Subsistence and tool use behavior of Homo erectus in Java: An experimental and taphonomic approach (Indonesia)

Butchery experiments utilizing 12 lithic and organic materials from Java together with microscopic analysis of cut marks have demonstrated that the tool raw material that induced cut marks on animal bones can be identified. Using this technique, I documented 39 cut marks on 4 excavated Pleistocene mammal fossils from Java, suggesting that early hominids practised butchery, used shell as a meat-eating tool raw material.; Previous theories argued Javanese Pleistocene hominids as vegetarians, bamboo tool users or H. sapiens as the first stone tool makers. My cut mark evidence provides a different picture against the previous ideas. Two bovid fossils from the Pucangan Formation at the Bukuran, Sangiran Dome, 1.16 and 1.0 mya, revealed cut marks related to the thick shell tools. One bovid fossil from the Kabuh Formation, 1.0 mya, in the Bukuran, and a cervid specimen from the Upper Pleistocene age Ngandong Terrace display cut marks inflicted by andesite tools. Although neither bamboo- nor other organic tool-related cut marks were recovered, the limited quantity of evidence still does not preclude the possible use of bamboo- or other organic tools along with the thick shell and andesite (stone) tools.; A landscape survey over a 50 km radius of Sangiran Dome revealed that the hominid fossil-containing Pucangan and Kabuh Formations of the Lower- and Middle Pleistocene age, exhibited no lithic materials. The andesite boulders of the Upper Lahar, the terminal Middle Pleistocene age, are the first lithic resource that hominids could have used to fabricate stone tools of all sizes. This indicates that the Lower- and Middle Pleistocene hominids in Java experienced severe lithic raw material constraints. The lack of associated Pleistocene tool assemblages in association with cut mark bearing fossils indicates tool curation by Pleistocene hominids.; Evidence of utilizing thick shells as a butchery tool by the Lower Pleistocene hominids in Java reinforces the theory that organic tool adaptation took place in the chopper-chopping tool culture area due to lithic raw material constraints during the development of early humanity, and that meat eating was a common mode of subsistence during the Pleistocene in the entire Old World.