The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2009: the third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2008 fieldwork

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 55-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Annita Antoniadou ◽  
Huw Barton ◽  
Ian Brooks ◽  
Ian Candy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Glacial Cycle ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequence ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the third (2009) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results from the analysis of materials collected in the previous (2007 and 2008) fieldwork. Sediments in a 14 m-deep core drilled beside the McBurney trench provide an invaluable overview of the overall stratigraphic sequence, including at depths reached by the 1950s Deep Sounding but not yet investigated by the present project. Sampling of newly-exposed faces of the original excavation trench for dating (14C, ESR, OSL, U-series) and palaeoenvirommental indicators continued. Excavation was begun of sediments assigned to the early Holocene Libyco-Capsian (McBurney's Layer X), and of Pre-Aurignacian layers beside the top of the Deep Sounding. The Libyco-Capsian layers are particularly prolific in lithic debris, shells, and animal bones; preliminary analysis of the lithics suggests a development from Typical to Upper Capsian within the layers excavated in 2009. Geoarchaeological survey along the littoral to the west and east of the Haua Fteah identified complex sequences spanning most of the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Geoarchaeological survey south of the Haua Fteah characterized the major landforms of the Gebel Akhdar mountain and of the pre-desert and desert-edge zones further south, with Late Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic) material being found especially on the southern side of the Gebel Akhdar, and Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic) material in the pre-desert and desert regions. The first suite of 14C dates (from charcoal samples taken in 2007) indicates the use of the Haua Fteah by Oranian hunter-gatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum and in the succeeding millennia, but not in the Younger Dryas cold/dry phase (c. 11,000–10,000 cal. BC), with Libyco-Capsian occupation resuming soon after the beginning of the Holocene c. 9000 cal. BC, suggesting that the cave, and perhaps the Gebel Akhdar in general, have a complex history as refugia for human settlement during the Pleistocene.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the sixth season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 113-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Rabett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
Ross Lane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Event ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Climatic Regime ◽  
Molluscan Fauna ◽  
Trench Area ◽  
Mis 5 ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the sixth season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP) undertaken in September 2012. As in the spring 2012 season, work focussed on the Haua Fteah cave and on studies of materials excavated in previous seasons, with no fieldwork undertaken elsewhere in the Gebel Akhdar. An important discovery, in a sounding excavated below the base of McBurney's 1955 Deep Sounding (Trench S), is of a rockfall or roof collapse conceivably dating to the cold climatic regime of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (globally dated to c. 190–130 ka) but more likely the result of a seismic event within MIS 5 (globally dated to c. 130–80 ka). The sediments and associated molluscan fauna in Trench S and in Trench D, a trench being cut down the side of the Deep Sounding, indicate that this part of the cave was at least seasonally waterlogged during the accumulation, probably during MIS 5, of the ~6.5 m of sediment cut through by the Deep Sounding. Evidence for human frequentation of the cave in this period is more or less visible depending on how close the trench area was to standing water as it fluctuated through time. Trench M, the trench being cut down the side of McBurney's Middle Trench, has now reached the depth of the latest Middle Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic (Levalloiso-Mousterian) industries. The preliminary indications from its excavation are that the transition from the Levalloiso-Mousterian to the blade-based Upper Palaeolithic or Late Stone Age Dabban industry was complex and perhaps protracted, at a time when the climate was oscillating between warm-stage stable environmental conditions and colder and more arid environments. The estimated age of the sediments, c. 50–40 ka, places these oscillations within the earlier part of MIS 3 (globally dated to 60–24 ka), when global climates experienced rapid fluctuations as part of an overall trend to increasing aridity and cold.

scholarly journals Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 367 (6485) ◽  
pp. eaaz7943 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Zilhão ◽  
D. E. Angelucci ◽  
M. Araújo Igreja ◽  
L. J. Arnold ◽  
E. Badal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Invertebrates ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Marine Birds ◽  
Old World ◽  
Coastal Resource ◽  
Marine Food

Marine food–reliant subsistence systems such as those in the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) were not thought to exist in Europe until the much later Mesolithic. Whether this apparent lag reflects taphonomic biases or behavioral distinctions between archaic and modern humans remains much debated. Figueira Brava cave, in the Arrábida range (Portugal), provides an exceptionally well preserved record of Neandertal coastal resource exploitation on a comparable scale to the MSA and dated to ~86 to 106 thousand years ago. The breadth of the subsistence base—pine nuts, marine invertebrates, fish, marine birds and mammals, tortoises, waterfowl, and hoofed game—exceeds that of regional early Holocene sites. Fisher-hunter-gatherer economies are not the preserve of anatomically modern people; by the Last Interglacial, they were in place across the Old World in the appropriate settings.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
South Wall ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Worked Bone ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.

scholarly journals Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Variation

Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the diverse histories model, to replace it. We outline the limitations of using recent foragers as models of Late Pleistocene societies and the considerable social variation among foragers commonly considered small-scale, mobile, and egalitarian. We review ethnographic and archaeological findings covering 34 world regions showing that non-agricultural peoples often live in groups that are more sedentary, unequal, large, politically stratified, and capable of large-scale cooperation and resource management than is normally assumed. These characteristics are not restricted to extant Holocene hunter-gatherers but, as suggested by archaeological findings from 27 Middle Stone Age sites, likely characterized societies throughout the Late Pleistocene (until c. 130 ka), if not earlier. These findings have implications for how we understand human psychological adaptations and the broad trajectory of human history.

Archaeology of Botswana

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Klehm
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
Economic Strategies ◽  
Fish Exploitation ◽  
The Indian Ocean

The prehistory of Botswana concerns the sophisticated environmental knowledge, economic strategies, and social networks of the hunter-gatherer, pastoralists, and agropastoralist communities that have called Botswana home. Diverse subsistence strategies and societal structures ranging from heterarchical to hierarchical have coincided and responded flexibly to climate and environmental variables. Botswana has also played a central, but often overlooked, role in precolonial trade within the interior of Africa and across the Indian Ocean. Botswana contains well-preserved archaeological records for the Middle Stone Age, Late Stone Age, and Iron Age periods, including one of the highest concentrations of rock art in the world at Tsodilo Hills. The prehistory of Botswana extends over 100,000 years and includes successful, innovative, and adaptive occupations in a wide variety of environmental zones, from the Okavango Delta to the Kalahari sandveld, and better-watered hardveld areas in the east. Stone Age peoples adapted to both arid and wet lands, and the archaeological record includes early evidence for freshwater fish exploitation. Hunting with bone points dates to 35,000 years ago, with additional evidence for poisonous, reversible arrowheads between 21,000 and 30,000 years ago. Evidence for ritualized behavior through rock paintings, rock carvings, and the intentional destruction and abandonment of stone tools at Tsodilo Hills provides further insights to the social dimensions of early peoples. In the Iron Age, hunter-gatherer communities and agropastoralists participated in a regional and later protoglobal trade across the Indian Ocean for a thousand years before European involvement; as the regional economy intensified, large polities such as Bosutswe and even kingdoms such as the Butua state emerged, controlling access to resources such as game, ivory, salt, specularite, and gold. In the modern era, the historical archaeology of sites such as Old Palapye (Phalatswe) provide additional insight to historical documents that can contradict Eurocentric understandings of Botswana’s past.

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

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-209 ◽  
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.

The Prehistoric Sequence at Nakapapula Rockshelter, Zambia

1970 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 172-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. W. Phillipson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Age Sequence ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Considerable attention has recently been paid to the start of the Iron Age in East and Central Africa. One of the most interesting problems concerning this period is that of the relationship of the Early Iron Age farming people to the hunter-gatherers of the Late Stone Age whom they eventually displaced. Very few archaeological sites are known, and none have yet been published, which illustrate the Late Stone Age/Iron Age transition in Central Africa, and discussions of this and related problems have so far been largely based on conjecture. Evidence concerning this important transition was recently unearthed at Nakapapula rockshelter in the Serenje District of central Zambia. Here a long and relatively homogeneous Late Stone Age sequence of Nachikufan type was seen to continue into the 2nd millennium A.D., that is, well after the first appearance of Early Iron Age pottery at this site and elsewhere in Zambia. Nakapapula has also yielded the first archaeological evidence for the date of schematic rock art in Central Africa and confirmed its contemporaneity with the Early Iron Age.

scholarly journals Le Peuplement des Grassfields: Recherches Archeologiquesdans L’ouest du Cameroun

Afrika Focus ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Philippe Lavachery
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
The West ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Rock Shelter ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Metal Age

The Settlement of the Grassfields: Archeological Research in the West of Cameroon Until recently the Grassfields (Western Cameroon), cradle of the Bantu languages, were an unknown zone from an archaeological point of view. The excavations of Shum Laka rock shelter offer the first chrono-cultural sequence for the area. After 20 millenniums of microlithic (Late Stone Age) traditions of hunter-gatherers, a new culture with macrolithic tools, pottery and arboriculture (Stone to Metal Age) slowly developed from 6000 BC onwards. Correlation with palaeo-climatic and historical linguistic data suggests that proto-Benue-Congo and, later, proto-Bantu speakers could have been involved in these industries.

The West African Stone Age

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Allsworth-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Terminus Post Quem ◽  
African Populations ◽  
Climatic Record ◽  
Reliable Classification

In terms of artefacts present, West Africa is not short of evidence relating to human occupation during the Quaternary. The problem hitherto has been one of context and dating; there has been some progress in this regard but poor preservation conditions still restrict the presence of organic remains prior to the beginning of the Late Stone Age (LSA). Nonetheless, an excellent climatic record for the last 520 kya has been established on the basis of cores obtained from Lake Bosumtwi. Stratified Acheulean sites have been excavated at Sansandé and Ravin Blanc on the Falémé River in eastern Senegal. The succeeding Sangoan is an entity for which a consistent and reliable classification remains to be achieved. Despite this, excavations at Anyama in the Ivory Coast have produced a sizeable quantity of material, with a terminus post quem thermoluminescence (TL) date of 254 ± 51 kya. Our knowledge of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) has been transformed by the work carried out at Ounjougou in Mali. More than twenty-five distinct archaeological occurrences have been detected, extending from about 75 to 25 kya. The MSA elsewhere is abundant, and at Adrar Bous is in place beneath the Aterian, but much of it lacks a good stratigraphic context. The following dry period, the Ogolian, must have had a dramatic effect on human settlement, and the majority of LSA sites postdate this episode. There is no apparent link between them and the MSA. Nonetheless, the LSA at Shum Lake in Cameroon does have 14C dates in the range 32,700–12,800 BP. The most significant LSA site is Iwo Eleru, notable for the presence of modern human remains with “archaic” characteristics. A parallel situation has been detected at Ishango in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo both indicating a hitherto unsuspected “deep substructure” in Late Pleistocene African populations.

Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherers of Nubia

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-100
Author(s):  
Mirosław Masojć
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Lower Paleolithic ◽  
Upper Egypt

The chapter is devoted to the earliest human settlement in Nubia, which took place in the Pleistocene, with numerous references to neighboring areas, especially Upper Egypt. Paleolithic groups of humans probably appeared in Nubia in the Early Pleistocene, but well-documented sites—connected with Lower Paleolithic-Acheulean complex industries—are dated only to Middle Pleistocene (MIS 9-7). Some of the oldest Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages in Africa were discovered in Nubia (ca. 220 ka, MIS 7). Numerous MSA sites (ca. 220–40 ka, MIS 7-3) with predominating Levallois technology are situated within the Nile valley and the neighboring deserts, mainly in oases. The onset of Upper Paleolithic (ca. 40–20 ka, MIS 3-2) blade technology was recorded together with the oldest mining. Late Paleolithic groups of humans (20–11 ka, MIS 2), characterized by considerable diversity in the hyper-arid period, lived only in the Nile valley. Local examples of rock paintings come from that period. Pleistocene human remains from Nubia are extremely rare; they all represent H. sapiens. Cemeteries with numerous burials, some of which display evidence of violence, were also discovered in this area.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document