We report here on evidence of early Homo around 1.0 Ma (millions of years ago) in the central plains of southern Africa. The human material, a first upper molar, was discovered during the systematic ...excavation of a densely-packed bone bed in the basal part of the sedimentary sequence at the Cornelia-Uitzoek fossil vertebrate locality. We dated this sequence by palaeomagnetism and correlated the bone bed to the Jaramillo subchron, between 1.07 and 0.99 Ma. This makes the specimen the oldest southern African hominine remains outside the dolomitic karst landscapes of northern South Africa. Cornelia-Uitzoek is the type locality of the Cornelian Land Mammal Age. The fauna contains an archaic component, reflecting previous biogeographic links with East Africa, and a derived component, suggesting incipient southern endemism. The bone bed is considered to be the result of the bone collecting behaviour of a large predator, possibly spotted hyaenas. Acheulian artefacts are found in small numbers within the bone bed among the fossil vertebrates, reflecting the penecontemporaneous presence of people in the immediate vicinity of the occurrence. The hominine tooth was recovered from the central, deeper part of the bone bed. In size, it clusters with southern African early Homo and it is also morphologically similar. We propose that the early Homo specimen forms part of an archaic component in the fauna, in parallel with the other archaic faunal elements at Uitzoek. This supports an emergent pattern of archaic survivors in the southern landscape at this time, but also demonstrates the presence of early Homo in the central plains of southern Africa, beyond the dolomitic karst areas.
I use Later Stone Age artifacts and faunal remains from Blydefontein Rock Shelter in the eastern Karoo, South Africa to investigate the interaction between risk and hunter–gatherer technological ...organization. Modifications in stone-tool repair and replacement are influenced by changes in past environments, resources, and the economic and settlement strategies of these Later Stone Age hunter–gatherers. The technological approaches range from time-minimization tactics to resource-maximization tactics. Time-minimization tactics favor the intense curation of extractive tools and the expedient use of maintenance tools, while resource-maximization tactics employ a more rapid replacement of extractive tools coupled with intense curation of maintenance tools. Time-minimization tactics occur with lower risk wetter conditions and the selection of larger animals for prey, while resource-maximization tactics correspond to higher risk conditions during drier periods and the more intensive exploitation of smaller animals. Efficient technologies were also employed for the rapid production of backed microlithic tools, but this does not appear to be in response to economic or environmental factors.
This paper provides an interpretation of the chronology of the Early Later Stone Age (Early LSA) in South Africa and Southern Namibia. The Early LSA tradition first appears in Africa at Border Cave ...between ∼46 and 44ka, and in Southern Africa this tradition slowly appears to the west, replacing groups producing Middle Stone Age (MSA) technologies. In this region, the latest transformation from MSA to Early LSA occurs in southern Namibia between 25 and 23ka and perhaps in secluded areas in the interior as late as 21ka. The timing and causes of this dispersion are poorly understood. The transition from Early LSA technologies to the Robberg Industry appears to be a rapid sub-continental wide cultural transformation.
Twenty-one AMS radiocarbon and optical stimulated luminescence assays from Early Ceramic (Plains Woodland) and Middle Ceramic (Antelope Creek) periods are reported from sites on the Cross Bar Ranch ...in Potter County, Texas including the first direct date on Phaseolus sp. remains in the Southern Plains. Calibrated radiocarbon dates and a single luminescence assay are used to evaluate site occupation spans during the Middle Ceramic Antelope Creek phase (ca. AD 1150–1450). A method for determining occupation sequences between sites using combined probabilities is presented for Antelope Creek occupations on the Cross Bar Ranch and the entire period of occupation at the Cross Bar Ranch is compared to other direct dates on cultigens from the greater Antelope Creek phase in the Southern Plains of Texas.
Recent zooarchaeological and aDNA analysis have produced conflicting evidence for the existence of early domestic stock at Blydefontein Rock Shelter. The anatomical analysis identified eight ...specimens as sheep or sheep/goats, the oldest of which was dated to 2860-2765 BP, while the aDNA results suggest that the oldest identified sheep specimen was either greater kudu or eland. Almost all of the other aDNA identifications conflicted with the anatomical assessments. The faunal and aDNA analyses are presented in separate papers in this journal. This paper provides background information on the site of Blydefontein, and frames the discussion in terms of the reliability and validity of the anatomical and aDNA evidence.
Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 and 4 are periods of major cultural innovations in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa. While extensive data is available for the coast, far less is known about ...the interior, in particular its central plateau. This is likely due to the large geographic extent of this area and a general paucity of caves and rock shelters that can provide long stratigraphic sequences and environmental records. The lack of information and systematic research has hindered our understanding of regional variation and patterns of human dispersal within the subcontinent. Our research at the open-air MSA site of Lovedale situated on the Modder River addresses this issue. Using sediment micromorphology, infrared spectroscopy of bones and sediments, phytolith and faunal analyses, as well as luminescence dating, we have reconstructed the evolution of paleoenvironments in this region at specific points over the last ∼80,000 years. Our results help contextualize human occupation and hunting strategies associated with a pre-Howiesons Poort technology that occurred in a wetland environment during a short-lived warm, dry period dated to ∼70 ka. These results show that humans settled the grasslands of the central interior at the onset of MIS 4 and confirm the importance of wetlands in human subsistence strategies, especially in times of climatic stress.
•Open-air archaeological sites provide records of paleoenvironments and human behavior.•A multi-analytical approach contextualizes ancient human behavior.•The interior of South Africa fluctuated between wet and dry periods.•Grasslands and wetlands were important resources for Middle Stone Age people.
The coexistence of multiple species competing for a finite set of resources is a widely debated topic in community ecology. Species with strongly overlapping niches are expected to drive each other ...towards exclusion, but such species may also coexist if they have similar competitive abilities. This compromise can lead to a peculiar pattern of clumped coexistence, where multiple species share similar niches, leaving gaps open in the theoretically available niche space. Large mammal herbivores may be a good example of this, where species' dietary niches clump as either grazers, browsers, or intermediate-feeders, rather than being continuously distributed over the resource gradient. Here, we develop a model of such emergent neutrality amongst species competing for a set of predefined resources each distributed along a finite niche axis. The model is commensurate with stable isotope niches, thus allowing us to compare its predictions with empirical evidence for changes in community niche structure over evolutionary time. We present stable carbon and oxygen isotope evidence for six discontinuous Late Quaternary assemblages from the central interior of South Africa, demonstrating the emergence of a clumped niche structure from an initial pattern of strongly overlapping diets. We show that species tend to cluster on parts of the niche axis where resource availability is highest, mirroring the proliferation of grazer species as landscapes became more grass-dominated. However, the presence of competition means that species’ niches continue to differentiate, explaining the persistence of browser and intermediate-feeder species even in these open, predominantly treeless landscapes. These results highlight that species interactions are a necessary factor for robust inferences about the evolutionary dynamics of palaeocommunities.
•Perdiz arrow point shape differs by time.•Perdiz arrow point shape differs by raw material.•Perdiz arrow point shape differs by burial context.
Temporal assignments carry substantive weight, and ...archaeologists regularly assume that artefacts from discrete temporal units may differ in ways that convey changes in preference or behaviour. Similarly, archaeologists regularly assume that raw material differences articulate with stone tool morphology, and the role of differential raw material quality and preference associated with Caddo lithic technology remains largely unexplored. Whether a particular artefact is found in or outside of burial contexts is a sensitive and regularly discussed topic in the archaeological literature, providing valuable insights related to prehistoric burial practices, as well as generational shifts in aesthetics, design, and raw material preferences. These assumptions were tested using geometric morphometrics, yielding results in support of the hypothesis that Perdiz arrow point shape is protean, and that significant differences existed in shape by time, raw material, and burial context.
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