ABSTRACT
Biological systematics play an essential role in all aspects of palaeontological and palaeoclimatic research (Ridley, 1986). A pollen diagram is unthinkable without an established taxonomy of plant species and communities; even isotopic analyses of zoological specimens requires an initial taxonomic identification of the specimens to genus and if possible to species. When working with extinct taxa there is a degree of ambiguity in the definition of species, a problem that is particularly pronounced in the context of the small sample sizes available for fossil hominins, yet there is clarity at least in the challenges involved. It is not surprising that scientists who work to incorporate the archaeological record into their studies of past environments or hominin evolution assume the same degree of clarity in the systematics of Palaeolithic stone tool industries. In some cases palaeoanthropologists have gone as far as to apply the methods of cladistics to archaeological constructs (Foley and Lahr, 1997). However, there is an essential distinction between palaeontology and archaeology that although obvious is often overlooked. Archaeological systematics while in some ways analogous to biological systematics are applied not to biological organisms-whether plants or animals-but to the products of human activity.
