Considerations of materiality and object-oriented approaches have greatly influenced the development of archaeological theory in recent years. Yet, Palaeolithic archaeology has been slow in incorporating this emerging body of scholarship and exploring its bearing on the human deep past. This paper probes into the potential of materiality theory to clarify the material dynamics of the Plio-Pleistocene and seeks to re-articulate the debate on the evolution of our species with materiality discourses in archaeology and the humanities more broadly. We argue that the signature temporalities and geospatial scales of observation provided by the Palaeolithic record offer unique opportunities to examine the active role of material things, objects, artefacts and technologies in the emergence, stabilisation and transformation of hominin lifeworlds and the accretion of long-term trajectories of material culture change. We map three axes of human–thing relations—ecological, technical and evolutionary—and deploy a range of case studies from the literature to show that a critical re-assessment of material agency not only discloses novel insights and questions, but can also refine what we already know about the human deep past. Our exploration underscores the benefits of de-centring human behaviour and intentionality and demonstrates that materiality lends itself as a productive nexus of exchange and mutual inspiration for diverging schools and research interests in Palaeolithic archaeology. An integrated object-oriented perspective calls attention to the human condition as a product of millennial-scale human–thing co-adaptation, in the course of which hominins, artefacts and technologies continuously influenced and co-created each other.

近年来，对物质性和面向对象方法的思考极大地影响了考古理论的发展。然而，旧石器时代考古学在整合这一新兴学术体系并探索其对人类深厚过去的影响方面进展缓慢。本文探讨了物质性理论在阐明上更新世物质动态方面的潜力，并试图通过更广泛的考古学和人文学科中的物质性话语重新阐明关于我们物种进化的争论。我们认为，旧石器时代记录提供的标志性时间性和地理空间观测尺度提供了独特的机会来研究物质事物、物品、人工制品和技术在古人类生活世界的出现、稳定和转变以及长期生命增长中的积极作用。物质文化变迁的轨迹。我们绘制了人与物关系的三个轴——生态、技术和进化——并从文献中部署了一系列案例研究，以表明对物质机构的批判性重新评估不仅揭示了新颖的见解和问题，而且还可以完善我们已经了解人类遥远的过去。我们的探索强调了人类行为和意向性的去中心化的好处，并表明物质性本身可以成为旧石器时代考古学不同流派和研究兴趣的交流和相互启发的富有成效的纽带。综合的面向对象的视角呼吁人们关注人类状况，将其视为千禧年规模的人与物共同适应的产物，在此过程中，古人类、人工制品和技术不断相互影响和共同创造。