Middle Stone Age

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne Wilkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Homo Heidelbergensis ◽  
Ongoing Research

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Please check back later for the full article. The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is a period of African prehistory characterized by the production of stone points and blades using prepared core reduction techniques. The MSA follows the Earlier Stone Age and precedes the Later Stone Age. The MSA is generally regarded as having started by at least 300 thousand years ago, and lasting to roughly 40 to 20 thousand years ago. Identifying the chronological limits for the MSA is challenging because some aspects of Middle Stone Age technology are found in assemblages outside this time range that also have Earlier or Later Stone Age-type tools. The earlier part of the MSA is associated with Homo heidelbergensis (alternatively known as archaic Homo sapiens, or Homo rhodesiensis). The later part of the MSA, post-200-thousand-years, ago is associated with Homo sapiens. Identifying the processes underlying the evolution of Homo sapiens during the MSA is a major objective of ongoing research, but very few fossil remains have been recovered so far. Across the African continent and through time, the MSA exhibited a high degree of variability in the types of and ways that stone tools were manufactured and used. Archaeologists have used this variability to define several techno-complexes and industries within the MSA that include the Aterian, Howiesons Poort, Still Bay, and Lupemban. Variation in point styles, presumably hafted to wooden handles or projectiles in many cases, is a hallmark of the regional diversification that originates in the MSA. This kind of variability, which is temporally and spatially restricted, differs in degree from the preceding Earlier Stone Age. The MSA is significant from an evolutionary perspective because it is associated with the anatomical origins of Homo sapiens, as well as several significant changes in human behavior. Populations in the MSA practiced a foraging economy, were proficient hunters, and began efficiently utilizing aquatic resources such as shellfish and freshwater fish for the first time. Other significant changes included the elaboration of and increased reliance on symbolic resources, complex technologies, and social learning. For example, the first known externally stored symbols in the form of cross-hatched incised pigments date to 100 thousand years ago. In contexts of similar age, shell beads for making jewelry have been recovered from Morocco and South Africa. The earliest evidence for complex projectiles dates to at least 74 thousand years ago. The meaning, utility, and persistence of symbols and complex technologies depend on social learning and confer advantages in contexts that involve long-distance, complex social networks. While many of these earliest finds linked to behavioral modernity have been geographically restricted, the combined suite of genetic, fossil, and archaeological evidence may better support a pan-African origin for Homo sapiens over the course of the MSA.

Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 360 (6384) ◽  
pp. 90-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison S. Brooks ◽  
John E. Yellen ◽  
Richard Potts ◽  
Anna K. Behrensmeyer ◽  
Alan L. Deino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Red Pigment ◽  
Associated Fauna ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Tool Materials ◽  
Uranium Series

Previous research suggests that the complex symbolic, technological, and socioeconomic behaviors that typifyHomo sapienshad roots in the middle Pleistocene <200,000 years ago, but data bearing on human behavioral origins are limited. We present a series of excavated Middle Stone Age sites from the Olorgesailie basin, southern Kenya, dating from ≥295,000 to ~320,000 years ago by argon-40/argon-39 and uranium-series methods. Hominins at these sites made prepared cores and points, exploited iron-rich rocks to obtain red pigment, and procured stone tool materials from ≥25- to 50-kilometer distances. Associated fauna suggests a broad resource strategy that included large and small prey. These practices imply notable changes in how individuals and groups related to the landscape and to one another and provide documentation relevant to human social and cognitive evolution.

scholarly journals New Excavations at Umhlatuzana Rockshelter, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: a Stratigraphic and Taphonomic Evaluation

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-578
Author(s):  
Irini Sifogeorgaki ◽  
Victor Klinkenberg ◽  
Irene Esteban ◽  
May Murungi ◽  
Andrew S. Carr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Stable Carbon Isotope ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Site Formation ◽  
Site Formation Processes ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Sediment Movement ◽  
And Cluster Analysis

AbstractUmhlatuzana rockshelter has an occupation sequence spanning the last 70,000 years. It is one of the few sites with deposits covering the Middle to Later Stone Age transition (~40,000–30,000 years BP) in southern Africa. Comprehending the site’s depositional history and occupation sequence is thus important for the broader understanding of the development of Homo sapiens’ behavior. The rockshelter was first excavated in the 1980s by Jonathan Kaplan. He suggested that the integrity of the late Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age sediments was compromised by large-scale sediment movement. In 2018, we initiated a high-resolution geoarchaeological study of the site to clarify the site formation processes. Here, we present the results of the excavation and propose a revised stratigraphic division of the Pleistocene sequence based on field observations, sedimentological (particle size) analyses, and cluster analysis. The taphonomy of the site is assessed through phytolith and geochemical (pH, loss on ignition, stable carbon isotope) analyses. The results indicate a consistent sedimentological environment characterized by in situ weathering. The analysis of the piece-plotted finds demonstrates semihorizontal layering of archaeologically dense zones and more sterile ones. There was no indication of large-scale postdepositional sediment movement. We show that the low-density archaeological horizons in the upper part of the Pleistocene sequence are best explained by the changing patterns of sedimentation rate.

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.

Human Skeletal Remains from the Southern Cape Province and Their Bearing on the Stone Age Prehistory of South Africa

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. P. Rightmire
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
River Mouth ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Human Skeletal Remains ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Skeletal Samples ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Cave Sediment

Substantial numbers of human skeletons have been recovered from caves and shelters of the southern Cape Province, South Africa, and these constitute a valuable source of information about evolutionary change and population movement during Upper Pleistocene and Holocene times. A few fragments from Klasies River Mouth and Die Kelders are firmly associated with Middle Stone Age cultural assemblages, but most of the material is probably linked with the Later Stone Age Albany and Wilton industries. Unfortunately the largest collections of relatively well-preserved remains have come from earlier excavations (Matjes River Shelter, Oakhurst), and the stratigraphic provenance of these burials is frequently in doubt. Other skeletal samples are small, and paleodemographic approaches are diffcult to apply. However, Bushman- or Hottentot-like individuals can certainly be identified, and this is important to the questions of Bushman antiquity or origins. Other problems concerning early Cape populations can also be examined, and this work on the human skeletons should complement ongoing cave sediment and other geological studies, faunal and plant analyses, and archaeological investigations of associated cultural remains.

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

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.

Lupemban

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.

Survey and explorations of caves in southeastern Ethiopia: Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age archaeology and Holocene rock art

2014 ◽  
Vol 343 ◽  
pp. 136-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zelalem Assefa ◽  
David Pleurdeau ◽  
Frederique Duquesnoy ◽  
Erella Hovers ◽  
Osbjorn Pearson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Rock Art ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age

What happened to the human mind after the Howiesons Poort?

Antiquity ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 85 (330) ◽  
pp. 1433-1443 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlize Lombard ◽  
Isabelle Parsons
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Cognitive Evolution ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Bow And Arrow ◽  
Survival And Development

The authors deliver a decisive blow to the idea of unidirectional behavioural and cognitive evolution in this tightly argued account of why the bow and arrow was invented and then possibly laid aside by Middle Stone Age communities in southern Africa. Finding that all are modern humans (Homo sapiens), they paint a picture of diverse strategies for survival and development from 75 000 years ago onwards. It is one in which material inventions can come and go, human societies negotiating their own paths through a rugged mental landscape of opportunity.

scholarly journals New investigations at the Middle Stone Age site of Pockenbank Rockshelter, Namibia

Antiquity ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (353) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabell Schmidt ◽  
Götz Ossendorf ◽  
Elena Hensel ◽  
Olaf Bubenzer ◽  
Barbara Eichhorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Classic Model ◽  
The Past ◽  
Still Bay

In southern Africa, Middle Stone Age sites with long sequences have been the focus of intense international and interdisciplinary research over the past decade (cf. Wadley 2015). Two techno-complexes of the Middle Stone Age—the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort—have been associated with many technological and behavioural innovations of Homo sapiens. The classic model argues that these two techno-complexes are temporally separated ‘horizons’ with homogenous material culture (Jacobs et al.2008), reflecting demographic pulses and supporting large subcontinental networks. This model was developed on the basis of evidence from southern African sites regarded as centres of subcontinental developments.

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene age and archaeological context for the hominin calvaria from GvJm-22 (Lukenya Hill, Kenya)

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (9) ◽  
pp. 2682-2687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian A. Tryon ◽  
Isabelle Crevecoeur ◽  
J. Tyler Faith ◽  
Ravid Ekshtain ◽  
Joelle Nivens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Morphological Variability ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene ◽  
Age Range

Kenya National Museums Lukenya Hill Hominid 1 (KNM-LH 1) is a Homo sapiens partial calvaria from site GvJm-22 at Lukenya Hill, Kenya, associated with Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological deposits. KNM-LH 1 is securely dated to the Late Pleistocene, and samples a time and region important for understanding the origins of modern human diversity. A revised chronology based on 26 accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshells indicates an age range of 23,576–22,887 y B.P. for KNM-LH 1, confirming prior attribution to the Last Glacial Maximum. Additional dates extend the maximum age for archaeological deposits at GvJm-22 to >46,000 y B.P. (>46 kya). These dates are consistent with new analyses identifying both Middle Stone Age and LSA lithic technologies at the site, making GvJm-22 a rare eastern African record of major human behavioral shifts during the Late Pleistocene. Comparative morphometric analyses of the KNM-LH 1 cranium document the temporal and spatial complexity of early modern human morphological variability. Features of cranial shape distinguish KNM-LH 1 and other Middle and Late Pleistocene African fossils from crania of recent Africans and samples from Holocene LSA and European Upper Paleolithic sites.

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