a carved figurinehas been reported from the Lower Palaeolithic site ofBerekhat Ram (Goren-Inbar 1986; Marshack 1995b;1997a,b). In addition, engraved cortexes have beenreported from the Middle Palaeolithic sites ofQuneitra (Goren-Inbar 1990; Marshack 1995a) andQafzeh (Hovers et al. 1997). Perforated and ochredGlycymeris shells were found at Qafzeh in associa-tion with early modern human burials dating to100,000 BP. Finally, the Middle Palaeolithic site ofSkhul has also yielded similar shells (Bar-Yosef 1992;Vandermeersh pers. comm.).

While not exhaustive, this list illustrates thenumber and variety of new objects coming fromoutside of Western Europe that predate the UpperPalaeolithic. The significance of these objects for thedebate surrounding the origins of symbolism remainsunclear, however, as researchers have not createdactualistic and comparative models with which toevaluate both the anthropogenic and symbolic na-ture of these findings. In this article we focus on oneof the most puzzling objects discovered in the NearEast in the last decade — the Berekhat Ram figurine(Fig. 1). This object, a putative engraved fragment ofvolcanic material, is important because it is possiblythe earliest example of representational art (Goren-Inbar 1986; Schepartz 1993; Marshack 1997a,b; Bahn1996; Bahn & Vertut 1997).

Archaeological context and initial research

The Berekhat Ram site, in the Golan Heights regionof Israel, excavated by Goren-Inbar in 1981 and 1982,is on the edge of the crater of an extinct volcanowhich is now partially filled by a natural lake (Mor1981). The figurine, in association with Acheuleantools (Fig. 2), derives from an archaeological hori-zon, 25 cm thick (Fig. 3), lying within a 1 m colluvial/

alluvial unit which is sandwiched between two ba-salt flows, known as the Lower and Upper Kramimbasalts (Goren-Inbar 1985; Goren-Inbar et al. 1986).Using Ar40/Ar39, these basaltic layers have been datedto 470,000 BP and 233,000 BP respectively (see Feraudet al. 1983 for a discussion of dating results; see alsoGoldberg 1987 for a discussion of the geology of thearchaeological layers). The archaeological layer wherethe figurine was found is estimated to date to ap-proximately 250,000–280,000 BP.

The lithic industry at Berekhat Ram, describedas Acheulean, is somewhat unusual in that UpperPalaeolithic types (burins, borers, endscrapers) com-prise 20.6 per cent of the assemblage. It is also rich inLevallois flakes, sidescrapers, notches and denti-culates. Levallois cores represent the most commoncore type. The eight bifaces found at the site are all ofa small size (less than 11 cm). With the exception ofone biface manufactured from basalt, all artefactsare made from local flint (Goren-Inbar 1985).

According to Goren-Inbar (1986), hominids se-lected a scoria pebble that bore natural features re-sembling a female figure. It is 35 mm in length, 25mm in width and 21 mm in thickness. The tuff wasthen modified to enhance these natural features bycarving one deep groove around the fragment at theupper third of the piece to delineate a neck andhead. Two shallow, curved grooves were engravedto create the arms of the figurine. The anthropogenicorigins of these grooves have been called into ques-tion by Pelcin (1994; see also Davidson 1990; Noble& Davidson 1996, 75). Pelcin points out that cracksor fissures on the surface of scoria, produced duringthe ejection and cooling of this material, can be mis-taken for grooves produced by a stone tool. In par-ticular, he suggests that the groove delineating thehead could have been produced in the air or uponimpact. According to Pelcin, a comparative approachinvolving microscopic analysis is needed to demon-strate that the grooves described on the figurine aredifferent from those that may be present on the manytuff lapilli found within the archaeological layer fromwhich the figurine derives.

Goren-Inbar & Peltz (1995) replied to this arti-cle by emphasizing that the figurine was not madeof scoria, as previously published (Goren-Inbar 1986,7), but was in fact made of a basaltic lapillus tuffincorporating scoria clasts, implying that the type ofnatural grooves described by Pelcin, which are char-acteristic of scoria, are not present on this material.They do not, however, address Pelcin’s call for acomparative approach. As a consequence of this,Goren-Inbar & Peltz do not demonstrate that natural

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Figure 2. Stone tools found at Berekhat Ram: 1–3) flakes; 4, 6–8) side scrapers; 5) denticulate; 9) double-side scraper;10–11) burins; 12) hand-axe; 13) end-scraper. (After Goren-Inbar 1985.)

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grooves, possibly mimicking anthropogenic engrav-ings, are absent on basaltic lapilli tuff.

Noble & Davidson support the position thathominids were not involved in the creation of thefigurine. According to these researchers, there is noevidence that the ‘Berekhat Ram object was formedby human agency rather than by natural forces . . .hence we cannot say that it was a thing made toresemble anything’ (1996, 75). They assert that if theobject was not modified by hominids, archaeolo-gists cannot know whether it was seen as a figu-rine or anything else in the Acheulean. Noble &Davidson further believe that this object is consid-ered a figurine simply because in the minds of thearchaeologists working at the site it resembled Ve-nus figurines from the European Upper Palaeolithic.In other words, the archaeologists must have per-ceived certain features of the object as reminiscent ofa style of art that appears some 200,000 years later inEurope. The iconic relationship established by ar-chaeologists, however, should not be considered asself-evident.

Marshack (1997a,b) has recently published anew detailed description of the figurine. In agree-ment with Goren-Inbar (1986), Marshack asserts thatthe object’s natural features, reminiscent of the fe-male anatomy, were enhanced by hominids to pro-duce a female figure. By recognizing these different‘body parts’, Marshack is able to identify the frontand rear of the figurine, and several other anatomi-cal details. Teasing apart the natural features of thefigurine from those considered by Marshack as in-tentionally modified is a difficult task as he blendsthem together in his description. According toMarshack, the intentional modifications, as weunderstand them, include a circular groove delin-eating the neck of the figure; another groove on itsright side defining a thick arm bent at the elbow;scraping and flattening of the right shoulder; a flatplane on the chest, obtained by scraping, whichseparates it from the right arm, which is also de-lineated by an anthropogenic groove; artificialsmoothing of the lower plane of the neck groove;and careful bevelling of the right protuberance ofthe head.

Marshack’s identification of the anthropogenicmarkings on the figurine is problematic for severalreasons. First, he has not carried out a comparativestudy of volcanic material from the Berekhat Ramsite or from other volcanic sites to know whether ornot grooves appear naturally on this type of materialand to acquire a direct knowledge of the morpho-logical variability of volcanic tuff. Neither has he

conducted any experiments to ascertain what tracesstone tools produce on this raw material. His conclu-sions concerning the anthropogenic nature of thefigurine are based, therefore, on three assumptions:(1) there are no natural grooves on this type of rawmaterial; (2) if any natural grooves did exist theywould not resemble those on the figurine; (3) onecan infer the techniques and the type of tool used toproduce intentional grooves and other types of an-thropogenic modification (abrasion, scraping) on thistype of very unusual material through simple obser-vation of the object’s surface morphology. In otherwords, his diagnosis of the hominid-produced modi-fications are based on what he believes these mark-ings would look like and not on criteria he hasestablished through experimentation and compara-tive microscopic analysis.

Second, even if the figurine’s grooves are in-

Figure 3. Section of site exposed showing the UpperKramim basalt and the colluvial/alluvial unit containingthe archaeological layer (arrows).

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Figure 4. Lapilli tuff fragments from the section exposed at the Berekhat Ram site.

deed anthropogenic, it is still unclear why the objectshould be interpreted as a human figure and ori-ented in the manner suggested by Marshack. Oncrude or somehow schematic figures, such identifi-cation depends on the diagnostic criteria one acceptsas valid to recognize carved or depicted human rep-resentations (Rosenfeld 1977; Duhard 1993a,b; seealso discussion by Noble & Davidson 1996, 75–7).Marshack, however, does not make the criteria heemploys explicit. As a consequence, he maintainsthat the figurine is indeed such without discussingpossible alternative interpretations.

A related problem concerns the symbolic valueof the figurine. Grooves can be produced for a vari-ety of functional reasons, and, even if we accept thatthe object is representational, what is its significance?Does its carving at an Acheulean site imply the useof symbols by its makers? The difficulties inherent inGoren-Inbar’s (1986) and Marshack’s (1997a) analy-ses and the criticisms of Pelcin (1994) and Noble &Davidson (1996) have prompted us to undertake are-examination of the Berekhat Ram figurine. Ourstudy differs from previous work on the subject inthat we have subjected the figurine, unmodified rawmaterial from this site and from other volcanic sitesin Israel, and experimentally modified raw materialto both optical and SEM microscopy in order to de-velop criteria by which to evaluate the anthropo-genic origin of the markings.

Methodology

The archaeological excava-tions at Berekhat Ram andlater digging for agriculturalpurposes have led to thecreation of an artificial ter-race on the western side ofthe Berekhat crater lake, ex-posing a 150 m section ofthe Upper Kramim basaltand of the colluvial/alluvialunit containing the archaeo-logical layer (Fig. 3). Theposition of this layer wasclearly identified in the fieldfrom the in situ presence ofseveral stone artefacts withthe characteristic reddish-brown patina typical of theassemblage found in the1980–81 excavation (Goren-Inbar 1985).

A range of volcanicraw material was collected from the colluvial/allu-vial unit exposed by this section. This sample in-cludes large fragments from the Upper Kramimbasalt, basalt pebbles, reddish basaltic lapilli tuffs,and fragments of yellowish-red, hard, coarse, crum-bly clay, making a total of 100 pieces. Our examina-tion in the field of several hundred volcanic clastsextracted from the archaeological layers guarantees thatthe collected sample is representative of the differentvolcanic materials present at the site. Some of the lapillituffs (Fig. 4) show a resemblance in colour, size, tex-ture and composition to the figurine. These pieceswere examined for natural features which mightmimic humanly made grooved, scraped and abradedareas, using a Wild M3C reflected and transmittedlight microscope equipped with a photo system.

Local flint, from the same sources as those ex-ploited by hominids at Berekhat Ram, was knappedto produce replicas of flakes and tools found at thesite (burins, sidescrapers, and points). A selectedsample of the lapilli tuffs was experimentally groovedin a back-and-forth motion with the cutting edge ofboth blanks and retouched flakes or with a burin ora point tip. Retouched and unretouched flakes wereused to scrape the surface of the fragments. Somewere also abraded against a large basalt flake. Ex-perimentally modified surfaces were examined un-der the reflected light microscope before and afterbeing washed with water and a soft brush.

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A large sample of volcanic scoria from north-ern Israel (approximately 3000 pieces) was also ex-amined. Thirty pieces similar in size to the figurineand bearing natural grooves were selected and ex-amined under the optical microscope and by SEM.The collection of scoria clasts and lapilli tuff frag-ments of different provenance kept at the Depart-ment of Geology, University of Bordeaux, was alsoexamined for comparison. Some of these fragmentsshow grooves that are similar to those illustrated byPelcin (1994, figs. 1–2).

The Berekhat Ram figurine, on exhibit at theIsrael Museum in Jerusalem, was examined with thesame optical microscope in order to identify anddocument possible artificial surface modifications.Several sections of the figurine’s neck groove wereobtained by positioning the object so that the grooveprofile was in the lens axis and then enhancing theprofile by observing it in both transmitted and re-flected light. This same procedure was applied tothe grooves produced experimentally. Archaeologi-cal sections were recorded by photography. Slidesso obtained were digitized and analyzed with thesame method used for experimental grooves. Theexperimental sections were recorded using a CCDKP-M1E/K Hitachi camera mounted on the micro-scope and connected to a desktop computer PowerMacintoshTM equipped with a Kingfisher (GraphicsUnlimited, UK) frame grabber card. Through a se-ries of image enhancement steps, using NIH Imagesoftware, the curved line of the profile can be trans-formed into numerical values (d’Errico 1998). Theplot so produced may be used for visual comparisonwith plots of other grooves. Quantification of mor-phological differences between profiles can beobtained by measuring angles and computing poly-nomial equations or conventional Fourier functions(Gero & Mazzullo 1984; Lestrel 1989).

The figurine was also examined with a JSM-5410LV Jeol low pressure SEM at the Faculty of Ag-riculture, Hebrew University, Rehovot. Unmodifiedand experimentally modified tuff fragments fromthe site, and the naturally grooved scoria samplewere examined with a JXA 8600 Jeol SEM at theINASMET Laboratory, San Sebastian, Spain and witha LEO 435VP SEM at the laboratory of the FrenchLEO representative (Rueil-Malmaison).

Results

Lapilli tuffs from the siteOur first objective was to document the ways inwhich natural lapilli tuff and scoria might differ from

or resemble the figurine. Basaltic lapilli tuffs werecollected at the site in the form of whole slightlyrounded clasts or as fragments whose fractured sur-faces allow observation of the internal structure ofthe volcanic rock. A few of the specimens preserveareas where the original surface has not been re-moved by erosion. These consist of dark brown toblack highly smoothed surfaces covered by softenedsuperficial microcraters up to 2–3 mm in diameter,and encrusted with compacted deposits of iron ox-ide (Fig. 5). The flaking off of this thin layer, com-mon in the more exposed areas, creates roughsurfaces with microcraters revealing a fine-grain red-dish matrix (Figs. 6 & 7) and, in most cases, sphericalor elliptical vesicles with black walls. Vesicles arecommonly visible along the fractured surface of thebroken clasts. They may be empty, or be filled with ablack or mix of a red-black matrix (Fig. 8). Theirmaximum diameter generally ranges between 1 and4 mm but can reach 9 mm. In a few cases vesiclescontain black, glassy granules. Thin microcracks, in-terpreted by Goren-Inbar and Peltz as the result ofthe high induration of the rock, as well as differenttypes of inclusions, were also observed on a numberof fragments.

While all the above features are equally presenton the Berekhat Ram figurine (see below), none ofthe tuff fragments observed in the field or collectedfor further examination in the laboratory exhibitedgrooves of any size or shape which could be con-fused with those present on the archaeologicalspecimen. Slight differences in colour and in theappearance of the inclusions exist between the sam-ple collected at the site and the figurine. The onlynotable difference, however, seems to be the pres-ence on the figurine of a small pebble situated in thearea that Marshack identified as the shoulder of thefigurine (Fig. 1). None of the tuff casts collected atthe site include such pebbles. This could indicate(Goren-Inbar pers. comm.) that the figurine wascarved on a piece of tuff collected away from the siterather than on a locally available tuff fragment.

ScoriaAll the scoria fragments from our comparative col-lection are much harder than the tuff fragments col-lected at the site. They also differ in texture and,unlike the latter, show no inclusions. Some beargrooves that are similar in size and depth to thoseobserved on the figurine (Fig. 9a). These grooves,however, can hardly be confused with those pro-duced experimentally on tuff fragments collected atthe site (Figs. 10 & 11) or with those present on the

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Figure 5. Tuff clasts from the Berekhat Ram Acheulian layer showing a well-preserved surface morphology (scale = 1 mm).

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Figure 6. Two examples of tuff surfaces at different stages of erosion. Vestigial compacted areas are still visible inlimited places (scale = 1 mm).

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Figure 7. SEM photographof the natural surface of awell-preserved tuff clastshowing the progressivecracking and spalling of thethin, compacted originalsurface, revealing the roughtexture of the inner structureof the clast.

Figure 8. Black vesicles inside a tuff clast (scale = 1 mm).

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Figure 9. Top: Scoria fragments similar in size to the Berekhat Ram figurine, with unique or multiple parallel naturalgrooves; below: grooves on scoria showing oblique microfolding and elongated gaps (scale = 1 mm).

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Figure 10. Experimental groove made by a retouched blank on a tuff fragment (scale = 1 mm).

archaeological specimen (see below Fig. 21 of neckgroove). Scoria generally show multiple parallel orsubparallel grooves on one or, less commonly, onboth faces of the fragment. These grooves are in factfoldings resulting from the drawing out of the mate-rial when it was in a plastic state. Fragments show-ing unique grooves are rare and in none of thefragments from our comparative collection have wefound grooves encircling the clast’s volume. Micro-scopic analysis of the groove surface (Fig. 9b–c) showsoblique micro-foldings and elongated gaps demon-strating that the grooves are the results of the rapidhardening of soft material. No striations which couldpossibly be mistaken with those produced experi-mentally on tuff fragments were observed on thewalls of the grooves of the scoria fragments.

Experimental engraving

Microscopic analysisAt microscopic scale, the surface of grooves carvedby flint tools is different from that observed on natu-ral, well-preserved tuff clasts and on altered frag-

ments (Fig. 10). The repeated motion of the tool’scutting edge breaks off pieces of material and grindsthese particles against the groove walls and founda-tion. As a consequence, the groove surfaces are flat,slightly porous, and show a texture more homoge-neous than that visible on their natural counterpart(Fig. 11). Vesicles intercepted by the groove appearin the form of concave, highly porous areas filledwith large granules. Sections of inclusions pulled bythe tool emerge from the groove walls. The founda-tion of the groove is often covered with a fine pow-der, resulting from the crushing of the tuff fragmentsunder the pressure exerted by the stone tool in cut-ting the groove. Shallow, irregular striations are of-ten visible on the groove walls (Fig. 10).

Identification of the engraving toolCircular grooves produced on a tuff clast by the to-and-fro movement of an unretouched blank can bedistinguished from those made with a retouchedtool by examining a section of the groove and bymeasuring the angle formed by its walls. Groovesproduced by unretouched blanks generally have

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Figure 11. SEM photographs of experimental grooves produced on tuff clasts by retouched cutting edges.

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Figure 12. Sections of circular grooves producedexperimentally on tuff clasts with (a) unretouchedblanks, (b) retouched blanks, and (c) points (burin tips,retouched points, pointed blanks).

Figure 13. Angle variabilityin grooves madeexperimentally on tufffragments by retouched andunretouched blanks.

No. of exper. Min. Max. Mean Range Std Stdgrooves dev. error

unretouched blanks 23 39 67 53.5 28 7.56 1.58retouched blanks 17 59.7 91 76.8 31.3 8.35 2.03

Figure 14. Frequency distribution of the angles formedby the walls of experimental grooves carved by retouchedand unretouched blanks.

straight walls and narrow foundations (Fig. 12a),while those made with retouched blanks generallyshow one straight and one convex, concave or ir-regular wall, and often have rounded foundations(Fig. 12b). Angles produced by unretouched blanks(Fig. 13) are significantly smaller than those pro-duced by retouched cutting edges. The frequencydistribution (Fig. 14) of these values clearly showthat they represent statistically distinct populations(p = 0.0001).

A way to differentiate grooves produced byeither retouched or unretouched cutting edges fromthose produced by a point is to compare severalsections of the same circular groove (Fig. 15). The

sections of a groove created by either a retouched oran unretouched blank remain virtually the samealong the length of the groove as the elongated mor-phology of the edge and that of the resulting groovestabilize the tool’s motion. In contrast, the sectionsof a groove created by a point are characterized bystronger morphological variability owing to changesin the orientation of the tool tip during the groovingprocess.

A sudden change in the direction of the groovewithout significant variation in the groove width(Fig. 16) is another diagnostic criterion to identifypoint-made grooves. Experimental grooving dem-onstrates that only a point can produce such a change,as a straight cutting edge is unable to cut a curvinggroove without attacking the groove walls and thusincreasing its width.

AbrasionThe abrading of tuff clasts on the flat surface ofbasalt flakes collected at the site obliterates featuresobserved on the natural altered and unaltered sur-faces (i.e. superficial deposits, smoothed surfaces,

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microcraters) and produces rather flat, granulatedsurfaces with no striations (Fig. 17a). The edges ofvesicles intercepted by experimental abrasion showsharp edges. By contrast, vesicles brought to light byerosion or by natural fracturing of the tuff clasts asthe latter have rounded to very rounded edges. Thedevelopment of natural fractures inside the tuff clastis a result of the size and morphology of these vesi-cles. It is interesting to note that abrading the tufffragments produces a red stain on the surface of thebasalt flake and a relatively large amount of redpowder. The reproduction of a facsimile of the figu-rine produced 0.6 g of this powder.

Figure 15. Different sections of circular groovesproduced by (a) an unretouched cutting edge, (b) aretouched cutting edge, and (c, d) two flint points,compared with (e) two sections of the ‘neck’ groove onthe rear face of the Berekhat Ram figurine.

Figure 16. Curve engraved experimentally with a flint point on a tuff fragment (scale = 1 mm).

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Figure 17. (a) Surface of a tuff fragment experimentally abraded on the flat surface of a basalt flake (scale = 1 mm); (b)basalt flake showing a spot of red colour resulting from the use of the object to abrade a tuff fragment; (c) red powder(0.6 g) produced in the course of the abrasion to carve a replica of the Berekhat Ram object.

a

b

c

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The figurine

The archaeological specimen possesses a number offeatures that are reminiscent of those produced ex-perimentally by the engraving or abrading the tuffclasts (Fig. 18). Intentional engraving seems respon-sible for the neck groove and the two slightly curvedgrooves on both sides of the object. A short grooveproduced by engraving has also been carved on theleft side of the rear face. This interpretation is sup-ported by the clear morphological differences, vis-ible at a microscopic scale, between the surface ofthese grooves and those of the adjacent area (Figs.19–20 & 22b–c). The former shows a homogenousgranulated texture reminiscent of that observed in-side grooves made experimentally with a stone tool.Close inspection of the groove foundations revealsthe presence of many in situ broken inclusions ofdifferent sizes. The area adjacent to the groove has amore irregular and varied appearance where micro-

craters alternate with both a rough texture and highlysmoothed surfaces on the more exposed areas. Aswith experimental engraving, vesicles cut by thegrooves show rather sharp edges, while those on theneighbouring areas have smoothed funnel-like shapeopenings.

On the right side of the rear face of the object(Fig. 21a), the neck groove has a morphology that istypical of tool-made engravings, consisting of onestraight, vertical wall and one concave, sloping wall,and a narrow foundation. This groove segment alsoshows a discontinuity in the morphology and direc-tion of the groove, not described by Marshack. It isvery similar to the morphology that we producedexperimentally when we changed the direction ofthe tool slightly during the grooving process. Themorphology of two sections of the neck groove (Fig.15e), recorded on the dorsal face near the left endand in the middle of the groove, is similar to thatproduced experimentally on the same raw material

Figure 18. Anthropogenic modifications on the Berekhat Ram object according (a) to Marshack and (b) to the authorsof the present study: 1) ‘shaping and beveling of the right protuberance of the head’; 2) scraping; 3) artificial smoothingof the lower plan of the neck groove; 4) grooving; 5) possible abrasion. From left to right: right side, front face, left side,rear face.

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Figure 19. (a) SEM photo of the neck groove on the rear side of the figurine showingthe groove section. Notice the difference between the granulated morphology of thegroove surface and that of the vesicle intercepted by the groove wall (arrow); (b) detailof (a) showing the foundation of the groove.

with a retouched blank or with a thick point. Themorphological variability of the groove section, how-

ever, suggests the use of apoint instead of a cuttingedge. The use of a point isalso confirmed by thecurved outline of the grooveon the left side of the frontface (Fig. 21b), which hasbeen shown experimentallyto be difficult to producewith a cutting edge. Thecurved outline of the lateralgrooves and their sectionsalso suggest that a thickpoint was used to carvethem. The flat appearanceof the two adjacent surfacesdefining the ‘chest’ protu-berance on the front face,their surface morphology atmicroscopic scale, and theway the vesicles are cut bythese surfaces suggest thatthey may be the result ofhumanly-caused abrasion.This may also be the casefor a slightly rounded areaon the rear face of the ob-ject and for a small, flatplane carved at the base ofthe object.

In sum, while confirm-ing Marshack’s diagnosis ofthe anthropogenic origin ofseveral features present onthe object, our technologi-cal reading of the piece dif-fers from that he proposedon several points. We seeno traces of the scrapingwhich would have carvedthe right shoulder and arm,no artificial smoothing ofthe lower plane of the neckgroove, and no intentionalmodification of the rightprotuberance of the head.While shallow grooves arepresent on the left and rightsides of the anterior surfaceone may wonder whetherthey should be seen as de-

lineating ‘arms’ (see discussion below). We think, incontrast, that the base of the object was deliberately

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modified by abrasion to create a smallflat surface, perhaps to allow the objectto stand. These may, however, be con-sidered relatively small differences withMarshack’s analysis, as the main pointwas to ascertain whether the object wasmodified by hominids.

Discussion

The combined use of actualistic and ex-perimental data suggests that the Bere-khat Ram specimen was modified byhumans. These modifications are clearon the ‘neck’, and less obvious but stilldetectable on the ‘arms’ and ‘chest’. Webelieve that we arrived at this conclu-sion following a path which differssignificantly from that followed byMarshack since we developed a meth-odology to study this object. This meth-odology is based on the creation of areference collection of tuff clasts fromthe site and the microscopic analysis ofunmodified fragments and grooves onboth scoria and experimentally modi-fied tuff fragments. We then identifieda set of diagnostic criteria using anumber of different tools and tech-niques. These criteria are relevant be-cause they are based on two differenttypes of evidence: 1) microscopic analy-sis of experimental engraving; and 2)morphological and metrical analysis ofthe groove sections. Finally, we appliedthese criteria to the analysis of the figu-rine and found features which closelyresemble those produced experimen-tally. While we cannot logically excludethe possibility that taphonomic proc-esses may exist which can mimic someof the features reproduced by us experi-mentally and found on the figurine, ourcomparative approach and experimen-tal research support an anthropogenicorigin. The principle of equifinality,however, leads us to observe that it is

Figure 20. (a) SEM close up view of thehead of the figurine. (b) SEM detail of thegroove on the rear of the figurine showingmorphological differences between thegroove and the adjacent upper surface.

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Figure 21. (a) ‘Neck’ groove on the rear of the figurine showing discontinuity in the groove direction; (b) detail of theneck groove on the left side of the front face.

a

b

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possible that hominids may have pro-duced some of these features by usinga technique or procedure that we havenot tested experimentally.

The objective of our research wasto determine if the Berekhat Ram figu-rine was the product of human or natu-ral processes. Now that our resultssuggest that the specimen is anthro-pogenic it is appropriate to considerwhat its function may have been and,by extension, its possible implicationsfor the origin of human symbolling inthe Near East. The carving of a circu-lar groove on a tuff fragment does notprovide in itself any proof that it is apurposely-made three-dimensionalcarving, nor can it even be taken asevidence of symbolling. The identifi-cation of an anthropogenic groove ona tuff fragment only demonstrates thatAcheulean hominids used their stonetools on a variety of raw materials.This is consistent with data from theuse-wear analysis of several stone toolassemblages of this period (Keeley1980; Anderson-Gerfaud 1990). Thediscovery of a number of workedwooden objects from Europe (Movius1950; Adams 1951; Oakley et al. 1977;Thieme 1997) and the Near East(Belitzky et al. 1991) further attests totheir ability to work with a wide rangeof materials. All of this data is com-patible with what we know aboutAcheulean stone tool technology. Theuse of different reduction sequencesand different types of raw material toproduce a varied tool kit seems welldocumented (Wynn 1993; Bar-Yosef &Goren-Inbar 1993; Schlanger 1996).

The ethnographic record (Chase& Dibble 1992, 48) demonstrates thatgrooves can be made on different typesof objects for a number of functionalreasons. The groove in itself only con-firms that Acheulean stone tools pro-vide us with a poor and rather biasedimage of a more complex technical sys-tem that is based on the modificationof a wide range of raw materials. It istherefore clear that the problem of theinterpretation of the Berekhat Ram

Figure 22. Top: ‘neck’ groove on the rear side of the object showing adiscontinuity in the groove direction, its asymmetrical section, and thepresence of superficial striations on the groove bottom. Middle and bottom:notice the granulated texture of the groove surface. Scales = 1 mm.

a

b

c

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figurine lies more in the elucidation of the other, lessobvious, anthropogenic modifications found on theobject than in the clearly human produced circulargroove. Our results suggest that areas of the figurineother than the circular groove were purposely modi-fied by humans. In particular, as already suggestedby Goren-Inbar and Marshack, two elongated ‘u’shaped grooves could have been made to indicatethe arms of a human body and different areas werepossibly modified by abrasion, perhaps to suggestbreasts.

The recognition of a human body in this speci-men is, however, problematic. It ultimately dependson the criteria one employs to identify a humanfigure in a carved object and the level of uncertaintythat one is willing to accept as part of this ‘identifica-tion’. This is a recurrent problem in the study ofprehistoric carvings which appear relatively abstractto modern observers but which might be the sche-matic rendering of depictional representations (seediscussion in Rosenfeld 1977 and in d’Errico 1995a).So far, however, none of the authors who has de-scribed the Berekhat Ram specimen as a figurinehave formalized the morphological attributes thatthey have used to make this proposition, nor havethey made reference to criteria adopted by otherscholars (e.g. Rosenfeld 1977; Duhard 1993a,b) foridentifying Upper Palaeolithic human representa-tions.

This leads us to the second problem in identify-ing a human body in this object: the lack of compara-ble material. A large number of Upper Palaeolithichuman representations, like those from Gönnersdorf(Bosinsky 1991; Bosinsky & d’Errico in prep.), wouldnot have been described as human figures withoutthe discovery of many other more detailed figures atthis and other contemporary sites. In this respect,the point made by Noble & Davidson (1996) that theBerekhat Ram object was identified as a human figu-rine because it resembles the Upper Palaeolithic speci-mens is a justifiable criticism in the sense that itwould be an error to use, consciously or uncon-sciously, the Upper Palaeolithic record to supportthe symbolic interpretation of a carving produced ina clearly different cultural context and quite possi-bly a different cognitive context as well.

We doubt for all the above reasons that it willbe possible to reach an agreement about the subjectrepresented. One can even wonder if this is reallyimportant. What matters here is that some of theengravings and abrasions are not necessarily con-sistent with the hypothesis of a functional use of theobject but rather appear as the product of a pur-

posely made representation. This is the case for the‘arms’, whose symmetry and design are difficult toaccount for by a functional explanation. The signifi-cance of this desire to represent something is the realproblem here. If representational, as suggested byour technical analysis, this object could have had amerely iconic meaning (i.e. it was carved to resemblethe subject for which it stood: Peirce 1931–35), or asymbolic meaning. In this latter case, one shouldassume that an arbitrary link was established by theAcheulean craftsperson between the morphology heor she produced or modified and an image or con-cept to which this referred.

Many archaeologists working on anatomicallymodern human (AMH) societies would seek to re-solve this question by studying the context of similarand different representations, their geographical andchronological distribution, their morphological andtechnological variability, and so forth (Ucko 1962;Renfrew & Bahn 1991; see examples in Renfrew &Zubrow 1994). Of course, this is difficult here as weare dealing with a single object.

Moreover, these same scholars when investi-gating the meaning of symbols emerging from thearchaeological record would implicitly or explicitlyassume that symbol systems were used in the past ina way that is not qualitatively different from the waythey are used in modern or traditional societies. Tomake the same assumption in our case would meanemploying circular reasoning, as the goal in assess-ing the implications of this find for the origin ofsymbolling would be inherent in the postulate.

To avoid this pitfall, we employ a lower level ofinference, and assume only that the basic neuromo-tor constraints conditioning the technical behaviourof the Berekhat Ram engraver are not qualitativelydifferent from those affecting the modern engraverin her/his replicative experiments. Within the frame-work of this assumption, the technological analysisof the object and its experimental reproduction areseen as complementary means to evaluate the tech-nical skills of the Palaeolithic craftsman, to under-stand his aim, and to assess the cognitive implicationsand the overall significance of his work.

Experimental reproduction of the carving showsthat the chosen raw material played a major role inthe somehow crude appearance of the representa-tion and that it would have been difficult to achievea higher level of realism on a piece of raw material ofthis type and size. If it was the result of a repetitivebehaviour, the engraver must have been perfectlyaware of the level of depictional accuracy possible inworking a tuff clast. We must then conclude that

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whatever the subject of the depiction, the engraverdeliberately made the choice of a small support anddid not need a more detailed representation to rec-ognize the depicted subject. Such recognition cannotbe achieved without a relatively elaborated level ofabstraction. If iconic, the representation is far enoughaway from the subject for which it stood to suggestthat the Palaeolithic craftsperson or observer did notneed a closer resemblance to establish a meaningfullink between the two. If symbolic, we are forced toadmit that the arbitrary link between the meaningand its material appearance was solid enough to beestablished on a visually rather cryptic incarnationof the symbol.

Now that we have made explicit the possibleimplications of our results, the question becomeshow to deal with something like the Berekhat Ramengraved tuff in the context of what we know (anddo not know) about the origin of symbolism. In ourview, there are two possibilities to consider. One isthat the origin of symbolism is essentially a radical,qualitative change in human cognition. This is themodel that many semioticians, linguists, psycholo-gists and neuroscienticists advocate. If it were thecase, then there are two options: either symbolism isthe result of a biological change that occurred at aprecise moment in human evolution, and from thattime onward modern humans became symbol-users;or symbolling is the result of a cognitive changewithin a particular cultural system (Chase in press;d’Errico et al. 1998c), a change, to use a familiaranalogy, in the ‘software’ but not in the ‘hardware’of the brain. For the first option, Darwinian selectionwould be the most likely course. For the second, thecognitive shift could relate to concomitant changesin the social system and in the need, for example, fora more sophisticated means of recognizing the mem-bers within and between social groups as those in-creased in size (Gamble 1982; Gilman 1984; d’Erricoet al. 1998c).

Another possibility is that the emergence ofsymbolling does not correspond to an abrupt changebut to a more gradual process (Duff et al. 1992). Thisview is contrary to the position held by a number ofauthors (e.g. Byers 1994; Mithen 1996a; Noble &Davidson 1996; Mellars 1996). It agrees, however,with current models on the origin of spoken lan-guage (Liebermann 1995; Tobias 1998). This scenarioimplies that at some point in time there existed ho-minid societies that were only ‘partially’ symbolic orwhere the system of symbolling was less complexthan that of modern humans or where, at least, sym-bols played a less important role in the way the

mind constructed reality. This proposition may ap-pear heretical to some, but we nonetheless need toask if the emphasis on abrupt biological or culturalchange is not influenced by disciplines that haveconcentrated their efforts on the study of symbolsystems of modern humans, and have paid littleattention to the construction of theories to explainthe transition between non-symbolic and symbolicworlds. In other words, an abrupt change, of bio-logical origin, is without doubt the most comfortableexplanation for those interested in the functioning ofsymbolic systems rather than in their origin.

Revealing the existence of this pitfall, however,is not in itself proof of the gradual emergence ofsymbolic capacities. Gradualist arguments sufferfrom serious difficulties. First, it is difficult to imag-ine what a ‘partially symbolic’ human society wouldlook like. Secondly, we should avoid creating ‘argu-ments for design’, i.e. only when the feature ororgan is fully formed can its utility explain its devel-opment.

Archaeologists who study the evolution of hu-man intelligence need to look for ways of testingthese hypotheses using the archaeological recordrather than being influenced from the beginning byone hypothesis or another. Results emerging fromarchaeological inquiry may present a strong chal-lenge to the reigning paradigms. They may evenconstitute the base upon which to build alternativetheories, providing better answers when testedagainst the available archaeological evidence. Whatis surprising, and in some ways stimulating, whenwe examine the possible archaeological indicationsof the adoption of symbolic thinking, is the fact thata large portion of the evidence coming to light in thelast few years seems to contradict the dominant theo-ries of the origin of symbolling.

The view of symbolling as being a cultural epi-phenomenon of the emergence of AMH with theirbiological superiority is contradicted by, for exam-ple, the absence of evidence of similar behaviouramong the first modern humans of North Africa andby the existence of personal ornaments made andworn by the last Neanderthals of Europe (d’Errico etal. 1998a,c; Zilhão & d’Errico 1999; in press). Evenaccepting, which is debatable, that Neanderthal useof symbols was a consequence of their contact withmoderns humans, the fact that they were indeedcapable of such an endeavour clearly contradicts thehypothesis that symbolic thinking results from a bio-logical change.

The view of symbolling as a phenomenon des-tined radically and rapidly to change cognitive

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mechanisms and, in consequence, the everyday lifeof a symbolling humanity, is in opposition to thegradual increase in possible symbol-bearing indica-tors such as utilized and notched pieces of ochre,and in the number of engraved objects uncovered inthe African Middle Stone Age. This view is alsocontradicted by the sporadic presence of a few en-graved pieces and some ochred and pierced shellsamong early modern humans or late Neanderthalsin the Near East. If symbolling really represents thatqualitative shift that many theoreticians and archae-ologists believe it to be, why does it appear in thearchaeological record in form of scant, isolated,though clearly significant objects, as is the case in theNear East (e.g. Qafzeh and Quneitra)?

In conclusion, while new archaeological evi-dence challenges a merely biological origin for sym-bolic capacities, the material expression of thisbehaviour in pre-modern societies is difficult to iden-tify and does not allow us, so far, to discern clearpatterns of development.

The Berekhat Ram carving clearly represents asupplementary challenge to dominant paradigms onthe evolution of human cognition. A conservativeattitude would insist on discarding this evidencesimply because it does not fit in with any of thecurrent models on the emergence of symbolic think-ing. For this reason some scholars might feel that theobject does not deserve any further inquiry. The his-tory of archaeology, however, demonstrates that whatis rejected today as too idiosyncratic to be incorpo-rated into any reasonable theory can, tomorrow, be-come an accepted fact that may allow us to gain abetter insight into the evolution of humankind. Ob-viously, the uniqueness of this find constitutes amajor handicap in evaluating its significance andonly future discoveries will show whether it remainsa puzzling mystery or is among the first examples ofrepresentational art. Whatever the future, our re-sults seem to indicate that this object cannot be dis-missed as the result of natural processes and shouldinstead be considered as a purposely modified ob-ject, of possibly iconic or symbolic meaning, and notqualitatively different from more recent examples ofsymbolic expression.

Acknowledgements

We thank Nathan Schlanger and João Zilhão for theirstimulating critical reading of the manuscript. Thisresearch was made possible by financial support fromthe French Institute of Culture and Technology, theUniversity of Pennsylvania, the Jewish Community

Centers of Greater Philadelphia Israel Programs, andJean Auel. We also thank the LEO representative inFrance for allowing Francesco d’Errico to use theirimpressive SEM (model 435VP) free of charge. Weowe a special debt of gratitude to Naama Goren-Inbar for allowing us to study the Berekhat Ramfigurine and for helpful discussions during the prepa-ration of this work. Our thanks also go to DebbyHershman, curator, and Naomi Korn, assistant cura-tor of prehistory at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem,for facilitating our research; to Martin Kessel, He-brew University, for his support of our project; toNaomi Bahat, Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew Uni-versity, for her assistance with the SEM microscopy;to Leslie Hale, Mineral Sciences Department, Smith-sonian Institute, for supplying us with informationon volcanic geology; and to Dodik Ben-Ami for hisinvaluable help during our visit to the Berekhat Ramsite and for providing the flint used in our experi-ments. Finally, we thank the Israeli Antiquities Au-thority for giving us permission to conduct ourresearch.

Francesco d’ErricoUMR 5808 du CNRS

Institut de Préhistoire et Géologie du QuaternaireAvenue des Facultés

33405 TalenceFrance

April NowellDepartment of Anthropology

University of Pennsylvania33rd and Spruce Streets

Philadelphia, PA 19104-6398USA

Comments

From Ofer Bar-Yosef, Department of Anthropology,Peabody Museum, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge,MA 02138, USA.

It is comforting to know that the findings of theoriginal observation by the excavator (N. Goren-Inbar) and the first microscopic study (A. Marshack),suggesting that the Berekhat Ram figurine is of an-thropogenic origin and is not a natural accident, arenow confirmed by the methodologically rigorousstudy of the authors. Perhaps this is a good lessonfor critics and journal editors to be more prudent inthe future and to demand the careful re-examinationof the original item before publishing a negative

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review. This is not to say that criticism should beabolished. The questioning of accepted ‘facts’ is theway in which science strives for further advance-ment. It would, however, be to the benefit of archae-ology to embrace certain basic standards of theNatural Sciences. Archaeologists and editors whoaccept negative reviews need to demand that theauthors of such papers rely on the results of experi-mental investigations and not solely on the study oftexts and printed photos. Similarly, scientists whosubmit dating results obtained by new techniques toan archaeological journal should be required to dem-onstrate that their techniques were tested on objectsor fossils of known age as was pioneered by W.Libby for 14C some 50 years ago.

The authors of this article, like most of us, strug-gle with the meaning of those isolated Lower andMiddle Paleolithic ‘artistic’ expressions found in thearchaeological records prior to the so-called ‘crea-tive explosion’ of the Franco-Cantabrian region. Thefact that the latter is a unique geographic phenom-enon within the larger world of Homo sapiens sapienscultures is crucially often forgotten. While the Up-per Palaeolithic in Eurasia has all the signs of a truetechno-cultural revolution, there is no need to denythat some early hominids were able to demonstrateplanning-depth. The required savoir faire (e.g.Schlanger 1996), in the case of Middle Palaeolithicchaînes opératoires, only shows that we who classifythese lithic products would perhaps be in trouble ifasked to produce a series of thin, symmetricalLevallois points. Discoveries such as the woodenspears from Schöningen (Thieme 1997) from some400 ka, indicate that organic finds in pristine condi-tion substantiate the view that the capacities of pasthumans exceeded those of chimps. Notably, whathampers archaeologists and palaeoanthropologistsin understanding the Lower and Middle Palaeolithicis, as already mentioned by Tooby & DeVore (1987),that there is no model to use as an analogy for earlyhominid behaviour.

Resorting to either the chimp or the modernforager model does not serve us well in understand-ing the biological, technological and cultural evolutionof Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis,and Archaic modern humans. The original impetusfor this evolutionary trajectory could have been, asproposed by Deacon (1992), the change in shape andincrease in size of the braincase of Homo erectus.Comparing the technological achievements ofhominids during successive time transects from 1.8ma through 8 ka BP reveals periods of gradual change— sometimes very slow — punctuated by major

revolutions (i.e. the MP/UP transition or the Neolithicrevolution).

From Angela E. Close, Department of Anthropology,University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-3100,USA.

D’Errico and Nowell have produced an exquisitelyargued article on the Berekhat Ram object (whetheror not it is a ‘figurine’, it is definitely an ‘object’) thatis probably the most useful thing to have been writ-ten on this subject to date. To my mind, it is certainlythe most convincing. Using a carefully documentedexperimental approach, and using very high-powermicroscopy to compare their experimental resultswith the object itself, they demonstrate that the ob-ject has most probably been modified by humanaction. They are careful to point out that they cannotprove that this occurred, or that it was done with thetechniques that were used in the experiments. Suchcaution is commendable, but I, at least, am nowprepared to accept that the object is an artefact, ow-ing some of its physical characteristics to humanaction. This is the most important contribution ofthis article. If they had shown that the form of theobject could be accounted for by non-human agents,then we could all have forgotten about it or contin-ued to ignore it.

D’Errico and Nowell’s outlines of the majorschools of thought concerning the beginnings of sym-bolic behaviour and of the history of interpretationsof the Berekhat Ram object are perceptive. They pro-vide a clear picture of the way in which scholarlydiscussion has proceeded in the absence of relevantdata and without the possibility of recovering rel-evant data: largely by assertion and counter-asser-tion.

D’Errico and Nowell begin their discussion ofthe object with extreme caution, pointing out that,‘The carving of a circular groove . . . [cannot] even betaken as evidence of symbolling’. A couple of pageslater, however, we are told that, ‘the engraver musthave been perfectly aware of the level of depictionalaccuracy possible in working a tuff clast’. I still donot see any reason to link the Berekhat Ram objectwith ‘depiction’ or any other type of symbolic be-haviour. It follows from this that I certainly cannotsee a figurine of a woman in the object. In fact, thedrawings in Figure 18b remind me more of a pen-guin (doubtless tales had been passed down throughthe generations since their ancestors left South Af-rica), and the photographs in Figure 1 remind memore of a phallus.

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I also do not see any reason to refer the object tothe food-reproduction-shelter side of life, but theseare not the only possibilities. I can invent severaluntestable scenarios which would imply levels ofcognition, or even of social complexity, that are un-expectedly high for a quarter of a million years ago,but these are no more helpful than the untestable‘figurine’ scenario. While the object is most probablyan artefact, without any evidence of a ‘purpose’, I donot assume that the modifications were necessarilypurposeful. When our minds are elsewhere, ourhands will frequently manipulate objects that sim-ply happen to be there, not for any purpose. This is,of course, another untestable hypothesis.

I am less optimistic than d’Errico and Nowelland expect that, for me, the Berekhat Ram object willremain ‘a puzzling mystery’. Because of the meth-odological sophistication of their approach, however,it is a mystery that will not now go away, and wemay long expect to see the object commandeered byboth ‘sides’ of the symbolling debate.

From João Zilhão, Instituto Português deArqueologia, Av. da Índia 136, 1300-300 Lisbon,Portugal.

This article is of the utmost importance in develop-ing a methodology to address the thorny issue ofwhether certain apparently ‘carved’ objects found inLower and Middle Palaeolithic contexts are naturalor anthropogenic. On the basis of the results of theexperiments described by d’Errico and Nowell, theirconclusion that the Berekhat Ram ‘figurine’ has beenintentionally modified seems entirely warranted.They go on from this finding to discuss whether aniconic or symbolic meaning can be assigned to thepiece. Although the speculation is legitimate in theface of previous interpretations, I see nothing in theirevidence that would support such an assignment.

The strongest argument presented in favour ofthe representational hypothesis is the symmetry anddesign of the ‘arms’ (p. 144). Previously, however,the authors had wondered whether the shallowgrooves present on the left and right sides of theanterior surface should indeed be seen as delineat-ing arms (p. 140). They explicitly contrasted the du-bious finality of those grooves with the obviousabrasion of the base of the object to create a small flatsurface. The inferential step made on page 144 —where they state that their technical analysis sug-gests the ‘arms’ most likely are a purposely-maderepresentation — is justified on the basis that thegrooves are difficult to account for by a functional

explanation.Two logical points can be made against this

argument. First, a functional interpretation is notexplicitly discussed and refuted and, therefore, sim-ply stating that other explanations are possible doesnot necessarily entail the rejection of function. Sec-ond, even if function could be set aside, that wouldnot necessarily imply the acceptance of the hypoth-esis of a purposely figurative or symbolic represen-tation. It would still be necessary to show that thosegrooves are not an unintended, indirect result ofintentional or random gestures executed in the frame-work of a manipulation of the object for functionalpurposes.

That such a manipulation may indeed have beenfunctional is indicated by the observation reportedby d’Errico and Nowell that abrading the tuff frag-ments produces a relatively large amount of red pow-der. As they also remark, utilized pieces of ochre arecommonly found in Lower and Middle Stone Agecontexts. Thus, the hypothesis naturally comes tomind that the Berekhat Ram ‘figurine’ was reducedfor the production of pigment and that its groovedand abraded areas, although undoubtedly anthro-pogenic, are by-products of such a reduction proc-ess.

Therefore, the possible iconic or symbolic mean-ing of the object is not demonstrated, even if some ofits features are shown not to be the result of naturalprocesses. Furthermore, its very small size, the factthat it is possible to formulate alternative explana-tions for the grooves, and the degree of uncertaintythat, with present knowledge, is inherent to any in-terpretation of this ‘figurine’, make any conclusionspremature. Contrary to the possibility suggested inthe article’s last sentence, my reading of the evi-dence is that the Berekhat Ram ‘figurine’ is indeedqualitatively different from more recent, unequivo-cal examples of symbolic expression.

I fully concur, however, with d’Errico andNowell’s rejection of a biological mutation, exclu-sive to the lineage of modern humans, as the mecha-nism behind the sudden appearance of symbolism.Such a view would be refuted if obvious symbolic oriconic objects were to be found in an Acheuleancontext. The opposite, however, is not true: that nonehave been found so far does not carry the implica-tion that the biological model is vindicated. In fact,the widespread evidence for the practice of burialand the use of ochre in the Middle and LowerPalaeolithic suggests the presence of symbolicthought among anatomically archaic humans, as doesthe production and use of ornaments by late

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Neanderthals.That it was only in Upper Palaeolithic times

that such a capacity for symbolic thought material-ised in the production of objects with a symbolicvalue must, therefore, have a social explanation, asd’Errico and I extensively argued elsewhere. Thatthis was a relatively sudden process only implies abiological explanation if one assumes that culturalevolution proceeded through a Darwinian phyleticgradualism. The whole of human history is there toshow that such an assumption is not warranted.

From Steven Mithen, Department of Archaeology,University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, RG62AA

It is curious that our understanding of such an im-mense topic as the evolution of human symbolicbehaviour appears to hinge on the study of suchdiminutive and visually unimpressive pieces of stoneas the claimed figurine from Berekhat Ram. I verymuch welcome this article, as a detailed study of thistype was an urgent requirement in light of the atten-tion recently paid to this ‘figurine’. Marshack’s(1997a) publication was a redundant piece of work,for without the type of experimental and compara-tive study undertaken by d’Errico & Nowell, hisclaims were of limited value; one can only think thatthe then editors of Antiquity were seduced by hiscolour photographs. D’Errico & Nowell have nowprovided as detailed a study of this artefact as seemspossible — although I suspect that others engaged inthis specific type of work may nit-pick about theirmethods. But to me they appear quite systematicand comprehensive. I do, however, have some con-cerns about their interpretation and their generalcomments about symbolic evolution.

The division of work in this area into the twocamps of ‘discontinuists’ and ‘gradualists’ is too sim-ple. My own work (Mithen 1996a) is placed in theformer camp, even though it explicitly argues thatthe building blocks for symbolic thought were gradu-ally laid down throughout the earlier Palaeolithic.Without that gradual evolution of human cognitivecapacities any seemingly sudden appearance of sym-bolic behaviour could not have been possible. HenceI think it more appropriate to characterize my ownposition as gradualist, with regard to the cognitivecapacities that allow symbolic behaviour, anddiscontinuist as regards the manifest appearance ofsuch thought, this arising from one further step inthe gradual evolution of such capacities. In this re-gard, it is significantly different to the type of

discontinuist position that argues that symbolic be-haviour emerged from one chance mutation, whichsuddenly and dramatically transformed the humanmind. I suspect that others similarly characterized asdiscontinuists might also argue that their position israther more subtle, sophisticated or complex than isthe impression given by d’Errico & Nowell.

A second point to raise about the discontinu-ity/gradualist division is that this does, of course,depend upon one’s perspective. When consideredwithin the time-frame of primate evolution (c. 65my), or even human evolution since the commonancestor (c. 5 my), a ‘gradual’ appearance of sym-bolic thought during the last 250,000 years might becharacterized as a rather sudden discontinuity. Simi-larly, when looked at from the perspective of theduration of human life history and generation span,a ‘discontinuous’ appearance of symbolic thoughtwithin, say, a 10,000-year period of the Late Pleisto-cene, would have been a very gradual change, withample time for selective pressures to work.

I found d’Errico & Nowell’s distinction betweena biological origin of symbolic thought and one lo-cating this in a ‘cognitive change within a particularcultural system’ (p. 145) to be rather too vague to beof any great use. The brain/computer analogy whichsuggests that the former is about changes in hard-ware and the latter about changes in software is infact a rather unhelpful analogy. Each person’s neu-ral networks are continually being remoulded in lightof experience, this occurring at a particularly sub-stantial rate and extent during childhood and ado-lescence. In other words, changes in culturalbehaviour can change our biology — the densityand networking of neurones in specific parts of thebrain are altered, and if one must use the brain/computer analogy, this is perhaps more like a changein hardware. The resulting positive feedback betweenchanges in culture and biology are potentially im-mense and, hence, one might expect there to be peri-ods of rapid behavioural and cognitive change.

There are two important issues to raise withregard to the possibility of partial or proto-symboliccapacities. The first is the idea expressed so effec-tively by Clive Gamble, that the origin of symbolicbehaviour would have been like throwing on a lightswitch — once something is symbolic everything ispotentially symbolic. Hence a phase of proto-symbolism is likely to have been so rapid as to bearchaeologically invisible. I am not sure if the light-switch analogy provided by Gamble is correct, but itis certainly compelling.

A second issue concerns the cognitive basis for

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symbolism and whether this is necessarily the samein archaic and modern humans — an argument Ihave previously raised, in response to some ratherextreme propositions by Bednarik about claimedearly symbolic artefacts (Mithen 1996b). One of thedifficulties in making comparative studies betweenliving primates is whether similarities in observedbehaviour reflect similarities in cognition. Considerprimate vocalizations and human language. Thesehave at least one critical feature in common — theyboth communicate information by audible means.But few scholars today would credit chimpanzeeswith any linguistic ability: chimpanzee vocalizations— although having similarities to human utterances— are likely to have a quite different cognitive basisto human language. My own interpretation has beenthat chimpanzees are simply rather clever at usinggeneral-purpose learning mechanisms for acquiringassociations between a symbol and its referent(Mithen 1996a). But this does not stop what they aredoing as looking like a proto-linguistic ability. An-other case in point is whether chimpanzees have atheory of mind capacity — whether they are able toappreciate that another individual has beliefs anddesires that differ from their own. After an initialrush of enthusiasm that this was the case in light ofvarious behavioural observations, such as claimedacts of deception, several primate specialists are nowmore cautious, suspecting that such behaviours maysimply arise from chimpanzees being very clever‘behaviourists’ (see Povinelli 1996; Whiten 1996;Mithen 2000). In other words, while lacking a theoryof mind capacity, chimpanzees are remarkably adeptat picking up behavioural cues about how anotherindividual is going to act in the future, which to usappears as if they are engaging in ‘mind reading’.The same can be seen within modern humans: twoindividuals can be asked to solve a mathematicalproblem and reach the same answer in the sametime, but one might be essentially relying on rotememory, while the other may be using various men-tal computations.

The point I am making is that just because wefind artefacts from the early Palaeolithic record whichwe decide have an iconic or symbolic status, wecannot automatically conclude that such objects hadbeen made using the same cognitive processes asused by modern humans for symbolic thought, orindeed an early version of those processes. Objectssuch as the Berekhat Ram figurine and Bilzingslebenincised bones may indeed be symbolic, but may de-rive from general-purpose learning mechanisms inthe early human mind, quite different to whatever

cognitive processes for symbolism we use today. Inthis regard, the rarity, variability and lack of chrono-logical development of such objects may reflect thelimited extent of symbolic thought that such generalpurpose intelligence can generate — in the sameway as chimpanzee symbol-use is so limited (to athreshold of 200–300 words) because they do nothave a proper linguistic ability.

A final issue I must raise is that the writing andarguments within this article are sometimes ratherless stringent than is desirable when discussing suchcontroversial subjects. Although the authors hadquite rightly set out to evaluate whether the inci-sions on the object from Berekhat Ram were naturalor made by early humans, the object is always re-ferred to as a figurine — this surely is what is tryingto be established and a neutral term (object, artefact)would have been far more appropriate. Similarly,the ‘discussion’ section is immediately preceded bya sentence that refers to the object having being modi-fied by ‘hominids’, and then begins with an almostidentical sentence but which refers to ‘humans’. Assome scholars, such as Davidson and Noble, havethought it appropriate to restrict the word ‘human’to a symbol/language-using hominid, (which I per-sonally think is unnecessary), I think d’Errico &Nowell should have been much more cautious andconsistent with regard to their use of such terms.

There is at least one enormous, and seeminglyquite unjustified, leap of interpretation made withinthis article. D’Errico & Nowell not only claim thatsome of the engravings and abrasions are non-func-tional, but that they are also ‘the product of pur-posely made representation’ (p. 144). I can see nojustification for this claim: I can see no evidence tosupport their claims for ‘symmetry’ and ‘design’ ofso called ‘arms’. There are other leaps of interpreta-tion throughout the article of a less serious but stillrather irritating nature. On p. 145, for instance,Neanderthals are described as not only having madebody ornaments, but also having worn them. Thereis no evidence for the latter and it is a separate issuefrom their manufacture. My own feeling is that ifNeanderthals made/acquired items of body orna-ment, having been influenced by modern humans,they did not really know what to do with them. This,however, opens up issues beyond the scope of thecurrent article. Finally, I was concerned about thestatement on p. 146 that ‘A conservative attitudewould insist on discarding this evidence [i.e. theBerekhat Ram artefact] simply because it does not fitin with any of the current models on the emergenceof symbolic thinking’. That would not, of course, be

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a conservative attitude but one of utmost academicirresponsibility and I cannot imagine any archaeolo-gists currently engaged in studying symbolic evolu-tion, even the most ardent discontinuist, giving thisartefact less than the full attention it deserves.

In summary, this is a fine article with regard tothe systematic study of the Berekhat Ram figurine. Iam happy to accept d’Errico & Nowell’s conclusionsthat early humans made minor modifications to asmall lump of rock. I cannot see any evidence tosupport the idea that the resulting artefact had arepresentational or symbolic status. I suspect thatthe modifications were for utilitarian purposes andthat we should not for a moment be surprised thatsuch artefacts exist in the archaeological record. Asregards symbolic evolution in general, I feel that thecurrent debates, and the issues that must be ad-dressed, are already rather more complex and so-phisticated than d’Errico & Nowell allow for withintheir text.

From Thomas Wynn, Department of Anthropology,University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, 1420Austin Bluffs Parkway, P.O. Box 7150, ColoradoSprings, CO 80933-7150, USA.

As I read it, d’Errico and Nowell make three argu-ments: the Berkehat Ram figurine is a modified ob-ject, it probably had a symbolic function, and itchallenges interpretations that stress a late and abruptacquisition of symbolic activity in human evolution.Their careful analysis has persuaded me that theobject has been modified by a stone tool. Their argu-ment for the ‘neck’ groove is compelling, thoughtheir arguments for the arm grooves and abrasionsare not as strong, and probably would not be con-vincing in the absence of the neck groove. I am not,however, convinced by their argument for symbol-ism, and as this is the crux of the argument forsignificance I will focus my comments here.

My first reservation lies with the argument fordepiction. Eliminating a utilitarian explanation forthis object may, in fact, be impossible. To their credit,d’Errico and Nowell have not simply taken recourseto ‘unidentified’ function, which is a common fall-back position for most archaeologists. Instead theyexplore the implications of a non-utilitarian role. Indoing so, however, they omit a third option, whichgiven the depictive poverty of the object seems to mejust as reasonable. Could not the object have re-sulted from biomechanical fiddling (someone pass-ing time with a stone tool and a pebble)? We may betoo quick in concluding that material objects from

the past resulted from purposive action; much ofmodern human action is not purposive — whyshould the past be different?

My second reservation concerns the nature ofthe argument. D’Errico and Nowell set up an inter-esting and perhaps unintended paradox. If the ob-ject is depictive it is not a very accurate depiction,and therefore must be symbolic in the narrow senserather than iconic (i.e. it does not really look like awoman, so we, and presumably the artisan, mustdecide that it represents a woman). The paradoxderives from a corollary argument, and its evolu-tionary implication. Increasing veracity in depictionsupplies decreasing evidence for symbolism. TheVogelherd horse, for example, is an accurate depic-tion of a horse, so it can be iconic and not symbolic.There is something counter-intuitive here. If theBerekhat Ram figurine were an accurate depiction ofa woman, would they discount it as evidence forsymbolism? Their argument would make sense ifthe object were one of an array of less and less iconicobjects, like the figurines of the Upper Palaeolithic.We accept the stylized versions as symbolic becausethey grade into contemporary examples that are moreiconic. We do not have this luxury for Berekhat Ram.It is effectively all by itself, not the end point of anarray of decreasingly iconic forms.

My final reservation struck me at first as entirelytrivial, but it does bother me and I have never seen itdiscussed. The object is so very small! Its real sizeappears to be about two-thirds the size of the repro-duced image. Moreover, the raw material is very coarse-grained. This combination of features strikes me asinconsistent with a depictive role, at least if moderncarving is any guide. Yes, modern people carve di-minutive figurines, but not in coarse-grained materi-als, such media being reserved for large images. Thereseems to be a kind of detail-to-size ratio in moderncarving that may well have a perceptual basis. Further-more, there is nothing very ‘micro’ about the rest ofmaterial culture found in this time period, making thediminutive size of the object even more unusual.

Despite my reservations concerning the de-pictive nature of the Berekhat Ram figurine, I doagree with d’Errico and Nowell on an element oftheir third argument: there has been little attempt togenerate hypotheses about what a pre-modern lifeworld might have been like (though see Noble &Davidson 1996; Byers 1999). Worse for the interpre-tation of this object, there has been no attempt toconstruct theoretically-grounded hypotheses of whatpre-modern depiction might look like. Without suchrigour we are reduced to informed guessing. Cogni-

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tive science, development psychology, semiotics andart history should be able to provide the basis forsuch hypotheses. For example, reference to percep-tual psychology might provide insight into thesize/detail issue (Gibsonian psychology’s use of‘affordances’ comes to mind), or judicious use ofdevelopmental psychology might provide insightsinto the development of depiction (though simplerecapitulationist arguments are almost certainly un-warranted).

Given our current level of understanding, thisobject is likely to remain an enigma. If it demon-strates anything, it is that evidence rarely, if ever,speaks for itself.

From Alexander Marshack, Peabody Museum ofArchaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

It is profoundly satisfying and unexpected to haved’ Errico and Nowell write that they have, in somemeasure, ‘validated’ my finding that the BerekhatRam figurine was intentionally modified, with theimplication, however, that their validation is betterthan the original because they had experimentedwith volcanic tuff, established analytical criteria, andused scanning electron microscopy. The authors thenaddress the possible relevance of the figurine for anunderstanding of the human capacity. These repre-sent different areas of inquiry and discourse, so Iaddress them separately.

First, the analytical problems and data they dis-cuss are not quite as described by the authors. Itshould also be obvious that modification of a naturalform does not occur at the edge of a tool but in theperception and intent of the tool holder. It is appar-ently the belief of the authors and of those they citethat questions of ‘intent’ must remain a black box.This is not, as I shall show, entirely true. The originalBerekhat Ram analysis was conducted, incidentally,not to test whether it had been modified, but to test, ifit had been modified, the nature of the perceptual,problem-solving and cognitive processes that mayhave been involved. The inquiry, therefore, occurredat an entirely different level than was explored bythe authors. Mere ‘validation’ would have been ofinterest primarily to that portion of the archaeologi-cal community that does not believe in an ‘archaic’human capacity for complex symbolling. Such ‘vali-dation’, by its very nature, exists at the lowest possi-ble level of archaeological inquiry. By contrast, thepossible cognitive, perceptual, and problem-solvingprocesses that may have been involved in the early

modification of natural forms would be of genericrelevance to an evolutionary inquiry into the humancapacity.

It was with recognition of the generic problemthat this researcher had, for instance, validated thepresence of symbolling at the Middle Palaeolithicsite of Quneitra in Israel, documenting a complexearly capacity for ‘abstraction’ before the migrationof anatomically modern humans into Europe (Mar-shack 1995c). Microscopy had been used in theQuneitra analysis not merely to ‘validate’ intention-ality but to explore the nature of some of the cogni-tive and perceptual processes that may have beeninvolved. It was with concern for such cognitiveproblems that I have widely investigated the natureand range of the early human capacity for symbolling(Marshack 1985). It was in the same context that Istudied different early modes of modifying and us-ing natural forms: in the Middle Palaeolithic at Tataand Arcy-sur-Cure; in the Upper Palaeolithic atMonpazier and La Marche and in the sanctuary caves;in the Epipalaeolithic, Early Neolithic and BronzeAge of the Levant; and in the Middle Stone Age ofAfrica at Border Cave.

One reason for these broad studies is that themodification and use of natural forms is crucial toany study of early symbolling. The beginnings ofpersonal adornment, one of the supposed hallmarksof early symbolling, usually consisted of (accordingto the taphonomically skewed record) a modifica-tion of natural forms, such as sea shells, animal teeth,other skeletal parts and fossils. My early microscopicstudy of the animal-tooth beads from the Châtel-perronian site of Arcy-sur-Cure was an inquiry, there-fore, into the nature of the cognitive processesinvolved. One hand had held, turned, and oriented atiny bead, while the other hand held the tool andincised a categorizing modification. That microscopicstudy would prove important to the Berekhat Ramanalysis since it demonstrated that a presumably‘archaic’ human could use a two-handed, visually-mediated, right/left hemisphere capacity to performa highly specialized categorizing modification — onnon-utilitarian objects. I had previously found a com-parable Neanderthal capacity in my microscopicstudy of the modification of a mammoth-toothlamelle and the engraving of an image on a tinyfossil nummalite from the site of Tata in Hungary. Itwas clear that a two-handed capacity for modifyingnon-utilitarian artefacts was present quite early. MyArcy analyses, however, indicated far more complexcognitive processes than a mere production of beads.

The full set seemed to include a group of learn-

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ing pieces. This set (Fig. 23a–c) would certainly nothave been received in trade or exchange. But thegrooves on even the better beads, such as Figure 23c,did not quite meet and would have been difficult tosecure for long with a string. They may, as a result,have required a use of mastic. The use of mastic tobind thongs during hafting was later documented inthe Mousterian (Shea 1988). It was also apparent thatthe sequence of bead production at Arcy went be-yond an incising of grooves; it required planningand the acquisition and use of different materialsand skills and a knowledge of the time, place and

and problem-solving. It was not mere validation ofintentionality that was, thereafter, important, but thediscriminative, categorizing nature of that sequenceof intentionality.

There were other preparations for the BerekhatRam analysis. My studies of the modification of natu-ral forms had indicated that the production of an‘anthropomorphized’ image often involved the ad-dition or highlighting of a morphological or ana-tomical attribute (head, neck, eyes, nose, mouth, legs,arms) or the addition of a cultural marker: a belt, anecklace, a bracelet, or a coiffure, often indicating a

a b

c

Figure 23a–c. The encircling grooves around some of the Châtelperronianbeads from Arcy-sur-Cure, France, indicating that the grooves did notalways meet or form an adequate groove and would probably not have servedto secure a string.

context for use of the beads. Thecomplexity of these disparateprocesses in time and space re-quired evaluation and mediationby the frontal and prefrontallobes, extensive implicit and ex-plicit knowledge, and highlyevolved visually-mediated motorcoordination. It was the accumu-lation of such findings over manyyears (cf. Marshack 1996b) thatunderlay my decision to under-take a microscopic study of theBerekhat Ram figurine. Amongthe Israeli materials I had foundevidence for a modification ofnatural forms that was highlyvaried, if not as numerous as themodification of natural forms thatI had found among the UpperPalaeolithic mobiliary materialsand caves of Europe. The Arcyand Israeli studies led me almostat once to recognize the mismatchin the neck groove that encircledthe Berekhat Ram figurine. Theclearly incised groove in the frontdid not meet the groove in therear, either at the right or left ofthe figurine (Marshack 1997a,332). This was microscopic evi-dence of intentionality without aneed for experimentation withvolcanic tuff or a use of scanningelectron microscopy. That singleset of preliminary findings hadsuggested a process of modifica-tion on the figurine that had pro-ceeded as a sequence of discrete,different instances of categoriz-ing decision-making, ‘depiction’,

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‘female’ without the need of anatomical features suchas breasts or vulva. These cultural additions clearlyoften constituted a sexual marker. Even the rela-tively realistic female images of the Upper Palaeo-lithic were so marked. The supposedly naked ‘Venus’figurines of the Gravettian often had body bands,bracelets, necklaces, skirts, and coiffures or caps, alloriginally made of perishable materials. The figu-rines were not, therefore, naked. Such cultural mark-ers were as much an indication of the ‘female’ as thebetter-known aspects of anatomy and morphology(cf. Marshack 1991b; Gvozdover 1995; Soffer et al.forthcoming). It was with a knowledge of such proc-esses that I had investigated the possible modifica-tion of the Berekhat head to enhance an appearanceof ‘managed hair’. The natural form was, in fact,already strongly suggestive of a head with hair(Marshack 1997a). For d’Errico and Nowell the pos-sibility of such categorical enhancement is clearly‘problematic’. However, my microscopic study ofthe descending plane of the protuberance on theright side of the head indicated that its surface wasdifferent from the granulated surface above that de-scending plane and different from the surface on thehead itself (Marshack 1997a, fig. 6). I doubted thatthe groove of the neck, intentionally incised andarced to abut that protuberance, would have, or couldhave, left the protuberance in its original state. Aslight modification would have enhanced the alreadyexisting appearance of hair. It was also clear thatafter a burial of 250,000 years, surface erosion andtaphonomic change had occurred on the outer sur-faces and protuberant areas, more than they had inthe protected declivities and grooves which clearlyshowed microscopic evidence of tool use. D’Erricoand Nowell’s laboratory experiments in incising andscraping tuffic lapilli did not involve experimentswith the differential processes of erosion andtaphonomic change that had clearly occurred in ar-eas of the figurine. In my paper I indicated that thearea of an early spalled flake on the outer surface ofthe head (Marshack 1997a, 330) had been profoundlydiscoloured and eroded so that it matched the origi-nal granular surface and colour of the head. Theprotuberance suggesting ‘hair’ and the flat shoulderplane on the right side were, in that sense, ‘outer’surfaces and would, therefore, have differed in theirerosion and texture from the more protected declivi-ties. They would not have shown the same clearevidence of tool modification as found in the pro-tected grooves.1 I have other minor differences withd’Errico and Nowell. In my paper I demonstrated bycolour photography that the material beneath the

outer surface of the figurine was a high red (Marshack1997a, 331). D’Errico & Nowell’s subsequent experi-ments with abrasion to produce a red powder con-firmed that finding, though they do not cite theoriginal finding (Marshack 1997a, 331). Addition-ally, it should be clear that if abrasion had been usedto shape the chest or breast, as suggested by theauthors, it would have produced a high red chest orbosom, just as the process of incising and scrapingthe neck would have produced a red grooving. Thatpossibility has its own ramifications, one of whichwould have been the creation of red powder, per-haps then available to cover the entire figurine or tobe used by a female during a ‘female’ ritual, perhapsalso involving the figurine (see Marshack 1996b).Female figures in the Upper Palaeolithic were oftenmarked with ochre (at Willendorf, Laussel, etc.); Ihave suggested that early depictive images may, infact, have been made not as ‘depictions’ but for dif-fering modes of symbolic use, including ritualovermarking. It was not the capacity to make an im-age but the capacity to properly use an image thatwas probably of ultimate cultural relevance. It isclear that the Berekhat Ram figurine will continue toraise questions that go beyond a mere validation ofintentional modification. I wish, however, to addressmore important issues.

In my Berekhat Ram paper I documented thefact that water-worn pebbles and flint forms couldbe turned into an ‘anthropomorphic’ figure with asimple encircling line. Such modifications of a natu-ral form are ubiquitous in human cultures and theyprobably represent a process that long preceded thecreation of fully depictive representations. The useof an animal phalange or metapodium to representthe torso of a woman has been documented fromSpain to Siberia, at times with a schematic over-marking of anatomical or cultural motifs thoughsometimes without (Gimbutas 1989, figs. 3(4), 91 &92a; Olsen 1996, figs. 6–9). Artefacts of this type wereexcavated from an Early Bronze Age level at thetown of Jericho in the Levant. Phalanges, metapodia,and animal incisors were used to represent the ‘fe-male’ even in the Upper Palaeolithic (Jelinek 1975,336; Marshack 1991c, 391; Gvozdover 1995, 181–5;Lorblanchet 1999, 134, 135). A Siberian shaman willcut a simple forked branch to create, without modifi-cation, the image of an ancestor or spirit. This forkedstick may later be touched with paint or be deco-rated with a necklace or feather. Such shamanic crea-tions would not persist archaeologically, and if byaccident of preservation they were preserved theywould surely not pass d’Errico & Nowell’s ‘logical’

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criteria (or those of Ucko, Rosenfeld, or Duhard,cited by the authors) for recognition of an anthropo-morphic form. Nor would phalange or metapodialfigures pass as anthropomorphic according to theircriteria. Yet such modification and use are importantmodes in almost all preliterate cultures and they arecrucial for any understanding of the beginnings ofsymbolling. There are, however, even more impor-tant considerations. I have for long argued that theearly use of beads probably arose because there wasa prior use of strings and twined cords as necklacesand as ties for the hair. Hanging a pendant bead onsuch a string would not, therefore, have been the‘origin’ of personal adornment; it would merely havemodified an extant process. It is the bead, however,that appears in the archaeological record and there-fore promotes the presumption of a dated contextual‘beginning’ for personal adornment.

It was with knowledge of such processes that,while studying the figurine, I suggested a possibleAcheulean indication of ‘managed hair’, an idea notdiscussed by the authors. A suggestion of hair was,in fact, already present on the original natural formand this appearance would have been heightenedduring the incising of the neck grooves. The processof incising an arcing neck groove on the front face,with a slight intentional rounding of the protuber-ance, would have been enough to enhance the sug-gestion of managed hair. But my suggestion forpossible managed hair did not come simply frommy microscopic study of the arcing groove of theneck, the plane of the protuberance, or my knowlegeof modification (cf. Marshack 1997a, 331). When han-dling the figurine, one at first merely sees a ‘look-alike’ form. While turning and studying the figurineover many days I found myself increasingly con-fronted with a sequence of perceptually discrete, in-tentionally produced categories — head, neck, arm,front, back, bosom, possible hair. It was during thisprocess that a conceptual and perceptual de-construction began. It became clear, by the sequenceof changing ‘intent’ — the delineation and thepositional separation of these categories — that theywere probably cultural and possibly, therefore,‘named’. Questions of this type cannot be addressedor investigated by the high magnification of scan-ning electron microscopy, by recourse to logical de-duction, by a priori demurers, or by a consensualcitation of other authors. They are questions thatmust be investigated both analytically and with someknowledge of symbolling processes.2 It was not,therefore, the possible validation of a modificationthat was being investigated in my analysis, but the

nature of modification, and the nature of whatseemed to be culturally recognized Acheulean cat-egories.

The Acheulean productive process and myanalysis were both, therefore, ‘cognitive’. The left handturning and orienting the artefact, the right handperforming the categorical incising and scraping,would together have been involved in a sequence offrontal and prefrontal lobe evaluation and media-tion while creating differentiated perceptual catego-ries, a process that involved different types of implicitand explict knowledge (cf. Marshack 1997a, 336).While d’Errico & Nowell’s ‘validation’ acknowledgesthe presence of many of these differentiated catego-ries, their analytical concern was not with the possi-ble relevance of these categories, but with proof ofintentional modification. Even after the modifica-tions have been ‘validated’, however, the primarygeneric questions remain. Arguments from probabil-ity do not adequately address questions concerningthe complexity of a sequence of intentionality.

These suggestions raise questions about cruciallimitations in the use of scanning electron micro-scopy, experimentation, and a priori logic in the studyof early symbolling modes. I note this because it waswith precisely the same extraordinarily careful ex-perimentation to establish analytical ‘criteria,’ andwith a similar use of scanning electron microscopy,that d’Errico prepared his doctoral dissertation inorder to test and invalidate this author’s claim forthe existence of notation in the Upper Palaeolithic.Since he was primarily interested in the technologi-cal problem of determining how incised cross-sec-tions were produced, he never bothered to investigatethe nature of notation, how a notation might func-tion, or how one could determine the presence orabsence of notation except at the very low level ofcross-sectional analysis. As a result, d’Errico chosean incorrect sample for study, apparently becausethe artefacts were incised. He then declared that hecould find no notation in his incorrect sample andthat notation, therefore, did not exist in the UpperPalaeolithic. It is important to note that this ‘invali-dation’ utilized precisely the same careful, exhaus-tive descriptions of technology, precisely the samecareful, exhaustive descriptions of experimentation,statisticized graphics, and precisely the same syntaxof science, logic, deduction and arguments of prob-ability, as now appear in the Berekhat Ram analysis.Yet d’Errico was in error. The error was not in theexperimentation and the derived ‘criteria’, or theseeming logic, but in their use. I had begun my ownresearch by studying the nature of notation. In my

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reponse to d’Errico I indicated that I had previouslystudied much of d’Errico’s analytical sample andhad found that it did not contain notation, accordingto my knowledge of ‘notation.’ One artefact in hissample (Ro48), however, was clearly notational bothaccording to my analysis and to d’Errico’s own de-scription of it; nevertheless, that artefact was incor-rectly illustrated and interpreted by d’Errico despiteuse of SEM (Marshack 1996a, figs. 1–3). Ro48 wasnever again mentioned except to indicate that it wasunique and therefore aberrational. All notational ar-tefacts are, however, statistically aberrational withinthe enormous Upper Palaeolithic corpus and mostof the important early examples of symbolling are,in fact, also statistically ‘unique’ (see my examplesabove). It is not their statistical uniqueness that isrelevant, but the analytical evidence for their cogni-tive complexity. D’Errico began to study a propersample, when, years later, he found to his surprisethat notation did, after all, exist (d’Errico & Cacho1994). He described this subsequent ‘validation’ ofnotation in precisely the same terms and with pre-cisely the same careful and exhaustive descriptionsof technology and experimentation, scientific syn-tax, logic, and arguments of probability, he had ear-lier used to ‘invalidate’ the presence of notation.

These facts are important not because they in-dicate prior error — one always grows and changesin research — but because d’Errico & Nowell’s cur-rent schematic renderings of the Berekhat Ram fig-ure (Fig. 18) are again in serious error. The authorsillustrate the supposed ‘left’ side of the figurine (Fig.18b) as containing an ‘arm.’ That side, however, doesnot contain an arm, as indeed I had remarked, ‘Thereis no arm on the left side. A study of the surfacereveals that it contains intrusions . . . which wouldhave made scraping and carving difficult.’ I had alsowritten that, pragmatically, there was not enoughtuffic material or mass on the left side from which tocarve or incise an arm (Marshack 1997a, 330). Notonly have the authors reversed the right and leftsides but their profile rendition of the ‘left’ side hasan ‘arm’ supposedly described by Marshack. It is theright side that, in fact, has that arm (Marshack 1997a,328, 331). Their illustration also suggests that I indi-cated a vertical groove on the left side (their mis-taken right side), apparently suggesting accordingto Marshack a schematic second ‘arm’. Such an ‘arm’was never suggested or described in the originalpaper. The authors also illustrate two vertical grooveson the rear as supposedly described by Marshack,apparently representing the back of two arms. Thosevertical grooves do not exist and were not men-

tioned or described (Marshack 1997a). A compari-son of their schematic illustrations (Fig. 18a) withthe text and colour photos in the original paper sug-gests that the authors had not studied the figurine asa ‘figurine’ but had primarily made close-up scan-ning electron microscopic studies and photos at par-ticular points. Significantly, they also incorrectlyillustrate my description of the ‘arm’ on the rightside. I had indicated and described an arm that wasbent at the elbow; they depict my analysis as a pre-sumably unbent, straight, hanging arm. Their illus-tration of what ‘Marshack’ asserted and claimed isnot, therefore, what ‘Marshack’ had documented orwritten. Of particular importance, however, is thefact that the authors could reverse the right and leftsides of the figurine, apparently indicating that theirstudy of the artefact had been primarily conductedat high magnification. It may not be too strong tosuggest that the authors did not perceive or studythe figurine as a possible figurine but primarily as aseries of areas that could be subjected to validationor invalidation at high magnification. The BerekhatRam figurine is, however, far more than its ‘vali-dated’ parts. The odd nature of the authors’ errorsputs into question the subsequent interpretations anddiscussion offered by d’Errico & Nowell, in muchthe way that d’Errico’s earlier errors in both illus-trating and referring to the Rochedane artefact (Ro48)put into question his exhaustively careful, preciselyanalytical, strongly assertive, and subsequent logi-cal arguments for the non-existence of ‘notation’ (cf.Marshack 1995c; 1996a, figs. 1–3).

Excellent technology and experimentation willaid a scientific inquiry and provide a certain levelof data, but these are not in and of themselves,and therefore, adequate science. Technology and ex-perimentation, particularly in the extraordinarily dif-ficult realm of investigating the cognitive andperceptual processes that are involved in humansymbolling, should be utilized with at least someknowledge of, or preparation for, investigating thenature and complexity of the symbolling and prob-lem-solving processes being investigated and tested.Save for a careful use of microscopy and SEM onselected areas of the figurine, and for conductingtuffic experiments, d’Errico & Nowell had appar-ently not prepared themselves for a central problemin the study of early symbolling, ‘the modification ofnatural forms’, and they had apparently neithercarefully studied the figurine nor carefully read theoriginal paper.

D’Errico & Nowell’s article is, nevertheless, ofmajor importance. It marks a significant stage or

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step in the study and evaluation of the early humancapacity. The technologies developed and utilizedby d’Errico are significant contributions, in largemeasure because they represent the development ofa technology. These, and the many studies conductedby d’Errico and his colleagues (cf. d’Errico et al.1998c), have opened the investigation of early hu-man symbolling to widening acceptance. Of stillgreater importance, they have opened it to other anddeeper levels and modes of methodological, system-atic inquiry. In this comment and in my earlier re-search, I have touched on a few of these directions. Itmust be recognized that the truly relevant evolu-tionary questions cannot be addressed within thelimitations of, or in the manner of, the approachadopted by the authors.

I have argued in many papers for a diverserange of problem-solving and symbolling capacitiesamong archaic humans, a range from which selec-tion probably occurred for enhancement within theNeanderthals and anatomically moderns. That sug-gestion offers an evolutionary model that is differentfrom those which are dependent on morphology,DNA, and tool types, forms of quantifiable data thatdo not and cannot measure inherent or potential ca-pacity. Anatomically modern humans and theNeanderthals, for instance, both lived in the NearEast during the Middle Palaeolithic and both used aMiddle Palaeolithic Levalloisian technology. Bothprobably had language and, as I have indicated,modes of symbolling, but as I (Marshack 1996b) andothers have suggested, there had begun in that pe-riod to be significant cultural changes among thesehuman groups. The nature of, and the differences in,a shared and derived human capacity, and the rea-sons for, and the relevance of, the cultural changesthat each began to initiate, demands theoretical andanalytical investigation — but at levels beyond thatoffered by quantifiable differences in morphology,tools, DNA, or a particular artefact.

Notes

1. Anyone who has worked with the incised bone andstone materials of the Upper Palaeolithic and has care-fully removed soil and sand from the declivities, of-ten revealing an ‘unweathered’ surface and even thepresence of unseen red ochre in an engraving, wouldunderstand the process.

2. I note, parenthetically, that as the analysis of theBerekhat Ram figurine proceeeded it could increas-ingly be seen as a process that had utilized and pro-duced categorical contours and forms. In notationalstudies, by contrast, analysis requires a determination

of the nature and structure of a sequence of positionalsets and subsets, representing an entirely different typeof visual and cognitive problem-solving both in theoriginal production and in the subsequent analysis.The uses of microscopy in the study of such varyingmodes, though they may seem to be similar, are pro-foundly different.

Reply from Francesco d’Errico & April Nowell

We are grateful to our colleagues for their insightfuland thought-provoking comments. In the remarksthat follow we shall attempt to address three mainissues raised by their comments: a) the anthropo-genic origin of the Berekhat Ram object; b) possiblealternative interpretations (functional, non-purposive,symbolic); and c) the possible representational na-ture of the object. Finally, we will address the impli-cations of our findings for the understanding of theevolution of symbolic behaviour.

The primary aim of our article was to investi-gate the anthropogenic origin of the Berekhat Ramobject. We are pleased to see that all of the commen-tators seem to agree that, minimally, a large numberof the modifications to this object should be inter-preted as the result of human action and not of natu-ral agents. It is also interesting to note that, with theexception of Marshack, all of our colleagues seem towelcome this new study as well as the analyticaland, to some extent, the theoretical framework inwhich this research was carried out. The implica-tions of this consensus extend beyond this study tothe larger realm of archaeological investigation. Itmay be that after many disparate attempts to verifythe anthropogenic origins of possible non-utilitarianobjects found in Lower and Middle Palaeolithic con-texts, we now have an agreed-upon method for do-ing so that stresses the need to make explicit thecriteria by which objects are evaluated, and com-bines the use of actualistic, experimental, and con-textual data. This approach is a more informed wayof guiding archaeological reasoning. Recently, it hasbeen successfully applied in other contexts (see forexample d’Errico & Villa 1997; d’Errico et al. 1998c;Chase & Nowell 1998) and may become the acceptedprocedure for future research. Only Marshack seemsto disagree with the view that the kind of study wepresent here is the necessary groundwork that mustbe completed before archaeologists can begin to dis-cuss an object’s significance.

As far as the more significant issue of the inter-pretation of the anthropogenic modifications docu-mented by our analysis is concerned, we think that

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we differ from some of the commentators in whatwe believe to be the appropriate manner in which toaddress this question. What we consider to be a stepby step discussion of related but separate issues (thepossible symbolic value of the object, its representa-tional nature and the subject represented) is treatedby some of the commentators as one single topic.This means that an interpretation of the BerekhatRam object becomes an ‘all or nothing issue’. In otherwords, if they see no evidence that this object shouldbe interpreted as a figurine then it follows for themthat it is not symbolic. We argue that, while theseissues build upon each other, they should be treatedseparately as each of them entails a different level ofinference.

Anthropogenic origin of the Berekhat Ram object

Essentially, for Marshack it appears that we havebecome so involved in applying ‘sophisticated tech-nology’ to a problem he has already ‘solved’ that inthe process we lost sight of the ‘important’ issues —namely the cognitive processes behind the BerekhatRam object. There are three points arising fromMarshack’s present criticisms which we would liketo discuss.

First, Marshack’s main comment seems to bethat his and our analyses of the object have beencarried out at different levels, as the aim of his studywas not to demonstrate the human origin of themodifications, but rather to test ‘the nature of theperceptual, problem solving and cognitive processesthat may have been involved’ in the production anduse of the object. This, however, was not the objec-tive of his article in Antiquity. In his introduction tothat article, he clearly stated that his research had‘indicated that the pebble had been intentionallymodified’ (Marshack 1997a, 328). He then devotedapproximately 7.5 pages to describing these modifi-cations and only 1.5 pages to the possible implica-tions for cognition. Furthermore, it is difficult for usto imagine how an editor of an internationally knownjournal would accept a paper that focused on whatthe implications of a piece of stone might be if thestone was not a stone but a carving.

Second, neither in earlier publications in whichhe discusses the object, nor in his present comment,does Marshack provide any clues to help us under-stand what criteria he has used to test his assump-tions concerning the possible cognitive processinvolved in the manufacture of the Berekhat Ramobject. We do not see how an archaeological inquiryaimed at discussing the cognitive implications of an

object could ignore the identification or use of meth-ods to first establish whether the object is or is nothuman made and, if anthropogenic, how (i.e. withwhat techniques, tools, motion, succession of actions,timing etc.) the anthropogenic modifications wereproduced. These sequences of actions are in fact se-quences of choices and decisions which may reflectthe cognitive processes at work. Thus, they will beintegral to any argument Marshack wishes to makeconcerning the nature of these processes. How, forexample, could Marshack evaluate the cognitive im-plications of the use of such a tiny fragment of vol-canic rock, or of the choice of a piece with thisparticular morphology, if he had no idea of the sizeand morphological variability of the available rawmaterial at the site? How could he recognize ‘micro-scopic evidence of intentionality without a need forexperimentation’ if he didn’t know whether similargrooves occurred naturally on this type of material?How can he think that he is in a better position thanus to judge what a ground surface would look likeafter 250 Kr if, unlike us, he has no idea of what asurface which had been ground would look like whenit was made? How can he seriously suggest that weare wrong in documenting the modifications on theobject one by one, rather than deciding from thebeginning, as he has, that it is a figurine? We there-fore reject as epistemological nonsense Marshack’sidea that we, and he, have carried out two differentor, at best, complementary studies — one devoted tothe ‘interpretation’ and the other to the ‘validation’of the object. The two, in our view, go inevitablytogether, as an ‘interpretation’ without method is nomore than a personal opinion. In other words, andcontrary to Marshack beliefs, we have never arguedthat the ‘intent must remain a black box’. The criti-cisms levelled at our interpretation of the BerekhatRam object by several commentators clearly demon-strate this. We simply believe that before one canopen that box and share its content with the scien-tific community, one has first to secure a reliableframework of inferences that enable a link to beestablished between observation and interpreta-tion.

We apologize for any errors we might havemade in reporting Marshack’s description of the ob-ject. We were, however, aware of this possibility andfor this reason clearly stated in our introduction thatwe were reporting Marshack’s results ‘as we under-stand them’ and that ‘teasing apart the natural fea-tures of the figurine from those considered byMarshack as intentionally modified is a difficult taskas he blends them together in his description’. Con-

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trary to Marshack, however, we do not see how thismay weaken our argument. We have tried to showthat, independently of its depictive nature, this ob-ject may be relevant for the debate about the originof symbolism because of the modifications it exhib-its, not that it should be interpreted as a figurine.The lack of an arm, in this respect, seems more tojeopardise Marshack’s hypothesis than our own.

Finally, one of us (d’Errico 1989; 1992; 1995b;1996a,b) has already discussed in this journal andelsewhere the various problems concerning Mar-shack’s work on Palaeolithic ‘notations’. In particu-lar, and contrary to his claim, d’Errico has neverstated that there was no notation in the UpperPalaeolithic, but that the theoretical and analyticalgrounds on which Marshack and others have basedtheir identification of ‘notations’, were, at best, de-batable. It is precisely by developing a novel theo-retical reflection and identifying pertinent analyticalcriteria that d’Errico (d’Errico 1995; 1998; in press;d’Errico & Cacho 1994) was eventually able to showthat, in some cases, objects previously considered asnotations by Marshack and others should not beinterpreted as such and that, in other cases, theyshould be interpreted as notations, but of a kinddifferent from that suggested by Marshack. The no-tational character of Ro48 is discussed in d’Errico1996c. We reiterate all this here because we believethat, as with the Berekhat Ram object, it is preciselythe clarification of methods and the reanalysis of thearchaeological evidence, encorporating, as Bar-Yosefsuggests, certain basic standards of the Natural Sci-ences, that has transformed the topic of notationfrom a situation where archaeologists are forced torely on one person’s opinion into an area of properscientific inquiry and debate.

Alternative hypotheses

A functional hypothesisWe fully concur with Close, Zilhão, Mithen andWynn that a functional or ‘non-purposive’ interpre-tation is not ‘refuted’ by our analysis. What ‘refuta-tion’ means, however, in the context of this researchneeds to be discussed and we take the opportunityof this reply to delve deeper into this matter. Intheory, refuting alternative interpretations to a sym-bolic explanation would be relatively easy. It wouldbe sufficient, following a traditional archaeologicalpractice, to demonstrate that this object shares tech-nological, stylistic and dimensional features withroughly contemporaneous carvings found at similarsites. This would suggest that the Berekhat Ram ob-

ject is an example of a known archaeological ‘type’.Furthermore, because it was found in a specific con-text we might also be able to demonstrate coherentmorphological and technical variations in time andspace that we would then interpret as evidence of anevolutionary trend of a given technocomplex. Wewould then compare these results with those com-ing from an analysis of the raw material and thetechniques used at this site and in neighbouring ar-eas to produce colorants. This might show that,though made from similar raw material, this objectis the result of a reduction sequence that differs fromthe kind used to produce colorants but is similar tothe techniques used to carve this specific category ofsymbolic objects. We might also be able to demon-strate this through the experimental replication ofboth techniques and through a study of the morpho-logical variability of contemporary carvings.

Unfortunately, this is impossible to do for theBerekhat Ram object, as the Acheulean record of theNear East lacks evidence of both carvings and theuse of colorants. It is difficult, therefore, to apply theotherwise logical refutational procedure that Zilhão,for example, suggests. We may, however, rely onwhat we know about the techniques used to processcolorants in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, aswell as the variability in the modification and use ofcolorants in more recent times, to assess the signifi-cance of this object. Such an approach suggests thatthe anthropogenic modifications documented by ouranalysis of the artefact contradict a functional inter-pretation. In other words, while our analysis cannotlogically refute a functional interpretation, we wouldargue that there are enough inconsistencies in thisinterpretation to warrant the further investigation ofthis matter.

A large number of red, yellow and black color-ants are known from Lower and, particularly, Mid-dle Palaeolithic sites in Europe (Bordes 1952;Wreschner 1982; Chase & Dibble 1987; Demars 1992).They increase in number significantly at some lateNeanderthal sites such as the Grotte du Renne atArcy where the Châtelperronian layers contain heavyconcentrations of ochre. In fact, approximately 9 kgof ochre fragments have been recovered from theselayers (Couraud 1980). In the Near East, pieces ofred and yellow ochre, one showing clear traces ofuse, have been found in the Mousterian levels ofQafzeh, dated to c. 90–100 Kya, in apparent associa-tion with the burials of Anatomically ModernHumans (Vandermeersch 1969; Hovers et al. 1997).An increasing number of pieces of red ochre, oftenexhibiting traces of use, have been also been reported

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over the last few years from southern African MSAcontexts (Singer & Wymer 1982; Knight et al. 1995;Watt 1998a,b; Henshilwood pers. comm.). The use ofcolorants becomes ubiquitous in the Upper Palaeo-lithic as well as in Late Pleistocene and Holocene con-texts all over the world (e.g. d’Errico & Vilhena Vialou1999). One of us (FD) has examined a large sample ofthese objects from Europe, America and Africa.

In spite of the diversity of chronological, geo-graphical, cultural, and probably symbolic contextsin which these materials were processed and used,they show a limited repertoire of modifications, di-agnostic of the different techniques and motions ap-plied to them. These lumps are either scraped orground. In the former case, the use of the lateraledge of a blank or of a retouched tool produces apalimpsest of sets of parallel shallow striations. Thistechnique is found both on flat/slightly concave androunded surfaces. The use of pointed tools results insurfaces covered by individual straight subparallelor intersecting grooves. The presence of deep groovesand of changes in the direction of the grooves whencrossing or joining an already existing groove areamong the diagnostic features of this technique,which is almost exclusively used on flat or slightlyconcave surfaces.

Grinding produces one or more isolated or ad-jacent facets covered by fusiform striations — thewidth of which depends on the size and hardness ofthe abrasive grains contained in or present on thesurface of the grinding tool. The anthropogenic ori-gin of other reported functional modifications is un-certain. We suspect, for example, that deep ogivalconcavities on pieces of ochre from southern AfricanMSA contexts like Klasies Shelter (Watt 1998b), in-terpreted as the product of drilling, may instead bethe result of perforations made by marine molluscs.This is certainly the case for all the pieces from theMSA levels of Blombos cave that otherwise exhibitgenuine traces of scraping (d’Errico & Henshilwoodunpublished data).

Although examples of the grooving techniquemay, in a few instances, be found in different placeson these objects, there is no example, to our knowl-edge, of a modified lump of colorant where thistechnique was used to produce either a single grooveencircling the object or a ‘U’-shaped groove. Simi-larly, we have never seen, among the pieces exam-ined so far, a piece of colorant where the groundsurface forms an acute angle with a more prominentarea that is unmodified, as is the case for the groovebetween the ‘chest’ and the ‘head’ of our object. Piecesof ochre that have been completely shaped by grind-

ing and/or scraping, are known in MSA, Mousterian,and Upper Palaeolithic as well as more recent con-texts (Fig. 24, top). These lumps of colorant, how-ever, are different from the object under study hereas they generally exhibit one or more pointed endsor thin rounded edges and diagnostic use-wear. Thesefeatures are typical of objects that have been used ascolorants to apply colour accurately on a chosensurface. Considering what has been summarizedabove concerning the object’s morphology and tex-ture, colorant powder would have been more quicklyand effectively produced by grinding one face ofthis object against a basalt flake or smashing it with asimilar tool.

In sum, there is little doubt that the differencebetween the types of modifications observed onPalaeolithic pieces of ochre used for functional pur-poses, and those recorded on the Berekhat Ram ob-ject, call into question a purely functional hypothesis.It is obviously difficult to know what such a range ofmodifications may have meant in an Acheulean con-text. If we use more recent societies for comparison,however, it is a fact that non-functional modificationof pieces of ochre as in the production of personalornaments (Fig. 25, cf. also Magdalenian beads madeof ochre from Belvis and Gandil shelters, southernFrance), carvings (cf. Gravettian female figurine inhaematite from Petrkovice), engravings (cf. Mag-dalenian representations of horses on ochre slabsfrom Lumentka and Urtiaga, Basque country) or inthe decoration of ‘functional’ crayons (Fig. 24, centreand bottom) are systematically associated with fullysymbolic societies in which these objects representone aspect of complex systems of representation.It is probably relevant, for the question that occu-pies us here, that a number of objects of this typeappear in MSA contexts well before the Middle–Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe (Watt1988a,b). When they occur, these objects are gen-erally small, even smaller than our specimen. Fur-thermore, sequences of notches, or notchesproducing grooves encircling the object to facili-tate suspension, or the production of symbolic de-pictions, are not rare.

Whether this is the case for the society whichproduced our object is difficult to say, and we agreein this respect with Bar-Yosef that there is no obvi-ous model to use as an analogy for early hominidbehaviour. What is certain, however, is that this ob-ject cannot be accounted for by attributing it to theproduction of ochre. Finally, it is important to notethat the Berekhat Ram object does not need to haveserved either a utilitarian function or a symbolic func-

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Figure 24. Top: crayon of haematite found at Lascaux during Glory excavations(courtesy of M. Menu). Centre: ochre pencil decorated with four sets of notchesfrom the Abri Blanchard (Musée de l’Homme collection, probably Gravettian,photo F. d’Errico). Bottom: Late Magdalenian decorated ochre pencil fromArancou shelter (courtesy of A. Roussot). Scale = 1 cm.

tion but could be a product ofboth, as is clear with more re-cent objects made of similarmaterials.

Non-purposeful behaviourArchaeologists have often beenaccused of interpreting all evi-dence they are otherwise unableto explain, as ritual. We won-der whether such criticismshould not be extended to thenon-purposive or random ‘doo-dling’ interpretation of materialculture. To test the non-purposive hypothesis oneshould first be able to distin-guish clearly what may or maynot be purposeful in humanagency. Subsequently we needto find a general pattern that isvalid for our genus, and iden-tify clues that will enable us todistinguish purposive fromnon-purposive behaviours inthe archaeological record. Ourcommentators seem to follow adifferent path. For some of themit is the uniqueness and the idi-osyncratic character of theobject that is key to a non-purposive interpretation. Incontrast, Wynn believes that alarge number of our actions, likethat of randomly drawing whileon the telephone, are non-purposive and that this objectmight just be another exampleof such behaviour. The formerposition must explain why, inan archaeological interpretation,uniqueness should be takenas synonymous with non-purposive action, while thelatter must explain why, if non-purposive actions are so com-mon, we do not find manyinstances of them in the archaeo-logical record. We challengedthe non-purposive interpreta-tion from a different perspec-tive. We argued that our experimental results sug-gest that the modifications observed on the object

appear to be the result of a deliberate motion —possibly the reflection of a conscious project.

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Representational nature of the Berekhat Ramartefact

We have never argued that the Berekhat Ram objectis a figurine. It is true, however, that we used thatterm as a convenient way of referring to the objectbecause that is how it is known in the literature —much as the term ‘scraper’ is ubiquitous in discus-sions of lithic industries even though everyone sus-pects that these tools were most likely used for avariety of functions and not merely scraping. None-theless, as Mithen has pointed out, it is an unfortu-nate choice of terms because of its connotation. EvenMithen himself, however, slips into referring to theobject as ‘the Berekhat Ram figurine’ in his conclu-sion for, we suspect, the same reason we did through-out our article. Not only have we never argued thatthe object is a figurine, but in our article we empha-sized that ‘the recognition of a human body in thisspecimen is problematic. It ultimately depends onthe criteria one employs to identify a human figurein a carved object and the level of uncertainty thatone is willing to accept as part of this identification’.In other words, unlike Marshack who is able to iden-tify ‘managed hair’, we are hesitant to ascribe femalecharacteristics to this object because of the difficultyin defining consistent criteria for doing so and thelack of comparable material. We have suggested thatthe subject of the representation is less importantthan the fact that at least some of the modifications

are inconsistent with a purely functional (and prob-ably non-purposeful) explanation.

Wynn suggests that we have unwittingly cre-ated a paradox by arguing that if the Berekhat Ramartefact is depictive then it is not iconic and, there-fore, must be symbolic. Our argument is not as sim-plistic as Wynn would have it. What we wrote wasthat ‘if iconic, the representation is far enough awayfrom the subject for which it stood to suggest’ that acloser resemblance was not needed ‘to establish ameaningful link between the two’. Conversely, if theobject is symbolic, ‘we are forced to admit that thearbitrary link between the meaning and its materialappearance was solid enough’ to be establishedthrough a visual rather than an encrypted represen-tation of the symbol. But we will address Wynn’sparadox nonetheless. He says that if we agree thatwhen the relationship between a symbolic artefactand its referent is not obvious it must be created inthe mind of the observer then we must, by exten-sion, agree that if an object is iconic it is not sym-bolic. He uses the Vogelherd horse as an example. Itshould be obvious, however, that while an objectcan be symbolic without being iconic (in fact that ispart of the definition of a symbol) an object can besymbolic as well as being iconic. Consider, for exam-ple, an Eiffel Tower key chain available in any sou-venir shop in Paris. It is at once an icon of the actualEiffel Tower in Paris as well as a symbol of the entirecity of Paris and/or all of France.

Figure 25. Pendants in haematite from the ceramic levels of the rock art site ofFerraz Egreja (Mato Grosso), c. AD 1000. 1 is interpreted as a possibleanthropomorphic representation (1 modified after Vialou & Vialou 1994, n. 2redrawn from Vialou et al. 1996).

We would like to make onefurther point concerning Wynn’scomments. We believe that Wynnanswers his own question (andthat of Zilhão) about the unusualcombination of features (small sizeand porous raw material) whichcharacterize the Berekhat Ram ob-ject. As we lack theoretically-grounded hypotheses to graspwhat pre-modern depiction mighthave looked like, it is difficult toreject the symbolic meaning or thedepictive nature of such an an-cient object by relying on moderncarving technology to guide ourinterpretation. Moreover, ethno-graphic and archaeological exam-ples of small objects carved onporous material can be found.Thus material and size do not ap-pear to be obstacles to symbolicinterpretations.

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Models for the origin of symbolling

Finally, we would like to address comments con-cerning the origins of symbolling. Contra Mithen, webelieve that making a distinction between a biologi-cal and a historical/cognitive model for the origin ofsymbolling is a logical way to initiate a discussion ofthe mechanisms which may be responsible for theemergence of the capacity for symbolling. Over thelast few years, much of the debate which has takenplace on the pages of prestigious international jour-nals (e.g. Appenzeller 1998) concerns whether or not aspeciation event is required to explain the emergenceof new cognitive abilities including symbolling. Manyresearchers still adhere to the belief that symbolling isa ‘modern’ behaviour which, by definition, is char-acteristic only of anatomically modern humans.

Plastic and remouldable as neural networks maybe, potentially immense changes in culture and biol-ogy during an organism’s life-span alone cannot ac-count for the cognitive changes we are discussinghere. There are two facts which are relevant to thisdiscussion. First, chimpanzees in the wild have neverbeen seen producing symbolic material culture. Sec-ond, and apparently in contradiction to Mithen’sviews, we have consistent archaeological evidencethat confirms that Neanderthals produced and usedsymbolic objects (d’Errico et al. 1998a,c; Zilhão &d’Errico 1999). This is demonstrated by the presenceof a varied repertoire of personal ornaments, deco-rated bone tools and, in one instance, the byproductsof their manufacture, in late Neanderthal contexts.These bone tools and ornaments are different fromthose produced by contemporary modern humansand they show extensive traces of wear indicatingthey have been used. In light of this evidence itbecomes difficult to assume, as Mithen does, thatNeanderthals made the ornaments without know-ing what to do with them. Is this yet another case ofnon-purposeful behaviour? Why is it that Mithen iswilling to attribute much of the emergence ofsymbolling to the plasticity of the human brain yet isat the same time so reluctant to concede any of thisability to Neanderthals? We do not understand thebasis upon which Mithen consistently ascribes aninherent, and thus biological, cognitive inferiorityto Neanderthals if it is not due to the need to‘discard evidence when it does not fit with’ hisrather inflexible model of human cognitive evolu-tion. It may be that modern human and Neander-thal interaction, behaviour and cultural evolutionare far more complex topics than Mithen perceivesthem to be.

In our view, it is clear that we face a phenom-enon in which biology and culture interacted. Thecentral questions concern how and when and amongwhat hominid group(s) symbolism emerged andwhat traces of this phenomenon are recoverable fromthe archaeological record. In this respect, we wel-come the distinction Mithen makes between the pos-sible symbolic nature of non-utilitarian artefacts andthe cognitive mechanisms that may have governedtheir production and use. This distinction may pro-vide an explanation for the unexpected pattern thatfaces archaeologists studying the nature and the tem-poral and geographic distribution of these artefacts.This pattern demonstrates the need to develop, asWynn terms them, theoretically-grounded-hypoth-eses, to study the initial stages of symbol use. Wedo not understand, however, how Mithen can si-multaneously advocate this approach and acceptGamble’s light-switch analogy. This analogy is para-digmatic of the opposite stance — the use of modernsymbols as a unique referential to identify past sym-bolic societies.

Conclusion

In sum, the results of our study support an anthro-pogenic origin for the Berekhat Ram object. We haveargued that many of the modifications documentedon the object are inconsistent with a purely func-tional (and possibly non-purposive) explanation. Wefurther emphasized that it may not be possible toidentify what, if anything, the object may depict andwe are certainly not arguing that it is necessarily afigurine. We believe, however, that its possible sub-ject matter is less important than the fact that it mayhave had a symbolic function. As Close notes, theresults of our study make the Berekhat Ram object amystery that will not soon disappear. We find itinteresting that while all of the commentators com-mend us for our rigorous methodology and for ex-plicitly stating the criteria by which we evaluatedthis object, the majority of them do not seem to ac-cept the possible implications of these results and, atthe end of it all, have retained the same interpreta-tion of the find they held before reading this article.We feel sure that this is an issue that will continue tobe debated for some time to come.

Acknowledgements

We thank Alain Roussot and Michel Menu for al-lowing us to use the photos at the top and at thebottom of Figure 24.

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