196 CHAPTER 8 | Early Homo and the Origins of Culture
Anthropology AppliedStone Tools for Modern Surgeons
When anthropologist Irven DeVore of
Harvard University was to have some mi-
nor melanomas removed from his face,
he did not leave it up to the surgeon
to supply his own scalpels. Instead, he
had graduate student John Shea make
a scalpel. Making a blade of obsidian
(a naturally occurring volcanic “glass”)
by the same techniques used by Upper
Paleolithic people to make blades, he
hafted this in a wooden handle, using
melted pine resin as glue and then lash-
ing it with sinew. After the procedure,
the surgeon reported that the obsidian
scalpel was superior to metal ones.a
DeVore was not the first to undergo
surgery in which stone scalpels were
used. In 1975, Don Crabtree, then at
Idaho State University, prepared the
scalpels that his surgeon would use in
Crabtree’s heart surgery. In 1980, Payson
Sheets at the University of Colorado
prepared obsidian scalpels that wereused successfully in eye surgery. And in
1986, David Pokotylo of the Museum of
Anthropology at the University of British
Columbia underwent reconstructive sur-
gery on his hand with blades he himself
had made (the hafting was done by his
museum colleague, Len McFarlane).
The reason for these uses of scalpels
modeled on ancient stone tools is that
the anthropologists realized that obsidian
is superior in almost every way to materi-
als normally used to make scalpels: It is
210 to 1,050 times sharper than surgical
steel, 100 to 500 times sharper than a
razor blade, and three times sharper than
a diamond blade (which not only costs
much more but cannot be made with
more than 3 mm of cutting edge).
Obsidian blades are easier to cut
with and do less damage in the process
(under a microscope, incisions made
with the sharpest steel blades show torn
ragged edges and are littered with bitsof displaced flesh).b As a consequence,
the surgeon has better control over what
she or he is doing, and the incisions
heal faster with less scarring and pain.
Because of the superiority of obsidian
scalpels, Sheets went so far as to form a
corporation in partnership with Boulder,
Colorado, eye surgeon Dr. Firmon
Hardenbergh. Together, they developed
a means of producing cores of uniform
size from molten glass, as well as a ma-
chine to detach blades from the cores.a Shreeve, J. (1995). The Neandertal
enigma: Solving the mystery of modern
human origins (p. 134). New York:
William Morrow.
b Sheets, P. D. (1987). Dawn of a
New Stone Age in eye surgery. In R. J.
Sharer & W. Ashmore (Eds.), Archaeology:
Discovering our past (p. 231). Palo Alto,
CA: Mayfield.These electron micrographs of the tips of an obsidian blade (left) and a modern steel scalpel illustrate the
superiority of the obsidian.© William A. Haviland © William A. Havilandmore anatomically modern skulls, in Europe, northern
Africa, and southwestern Asia during this time period. At
around 35,000 years ago, the Mousterian traditions were
replaced by the Upper Paleolithic traditions, which are the
subject of Chapter 9. However, the Anthropology Applied
feature shows that stone tools continue to be important for
humans today.
The Mousterian tradition is named after the Neandertal
cave site of Le Moustier, in southern France. The presence of
Acheulean hand-axes at Mousterian sites is one indication
that this culture was ultimately rooted in the older Acheu-
lean tradition. Mousterian tools are generally lighter and
smaller than those of earlier traditions. Whereas previously
only two or three flakes could be obtained from the entire
core, Mousterian tool makers obtained many smaller flakes,
which they skillfully retouched and sharpened. Their tool
kits also contained a greater variety of types than the ear-
lier ones: hand-axes, flakes, scrapers, borers, notched flakes
for shaving wood, and many types of points that could be
attached to wooden shafts to make spears. This variety of