Middle Stone Age (MSA) site distributions in eastern Africa and their relationship to Quaternary environmental change, refugia and the evolution of Homo sapiens

Development of the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) before 300,000 years ago raises the question of how environmental change influenced the evolution of behaviors characteristic of earlyHomo sapiens. We used temporally well-constrained sedimentological and paleoenvironmental data to investigate environmental dynamics before and after the appearance of the early MSA in the Olorgesailie basin, Kenya. In contrast to the Acheulean archeological record in the same basin, MSA sites are associated with a markedly different faunal community, more pronounced erosion-deposition cycles, tectonic activity, and enhanced wet-dry variability. Aspects of Acheulean technology in this region imply that, as early as 615,000 years ago, greater stone material selectivity and wider resource procurement coincided with an increased pace of land-lake fluctuation, potentially anticipating the adaptability of MSA hominins.

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Explanations of variability in Middle Stone Age stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use in Eastern Africa

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences ◽

10.1007/s12520-020-01250-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

Author(s):

J. Blinkhorn ◽

M. Grove

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Strong Relationship ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Population History ◽

Raw Material ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Stone Tool ◽

Stone Age ◽

Time And Space ◽

Assemblage Composition

AbstractThe Middle Stone Age (MSA) corresponds to a critical phase in human evolution, overlapping with the earliest emergence of Homo sapiens as well as the expansions of these populations across and beyond Africa. Within the context of growing recognition for a complex and structured population history across the continent, Eastern Africa remains a critical region to explore patterns of behavioural variability due to the large number of well-dated archaeological assemblages compared to other regions. Quantitative studies of the Eastern African MSA record have indicated patterns of behavioural variation across space, time and from different environmental contexts. Here, we examine the nature of these patterns through the use of matrix correlation statistics, exploring whether differences in assemblage composition and raw material use correlate to differences between one another, assemblage age, distance in space, and the geographic and environmental characteristics of the landscapes surrounding MSA sites. Assemblage composition and raw material use correlate most strongly with one another, with site type as well as geographic and environmental variables also identified as having significant correlations to the former, and distance in time and space correlating more strongly with the latter. By combining time and space into a single variable, we are able to show the strong relationship this has with differences in stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use, with significance for exploring the impacts of processes of cultural inheritance on variability in the MSA. A significant, independent role for terrain roughness for explaining variability in stone tool assemblages highlights the importance of considering the impacts of mobility on structuring the archaeological record of the MSA of Eastern Africa.

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Chronology of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in eastern Africa

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aao2216 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 360 (6384) ◽

pp. 95-98 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Alan L. Deino ◽

Anna K. Behrensmeyer ◽

Alison S. Brooks ◽

John E. Yellen ◽

Warren D. Sharp ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Technological Innovation ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Stone Age ◽

Kenya Rift ◽

Sedimentary Deposits ◽

Uranium Series ◽

Uranium Series Dating

The origin of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) marks the transition from a highly persistent mode of stone toolmaking, the Acheulean, to a period of increasing technological innovation and cultural indicators associated with the evolution ofHomo sapiens. We used argon-40/argon-39 and uranium-series dating to calibrate the chronology of Acheulean and early MSA artifact–rich sedimentary deposits in the Olorgesailie basin, southern Kenya rift. We determined the age of late Acheulean tool assemblages from 615,000 to 499,000 years ago, after which a large technological and faunal transition occurred, with a definitive MSA lacking Acheulean elements beginning most likely by ~320,000 years ago, but at least by 305,000 years ago. These results establish the oldest repository of MSA artifacts in eastern Africa.

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Southern and Eastern Africa Middle Stone Age

Encyclopedia of Prehistory Volume 1: Africa ◽

10.1007/978-1-4615-1193-9_22 ◽

2001 ◽

pp. 274-275

Author(s):

Peter N. Peregrine

Keyword(s):

Middle Stone Age ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Stone Age

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Upper Pleistocene Human Dispersals out of Africa: A Review of the Current State of the Debate

International Journal of Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.4061/2011/615094 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 2011 ◽

pp. 1-17 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Amanuel Beyin

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Modern Human ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Last Interglacial ◽

Upper Pleistocene ◽

Current State ◽

Human Colonization ◽

Source Populations

Although there is a general consensus on African origin of early modern humans, there is disagreement about how and when they dispersed to Eurasia. This paper reviews genetic and Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic archaeological literature from northeast Africa, Arabia, and the Levant to assess the timing and geographic backgrounds of Upper Pleistocene human colonization of Eurasia. At the center of the discussion lies the question of whether eastern Africa alone was the source of Upper Pleistocene human dispersals into Eurasia or were there other loci of human expansions outside of Africa? The reviewed literature hints at two modes of early modern human colonization of Eurasia in the Upper Pleistocene: (i) from multiple Homo sapiens source populations that had entered Arabia, South Asia, and the Levant prior to and soon after the onset of the Last Interglacial (MIS-5), (ii) from a rapid dispersal out of East Africa via the Southern Route (across the Red Sea basin), dating to ~74–60 kya.

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Early Human Occupation at al-Jamrab (White Nile Region, Central Sudan): A Contribution to the Understanding of the MSA of Eastern Africa

Journal of African Archaeology ◽

10.1163/21915784-20180010 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 193-209 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Enza Elena Spinapolice ◽

Andrea Zerboni ◽

Michael Meyer ◽

Donatella Usai

Keyword(s):

Middle Stone Age ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Site Formation ◽

Stone Age ◽

Cultural Layer ◽

Human Occupation ◽

Stratigraphic Sequence ◽

Central Sudan ◽

Out Of Africa ◽

White Nile

AbstractThe middle reaches of the Nile River play a key role in the current models about the diffusion of modern Humans out of Africa, nevertheless the Early and the Middle Stone Age (Early Palaeolithic and Middle Palaeolithic) in central Sudan are poorly known. On-going investigation at al-Jamrab (White Nile region) highlights the archaeological potential of the central Sudan and illustrates the importance of an integrated approach combining archaeological excavation and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for understanding cultural site formation and post-depositional dynamics. The stratigraphic sequence at al-Jamrab includes a thick cultural layer rich in Early and Middle Stone Age artefacts, preserved in a deeply weathered palaeosol developed on fluvial sediments. The cultural layer includes a two-fold human occupation covering the Middle Stone Age, with Acheulean and Sangoan bifacial artefacts, although an Early Stone Age/Middle Stone Age transitional phase cannot be excluded. The artefact-bearing unit is attributed to the Upper Pleistocene based on preliminary OSL dating, the local palaeoenvironmental context, and strong pedogenetic weathering. Considering the paucity of archaeological data for the Pleistocene of Sudan and the importance of this region in the study of human dispersal out of Africa, this preliminary work on a new site and its associated stratigraphic context provides insights into the early peopling of Sudan and adds one more tessera to the Eastern Africa picture.

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Human responses to hydroclimate fluctuations over the last 200 kyr in Ethiopia

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11488 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Frank Schäbitz ◽

Verena Foerster ◽

Asfawossen Asrat ◽

Andrew S. Cohen ◽

Melissa S. Chapot ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Human Mobility ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Southern Ethiopia ◽

Ethiopian Rift ◽

Mobility Patterns

Humans have been adapting to more demanding habitats in the course of their evolutionary history. Nevertheless, environmental changes coupled with overpopulation naturally limit competition for resources. In order to find such limits, reconstructions of climate and population changes are increasingly used for the continent of our origin, Africa. However, continuous and high-resolution records of climate-human interactions are still scarce. Using a 280 m sediment core from Chew Bahir*, a wide tectonic basin in southern Ethiopia, we reconstruct the paleoenvironmental conditions during the development of Homo sapiens. The complete multiproxy record of the composite core covers the last ~600 ka , allowing tests of hypotheses about the influence of climate change on human evolution and technological innovation from the Late Acheulean to the Middle/Late Stone Age, and on dispersal within and out of Africa. Here we present results from the uppermost 100 meters of the Chew Bahir core, spanning the last 200 kiloyears (ka). The record shows two modes of environmental change that are associated with two types of human mobility. The first mode is a long-term trend towards a more arid climate, overlain by precession-driven wet-dry alternation. Through comparison with the archaeological record, humid episodes appear to have led to the opening of &#8216;green&#8217; networks between favourable habitats and thus to increased human mobility on a regional scale. The second mode of environmental change resembles millennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events, which seem to coincide with enhanced vertical mobility from the Ethiopian rift to the highlands, especially in the time frame between ~65&#8211;21 ka BP. The coincidence of climate change and human mobility patterns help to define the limiting conditions for early Homo sapiens in eastern Africa.___________________* cored in the context of HSPDP (Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project) and CRC&#160;(Collaborative Research Centre) 806 &#8220;Our way to Europe&#8221;

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Four-Field Co-evolutionary Model for Human Cognition: Variation in the Middle Stone Age/Middle Palaeolithic

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory ◽

10.1007/s10816-020-09502-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Marlize Lombard ◽

Anders Högberg

Keyword(s):

Homo Sapiens ◽

Evolutionary Model ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Human Cognition ◽

Brain Morphology ◽

Middle Palaeolithic ◽

Stone Age ◽

Future Studies ◽

Evolutionary Trajectories ◽

Two Populations

AbstractHere we explore variation and similarities in the two best-represented population groups who lived during the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic—the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Building on approaches such as gene-culture co-evolution, we propose a four-field model to discuss relationships between human cognitive evolution, biology, technology, society, and ecology. We focus on the pre-50-ka phase, because we reason that later admixing between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in Eurasia may make it difficult to separate them in terms of cognition, or any of the other fields discussed in this paper. Using our model enabled us to highlight similarities in cognition between the two populations in terms of symbolic behaviour and social learning and to identify differences in aspects of technical and social cognition. Dissimilarities in brain-selective gene variants and brain morphology strongly suggest differences in some evolutionary trajectories that would have affected cognition. We therefore suggest that rather than insisting that Neanderthals were cognitively ‘the same’ as Homo sapiens, it may be useful to focus future studies on Neanderthal-specific cognition that may have been well-developed within their specific context at the time.

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Lupemban

10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.36 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nicholas Taylor

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Central Africa ◽

Middle Stone Age ◽

Congo Basin ◽

Spatiotemporal Variability ◽

Evolutionary Significance ◽

Forest Belt ◽

Stone Age ◽

Tree Roots

The Lupemban is an industry of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) that is found across the Congo Basin and on its plateau margins in central Africa. It takes its name from the site of Lupemba that was discovered in 1944 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, then the Belgian Congo). The Lupemban’s distinctive toolkit of elongated lanceolate bifaces, core-axes, points, blades, and other small tools coincides with the equatorial forest belt and is suitable for constructing hafted implements, which has led to speculation it was a special and specific prehistoric adaptation to rainforest foraging. Although poorly dated across most of its geographic range, radiometric dates for the Lupemban at Twin Rivers (Zambia) show it is at least ~265 ka years old, placing it among the oldest known expressions of the regional MSA. As such, the Lupemban bears on 21st-century debates about the evolution of complex cognitive abilities and behaviors that characterize the emergence of Homo sapiens at or before 300 ka bp. In spite of the Lupemban’s potential importance for understanding the evolution of technology, human–environment interactions, and cognition in early Homo sapiens, the industry remains enigmatic and poorly understood. Logistical, ecological, and political challenges continue to impede fieldwork in central Africa. Moreover, at sites including Gombe Point (DRC), severe soil bioturbation by tree roots has caused the vertical displacement of buried artifacts, which corrupts the basic integrity of stratigraphic sequences. This problem is known to be widespread and means that after 100 years of research, central Africa still lacks a refined Stone Age cultural sequence. Consequently, very little is known about spatiotemporal variability within the Lupemban, or its specific environmental or cultural adaptations. At the site of Kalambo Falls (Zambia), the industry is found in secondary but stratified context, which, as of the early 21st century, offers the best glimpse into Lupemban technology and its potential evolutionary significance.

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The structure of the Middle Stone Age of eastern Africa

Quaternary Science Reviews ◽

10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.07.011 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 195 ◽

pp. 1-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

J. Blinkhorn ◽

M. Grove

Keyword(s):

Middle Stone Age ◽

Eastern Africa ◽

Stone Age

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