Lithic Technology as Geoheritage — Underappreciated?
Cotterell in Fracture and Life examines the significance of how rocks fracture on the development of human biological evolution and culture.
Cotterell 2008 states:
“Here, right at the beginning of human evolution, our hominid ancestors were unknowingly using the mechanics of fracture to make tools that enabled them to better exploit their environment and affect their evolution.”
In the geoheritage literature it is surprising that there are not journal articles that discuss the geoheritage significance of lithic technology and flintknapping. Yet, flintknapping, the use of rocks for creating stone tools, has shaped human culture for over 2 million years. Lithic technology is one of the prime examples in which geodiversity, the range of different rock types across the landscapes, has dramatically shaped people directly through time. From this perspective, Lithic technology is geoheritage, and is one of the best examples of geoheritage that we can find.
