Describing and Conceptualizing Minimal Tools in an Ethnographic Setting: Implications for Understanding Technological Systems Holistically

How should we describe and conceptualize the simplest tools imaginable, especially in relation to distinctions between found, minimal, and repurposed objects? Most ethnographic accounts pay little attention to them, and neither does the organization of museums and the anthropological curriculum. Addressing the literature on the theory of tool use, this paper argues why rudimentary objects observed ethnographically, such as used as containers, scrapers, whetstones and strike-a-lights, should not be neglected. The argument is illustrated with reference to data on the Nuaulu people of Seram, eastern Indonesia. The main exception to this neglect has been archaeological, in the context of understanding the earliest possible human tools, and in animal behavior studies where the very idea of tool use is being interrogated. Holistic claims about tools require that we understand the scale and significance of minimal tools both for modern nonindustrial peoples and for ordinary people living and working in industrial societies.