The Halibee member of the Upper Dawaitoli Formation of Ethiopia's Middle Awash study area features a wealth of Middle and Later Stone Age (MSA and LSA) paleoanthropological resources in a succession ...of Pleistocene sediments. We introduce these artifacts and fossils, and determine their chronostratigraphic placement via a combination of established radioisotopic methods and a recently developed dating method applied to ostrich eggshell (OES). We apply the recently developed
Th/U burial dating of OES to bridge the temporal gap between radiocarbon (
C) and
Ar/
Ar ages for the MSA and provide
C ages to constrain the younger LSA archaeology and fauna to ∼24 to 21.4 ka. Paired
C and
Th/U burial ages of OES agree at ∼31 ka for an older LSA locality, validating the newer method, and in turn supporting its application to stratigraphically underlying MSA occurrences previously constrained only by a maximum
Ar/
Ar age. Associated fauna, flora, and
fossils are thereby now fixed between 106 ± 20 ka and 96.4 ± 1.6 ka (all errors 2σ). Additional
Ar/
results on an underlying tuff refine its age to 158.1 ± 11.0 ka, providing a more precise minimum age for MSA lithic artifacts, fauna, and
fossils recovered ∼9 m below it. These results demonstrate how chronological control can be obtained in tectonically active and stratigraphically complex settings to precisely calibrate crucial evidence of technological, environmental, and evolutionary changes during the African Middle and Late Pleistocene.
The Late Pleistocene (∼125–12 thousand years ago) record of eastern Africa is critical for assessing the origin, evolution and history of human behavior. Faunal remains are a resource for ...understanding changes in paleoenvironments and the foodways of ancient people in eastern Africa, yet zooarchaeological information for this timeframe has been constrained by few and frequently biased samples, leading to interpretations that emphasize the hunting of large ungulates. New research in a mesic peri-coastal area of Kenya reveals a distinct food acquisition strategy at Panga ya Saidi, a cave that foragers intermittently occupied over the past 78,000 years. Zooarchaeological data from Panga ya Saidi, together with published ethnographic, animal behavioral, and zooarchaeological data, are used to argue that archaeologically invisible tools such as snares, traps, and/or nets were regularly used by Middle and Later Stone Age foragers to remotely capture small game in the site's forested environs, while encounter hunting was occasionally used to target larger game in nearby grasslands. The earliest circumstantial evidence for remote capture of fauna in eastern Africa raises questions about technological innovations, planning, and the people potentially involved in the food quest.
•Faunal remains from Late Pleistocene eastern Africa are key to human behavior.•Zooarchaeological analysis of Panga ya Saidi reveals ∼78,000 year record of diet.•Dietary changes across Late Pleistocene may be in response to environment.•Small game were important and likely captured remotely by snares, nets, or traps.•Remote capture has implications for technological innovation and planning.
Patterns of so-called modern human behavior are increasingly well documented in an abundance of Middle Stone Age archaeological sites across southern Africa. Contextualized archives directly ...preceding the southern African Middle Stone Age, however, remain scarce. Current understanding of the terminal Acheulean in southern Africa derives from a small number of localities that are predominantly in the central and northern interior. Many of these localities are surface and deflated contexts, others were excavated prior to the availability of modern field documentation techniques, and yet other relevant assemblages contain low numbers of characteristic artifacts relative to volume of excavated deposit. The site of Montagu Cave, situated in the diverse ecosystem of the Cape Floral Region, South Africa, contains the rare combination of archaeologically rich, laminated and deeply stratified Acheulean layers followed by a younger Middle Stone Age occupation. Yet little is known about the site owing largely to a lack of contextual information associated with the early excavations. Here we present renewed excavation of Levels 21–22 at Montagu Cave, located in the basal Acheulean sequence, including new data on site formation and ecological context, geochronology, and technological variability. We document intensive occupation of the cave by Acheulean tool-producing hominins, likely at the onset of interglacial conditions in MIS 7. New excavations at Montagu Cave suggest that, while Middle Stone Age technologies were practiced by 300 ka in several other regions of Africa, the classic Acheulean persisted later in the Fynbos Biome of the southwestern Cape. We discuss the implications of this regionalized persistence for the biogeography of African later Middle Pleistocene hominin populations, for the ecological drivers of their technological systems, and for the pattern and pace of behavioral change just prior to the proliferation of the southern African later Middle Stone Age.
Control of fire is one of the most important technological innovations within the evolution of humankind. The archaeological signal of fire use becomes very visible from around 400,000 y ago onward. ...Interestingly, this occurs at a geologically similar time over major parts of the Old World, in Africa, as well as in western Eurasia, and in different subpopulations of the wider hominin metapopulation. We interpret this spatiotemporal pattern as the result of cultural diffusion, and as representing the earliest clear-cut case of widespread cultural change resulting from diffusion in human evolution. This fire-use pattern is followed slightly later by a similar spatiotemporal distribution of Levallois technology, at the beginning of the African Middle Stone Age and the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. These archaeological data, as well as studies of ancient genomes, lead us to hypothesize that at the latest by 400,000 y ago, hominin subpopulations encountered one another often enough and were sufficiently tolerant toward one another to transmit ideas and techniques over large regions within relatively short time periods. Furthermore, it is likely that the large-scale social networks necessary to transmit complicated skills were also in place. Most importantly, this suggests a form of cultural behavior significantly more similar to that of extant
than to our great ape relatives.
The behavioral origins of Homo sapiens can be traced back to the first material culture produced by our species in Africa, the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Beyond this broad consensus, the origins, ...patterns, and causes of behavioral complexity in modern humans remain debated. Here, we consider whether recent findings continue to support popular scenarios of: (1) a modern human ‘package,’ (2) a gradual and ‘pan-African’ emergence of behavioral complexity, and (3) a direct connection to changes in the human brain. Our geographically structured review shows that decades of scientific research have continuously failed to find a discrete threshold for a complete ‘modernity package’ and that the concept is theoretically obsolete. Instead of a continent-wide, gradual accumulation of complex material culture, the record exhibits a predominantly asynchronous presence and duration of many innovations across different regions of Africa. The emerging pattern of behavioral complexity from the MSA conforms to an intricate mosaic characterized by spatially discrete, temporally variable, and historically contingent trajectories. This archaeological record bears no direct relation to a simplistic shift in the human brain but rather reflects similar cognitive capacities that are variably manifested. The interaction of multiple causal factors constitutes the most parsimonious explanation driving the variable expression of complex behaviors, with demographic processes such as population structure, size, and connectivity playing a key role. While much emphasis has been given to innovation and variability in the MSA record, long periods of stasis and a lack of cumulative developments argue further against a strictly gradualistic nature in the record. Instead, we are confronted with humanity's deep, variegated roots in Africa, and a dynamic metapopulation that took many millennia to reach the critical mass capable of producing the ratchet effect commonly used to define contemporary human culture. Finally, we note a weakening link between ‘modern’ human biology and behavior from around 300 ka ago.
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.
Abstract Abrupt radiocarbon ( 14 C) excursions, or Miyake events, in sequences of radiocarbon measurements from calendar-dated tree-rings provide opportunities to assign absolute calendar dates to ...undated wood samples from contexts across history and prehistory. Here, we report a tree-ring and 14 C-dating study of the Neolithic site of Dispilio, Northern Greece, a waterlogged archaeological site on Lake Kastoria. Findings secure an absolute, calendar-dated time using the 5259 BC Miyake event, with the final ring of the 303-year-long juniper tree-ring chronology dating to 5140 BC. While other sites have been absolutely dated to a calendar year through 14 C-signature Miyake events, Dispilio is the first European Neolithic site of these and it provides a fixed, calendar-year anchor point for regional chronologies of the Neolithic.
The faunal sample from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and overlying Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits of Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape Province, South Africa) includes at least 40 taxa, mostly ...mammals, but also tortoises, snakes, birds (especially ostrich represented by eggshell), and intertidal mollusks. The LSA sample contains only species that occurred nearby historically, including domestic sheep, which LSA people introduced to the region by 1800 years ago. In contrast, like other Western Cape MSA faunas, the Diepkloof MSA sample has more species and it is especially notable for five large extralimital grazing species. These imply a greater-than-historic role for grasses in the local vegetation, particularly in the post-Howiesons Poort (latest MSA) interval where the grazers appear most abundant. Extreme fragmentation and dark-staining impedes analysis of the MSA bones, but cut-marks, abundant burning, and numerous associated artifacts suggest that people were the main accumulators. Rare coprolites imply that carnivores could have contributed some bones, and concentrations of small mammal bones, particularly near the bottom of the MSA sequence, suggest a role for raptors. Tortoise bones are common throughout the sequence, and the MSA specimens tend to be especially large, as in other MSA assemblages. The LSA specimens are smaller, probably because LSA human populations were denser and preyed on tortoises more intensively. The most surprising aspect of the Diepkloof assemblage is its marine component. The coast is currently 14 km away and it would have been even more distant during much of the MSA when sea levels were often lower. Intertidal mollusks, particularly black mussels and granite limpets, are concentrated in the LSA and in the Late and Post-Howiesons Poort layers. Only LSA shells are complete enough for measurement, and the limpets are small as at other LSA sites. The implication is again for more intense LSA collection by relatively dense human populations. Both the LSA and MSA deposits also contain bones of shorebirds and Cape fur seals. Whale barnacles and occasional dolphin bones indicate that MSA people scavenged beached cetaceans.
► Diepkloof has pre-Still Bay to post-Howiesons Poort and Later Stone Age material. ► The fauna is dominated by (mainly small) mammals, tortoises, and intertidal mollusks. ► As in other Late Pleistocene Western Cape samples, grazers are abundant. ► Small animals, especially at the base, potentially were accumulated by non-humans. ► Later Stone Age limpets and tortoises are generally smaller than Middle Stone Age ones.
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