Mumba Rockshelter, Tanzania, is the only East African site spanning a continuous record of more than 100,000 years, including the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Late Stone Age (LSA) Transition. Rather ...than examine the presence or absence of traditional markers of “behavioral modernity”, we have endeavored here to respond to the calls of Shea (2011) and Basell (2008) by examining the proportional similarity of a trait present throughout the MSA–LSA sequence at Mumba Rockshelter: the bipolar technique of lithic reduction. We use a quantified, experimentally derived proxy to track the relative amount of bipolar percussion among Mumba's Beds VI, V, and III, namely, waste shatter. Our examination of Mehlman's previously unanalyzed collections from Mumba demonstrates that in terms of bipolar production Bed V is statistically indistinguishable from the Late Stone Age (LSA) Bed III, but significantly different from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) Bed VI. Given that Bed V dates to 56.9 ± 4.8 − 49.1 ± 4.3 ka cal BP, this result is consistent with other evidence that the origins of the LSA in East Africa began well before 40 kya, and that Mumba Bed V represents one of the earliest manifestations of the LSA in East Africa. We conclude with a discussion of factors that may have influenced the increased dependence of bipolar production at the site.
► Mumba Bed V has been branded as both Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Late Stone Age (LSA). ► Experimental bipolar reduction produces more shatter than does freehand knapping. ► We track the relative amount of lithic shatter in Mumba's Beds III, V, and VI. ► In terms of bipolar knapping Bed V is similar to the Bed III LSA, not Bed VI MSA. ► Results consistent with other evidence that Bed V was earliest East African LSA.
Located between modern-day South Africa and Tanzania, both of which have well-known and extensive Stone Age records, Mozambique's Stone Age sequence remains largely unknown in the broader context of ...African Pleistocene prehistory. Such lack of data occurs despite the key geographical location of the country, in southern Africa at the southeastern tip of the Great Rift Valley. As such, Mozambique is an area of interest to evaluate the origins and dispersion of Homo sapiens within Africa, particularly in relation to Middle Stone Age contexts and associated early modern human ecology and cognition.
This paper focuses on preliminary survey results from the Niassa District, near Lake Niassa (also known as Lake Malawi) in northern Mozambique. The results include the discovery and location of more than 80 new surface lithic concentration localities, as well as data from two new sites, the open air surface site of Ncuala and the rock shelter of Chicaza. For Chicaza we provide a series of new radiocarbon dates for the Iron Age and Late Stone Age occupations based on preliminary testing carried out at the site.
This paper presents the lithic analysis from the stratified deposits of one of the Laas Geel rock shelters in Somaliland (Shelter 7). This set of sites identified in 2002 is composed of around 20 ...rock shelters, most featuring polychromic paintings attributed to the Holocene. Moreover, Shelter 7 yielded numerous remains that are divided into two major chono-cultural phases. Microlithic industries from the upper part of the deposit are ascribed to the Late Stone Age (LSA). In contrast, the industries from the lower part of the deposit feature an association of LSA characteristics (but quite different from the ones from the upper part of the deposit) with technical traits that belong to the MSA, and especially the presence of a Levallois technology. This association reintroduces the question of the existence of an industry (or facies) once labeled “Hargeisan” and characterized by mixed features from the MSA and the LSA in this part of Africa at the end of the Pleistocene.
Our analysis of these industries culminates in a reconsideration of the definitions proposed by Clark in his seminal book, “The Prehistory of the Horn of Africa” (1954). This study provides new typo-technological data from the upper part of the Laas Geel Shelter 7 deposit that contribute to refining Clark's definition of the ‘Somaliland Wilton’ industry. In addition, the association of blade/bladelet production with typical Levallois production in the lower part of this site's deposits supports a comparison with the “Hargeisan Industry”. The industries recovered from Laas Geel Shelter 7 reintroduce debates on the existence of the “Hargeisan industry” and provide new data on the technological transition between the MSA and the LSA in the Horn of Africa.
Haua Fteah cave, situated between the Mediterranean coast and the Gebel Akhdar of northeast Libya, preserves rich Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Late Stone Age (LSA) cultural horizons. Excavated in the ...1950s and more recently, the richness and time-depth of the cave's archaeological record are unsurpassed by any other site in northern Cyrenaica. As a result, the Haua Fteah sequence has long been used to represent the culture history of the region as a whole. Recent geoarchaeological surveys of the Gebel Akhdar, as well as pre-desert and desert biomes further to the south, have resulted in the discovery of numerous MSA and LSA sites. The vast majority of these sites consist of surface lithics that cannot be dated currently. In contrast, parts of the Haua Fteah sequence have been dated using various chronometric methods. Using data collected through lithic attribute analysis, coupled with various statistical approaches (including Discriminant Function Analysis, or DFA), this paper explores variation in core reduction strategies within Haua Fteah from the early MSA to early LSA. Collections of cores from various sites located throughout the landscape are contrasted against those from Haua Fteah. By comparing undated cores from the landscape with those from different occupation phases at Haua Fteah, DFA classification is tested as a method for imparting an approximate chronology to the former. The results indicate notable variation in reduction strategies within the MSA at Haua Fteah, and notable similarities between early MSA (“Pre-Aurignacian”) and early LSA (“early Dabban”) core morphologies and technologies. Because of the latter in particular, together with several other factors that may be underpinning spatio-temporal variability in core reduction strategies, caution is recommended in loosely assigning approximate chronologies to surface lithic sites.
This paper reports briefly on the results of a short reconnaissance at the site of Qumayrah–Ayn 2 (QA 2), a new prehistoric site located in a poorly studied part of the Qumayrah Valley in northern ...Oman. A survey and limited probing by the Omani–Polish Qumayrah Archaeological Project confirmed the presence of a sediment, approximately 15–20 cm thick, which yielded not just lithics, but also stone installations discovered in situ. One of these installations was evidently a hearth, the other a kind of platform. The lithic assemblage is characterized by a prevalence of flake technology with rare blade products. Predominant in the tools group are side-scrapers, notches and perforators produced by direct-scaled retouch. The most characteristic tools are tanged projectile points made on flakes. The main problem is contextualizing these materials. On the grounds of certain premises they may be associated with the Fasad technocomplex, but not necessarily the pre-Neolithic one as is the case of the classic types. However, a much later chronology is also quite possible.
Abstracts
The Late Pleistocene is a key period to understand the shift from the Middle (msa) to the Late Stone Age (lsa) in Africa. More generally, it is also a crucial time for elucidation of ...changes in the technological behaviours of human populations in Africa after the main Out of Africa event of modern humans ca. 60-50 thousand years ago. However, the archaeological record for this period is relatively poor, particularly for the Horn of Africa. Here we present a detailed analysis of the lithic assemblages from Goda Buticha (gb), a cave in southeastern Ethiopia, which has yielded a long stratigraphic sequence including Late Pleistocene and Holocene levels. This study (1) contributes to a better knowledge of the late msa in the Horn of Africa; (2) documents a late Holocene lsa level (gb - Complex i); (3) highlights the presence of msa characteristics associated with lsa features in the Holocene (gb - Layer iic). This adds to the emerging record of great lithic technological variability during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in this region.
Research conducted along the Bulbula River (Ziway–Shala basin, Main Ethiopian Rift) has yielded archaeological assemblages that document various phases of the Upper Pleistocene and the early ...Holocene. The oldest period documented is dated to ∼34–33,000 Cal BP (DW1), and the second is dated to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, between 14,000 and 11,000 Cal BP (B1s1, DW2s2 and DW2s1). The analysis of these assemblages and their comparison offer new perspectives on early LSA industries, and on the development and diversity of partially microlithic industries at the end the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene. Through the characterization of techno-economic changes in the context of shifting environments and their exploitation by humans, our results intend to provide new insights into human behavioral evolution on a local scale and for a time period that is currently insufficiently known. This study highlights the existence of major breaks in the archaeological record of the area during MIS 3–1.
Thurstan Shaw directed a pioneering excavation within Bosumpra Cave, Ghana, in 1943 and in 1973/1974 it was re-excavated by Andrew Smith, who obtained radiocarbon dates bracketing the upper section ...of the site's occupation sequence between 4500 cal. BC and cal. AD 1400. Bosumpra has since been widely cited in discussions concerning the West African Late Stone Age, although its significance and most of its occupation sequence remain obscure and open to speculation. Re-excavation during 2008-2011 revealed that the site's earliest occupation/exploitation dates from the mid-eleventh millennium cal. BC and continued throughout the Holocene. The site has more recently functioned as a shrine to the deity Pra and is in use today as a Christian church. Geometric microliths, celts and pottery formed the basis of a distinctive adaptation on the Kwahu Plateau from the tenth millennium cal. BC, with the stone tool component persisting until the seventeenth century AD. The upper layers of the shelter also yielded material that provides insights into the history of the Akan-speaking people of southern Ghana.
The transition from foraging to food production in interior southern Africa is still not well understood, despite being central to hypothesized migration and diffusion routes connecting the earliest ...agropastoralist sites in central Africa with the southern African subcontinent. Hwange National Park (14,650 sq. km), Zimbabwe is located along these proposed routes and has both Late Stone Age and Early Iron Age sites that can address this transition.
To better understand this change in lifeways and any environmental and/or topographic factors that influenced it, geoarchaeological investigations characterized the soils, sediments, and landforms in six different areas of the park. Forty-eight stratigraphic sections varying from two to four m thick were described, six of which are detailed here. These stratigraphic sections include dated material that allows correlation between basins of different substrates and comparisons of carbon isotopic signatures to reveal whether conditions were locally favorable to grasses (hot/dry) or woodlands (cool/wet) through time.
Examined river cuts and augered samples show that some river basins have sediment textures, soil types, and topographic relief that should have been attractive to farmers. However, radiocarbon ages reveal variable potential for finding remains of any early farmers from basin-to-basin, with some bedrock-constrained valleys having no preserved deposits of appropriate age. The repeated scouring of these river basins testifies to sometimes volatile conditions that would have challenged sustained food production.
In fact, in the study area landscape instability and variable environmental conditions were commonplace during the past three millennia. Drought between ca. 2.8 and 2.6 ka may have lessened the risk of disease vectors for the earliest agropastoralists that arrived during more mesic conditions between 1.9 and 1.65 ka. At this time basins began to accumulate fill and soil development suggests landscape stability even in headland basins. Changes in soil carbon isotope values imply relatively hot/dry conditions prevailed around 0.73 ka and 0.41 ka and cool/wet conditions around 0.53 ka, but much information has been lost due to the numerous erosional events that wiped away swaths of sediments during intervening droughts. The landscape in Hwange National Park continues to change rapidly as reflected by several meters of river downcutting in response to recent man-made disturbance and/or drought. This downcutting both reveals and endangers the few remaining archaeological sites that are critical to understanding the first food producers in the region.
This paper examines both decorative and formal change in the ceramics of the Tichitt tradition of Mauritania (c. 1900-400 BC), and this tradition's expression in the Middle Niger, the Faïta Facies ...(c. 1300 - 200 BC). Using attribute-based comparisons, a wide range of assemblages from Mauritania and Mali are utilised to demonstrate how temporal divisions may be discerned in this sequence. Particular attention is paid to the definition of Early and Late Faïta ceramic phases and the origins of finewares in the Middle Niger. It is notable that Tichitt Tradition ceramics feature frequent and early examples of cord roulette use in the West African Sahel.
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