scholarly journals The Role of Different Raw Materials in Lithic Technology and Settlement Patterns During the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Will
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Rock Types

AbstractThe study of raw materials is an essential step in lithic analysis, regardless of the age, provenance, and technology of the assemblages. As in many other contexts of the Paleolithic, researchers of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa have often focused their attention on fine-grained, non-local rock types, such as silcrete. Here, I spotlight raw materials considered to be of lower suitability for knapping and frequently acquired from local sources. Due to their coarse-grained nature, artifacts from rock types such as calcrete, sandstone, and quartzite might show attributes that are different from finer-grained materials. Some of these knapped stones even constitute the substrate of the sites they are from, at times resulting in their neglect or not being recognized as anthropogenic artifacts. Knapped vein quartz features sharp and durable edges, but its complicated fracture mechanics hamper comparative analysis and provide methodological challenges. In this study, raw materials from different transport distances and with different presumed qualities are compared in terms of their roles in MSA lithic technology and settlement patterns. In the first step, the article focuses on the open-air special-purpose camp of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1, Western Cape) and the rockshelter residential site of Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal), especially on assemblages dated between ~ 130–100 and ~ 58 ka. Subsequently, I review relevant materials for the southern African MSA. At HDP1 and Sibudu, local raw materials of lower knapping suitability assume several roles, from the “staple” material for all manufacturing stages to special-purpose and “add-on” functions. In the broader southern African region, MSA knappers also used these rock types in a flexible manner with gradual differences but also similarities to their use of finer-grained raw material. These differences depend on a complex interaction of raw material availability, differential site use, and the position of the localities in the settlement system.

Sibudan

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Will
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Mis 3 ◽  
Reduction Methods ◽  
Core Reduction ◽  
Spatio Temporal

The Sibudan is a technocomplex within the cultural stratigraphy of the southern African Middle Stone Age (MSA), first formulated in 2012. The term was introduced as a working concept to organize the spatio-temporal variability in material culture among the archaeological record following the Howiesons Poort during Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3; ~59–24 ka). In contrast to the more widely used name “post-Howiesons Poort” (“post-HP”)—an umbrella term resting primarily upon temporal aspects—the Sibudan possesses a formal definition based on characteristic elements of its lithic technology. The site of Sibudu, located in the eastern part of southern Africa (KwaZulu-Natal), serves as type locality since it has yielded a rich and high-resolution record of modern human occupations during MIS 3. The Sibudan type sequence at Sibudu, dated to ~58 ka and encompassing twenty-three layers, features both characteristic traits and diachronic variability. The consistent techno-typological elements include predominantly local raw material procurement, concomitant use of multiple core reduction methods (Levallois, discoid, platform, and bipolar), manufacture of flake and blade assemblages, as well as soft stone hammer percussion for blades. Temporal variability exists in the proportions and morphologies of tools and unifacial points in particular—including Tongati, Ndwedwe, and asymmetric convergent tools—the presence of bifacial points, as well as the frequency of blank types and different core reduction methods. Comparative studies since 2014 suggest a spatio-temporal extension of the Sibudan in the eastern part of southern Africa during early MIS 3 (~58–50 ka), with marked differences to assemblages of similar ages along the southern coast and Western Cape. The concept is thus not a direct substitute or congruent with the “post-HP” and “Sibudu technocomplex.” On a more interpretive level, the Sibudan has featured in discussions on the trajectory of cultural evolution among early modern humans, the scale and mechanisms of behavioral change during the MSA, and theoretical debate on the relevance of technocomplexes.

Heat Treatment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Heat Treatment ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Heat Treated ◽  
Silica Rocks ◽  
People First ◽  
North And South America

In archaeology, heat treatment is the intentional transformation of stone (normally sedimentary silica rocks) by fire to produce materials with improved fracture properties. It has been documented on all continents, from the Africa Middle Stone Age up to subrecent times. It was an important part of the Mediterranean Neolithic and it sporadically appeared in the Paleolithc and Mesolithic of Asia and Europe. It may have been part of the knowledge of people first colonizing North and South America, and it played an important role for toolmaking in the Australian Prehistory. In all these contexts, heat treatment was normally used to improve the quality of stone raw materials for tool knapping; especially its association with pressure flaking has been highlighted, but a few examples also document the quest of making tools with improved qualities (sharper cutting edges) and intentional segmentation of large blocks of raw material to produce smaller, better-usable modules (fire fracturing). Two categories of silica rocks were most often heat-treated throughout prehistory: relatively fine-grained marine chert or flint and more coarse-grained continental silcrete. The finding of stone heat treatment in archaeological contexts opens up several research questions on its role for toolmaking, its cognitive and social implications, and the investment it required. Important venues for research are, for example: Why did people heat-treat stone? What happens to stones when heated? How can heating be recognized? By what technical means were stones heated? Which cost did heat treatment represent for its instigators? Answering these questions allows light to be shed on archaeologically relevant processes like innovation, reinvention, convergence, or the advent of complexity. The methods needed to produce these answers, however, often stem from other fields such as physics, chemistry, mineralogy, or material sciences.

Changing Patterns in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Prehistory of Southern Africa as Seen from the Nelson Bay Cave Stone Artifact Sequence

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janette Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Sensu Stricto ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Stone Artifact

The dating of the Stone Age sequence in southern Africa has been considerably revised over the last decade, and one of the anomalies which has resulted is that the Middle Stone Age, now dated to beyond 30,000 B.P., does not immediately precede the Later Stone Agesensu stricto. The excavation and analysis of occupation horizons dating between the most recent Middle Stone Age assemblages and the Holocene is therefore of particular interest. Nelson Bay Cave, situated on the southern coast of South Africa, contains deposits which partly fill the “gap” between the Middle and Later Stone Ages, and the occupation horizons dating between about 18,000 and 5000 years ago are described in this paper. Changes in the habitat in the vicinity of the site caused by sea-level and vegetation changes coincident with the amelioration of temperatures at the end of the Pleistocene are clearly marked in the faunal remains at the site. Largely correlated with the faunal changes (which includes the introduction of marine resources to the cave at about 12,000 B.P.) are changes in the stone artifact assemblages. Three industries are recognized in the sequence: the Robberg, characterized by microbladelets produced from bladelet cores and a few small scrapers and backed tools; the Albany, characterized by large scrapers and an absence of backed tools; and the Wilton, characterized by a variety of Formal Tools including relatively large numbers of small scrapers and backed tools. These changes in artifact-manufacturing traditions are interpreted as signaling adjustments to changing environmental conditions. An explanation for these adjustments is not sought in a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the environment and the cultural response; artifact changes are seen instead as the result of a twofold process, with the environment acting as an external stimulus to change, and the direction of the artifact change governed by the selection of a range of possibilities offered by the technology of the Later Stone Agesensu latothat was widespread in subequatorial Africa during the last 20,000 years.

Liquid immiscibility and the origin of alkali-poor carbonatites

1988 ◽  
Vol 52 (364) ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. A. Kjarsgaard ◽  
D. L. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Liquid Immiscibility ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Rock Types ◽  
Liquid Fractionation ◽  
Ring Complexes ◽  
The Common ◽  
Melt Cooling ◽  
Carbonate Melt ◽  
Common Sequence

AbstractThe work on liquid immiscibility in carbonate-silicate systems of Freestone and Hamilton (1980) has been extended to include alkali-poor and alkali-free compositions. Immiscibility is shown to occur on the joins albite-calcite and anorthite-calcite at 5 kbar. These results make it possible to interpret ocellar structure between calcite-rich spheroids in lamproite or kimberlite host rock as products of liquid immiscibility. The common sequence of rock types found in carbonatite complexes of melilitite-ijolite-urtite-phonolite is interpreted as being the result of both fractional crystallization and liquid fractionation, the corresponding carbonatite composition changing from nearly pure CaCO3 (±MgCO3) progressively to natrocarbonate. A carbonate melt cooling in isolation will suffer crystal fractionation, the residual liquid producing the rarer ferrocarbonatites, etc., whilst the crystal accumulate of calcite (dolomite) plus other phases such as magnetite, apatite, baryte, pyrochlore, etc., are the raw material for the coarse-grained intrusive carbonatites commonly found in ring complexes.

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