Middle and Later Stone Age Symbolism

Utafiti ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Pastory Magayane Bushozi
Keyword(s):  
Raw Materials ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
African Region ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract The archaeological remains found in the Mumba rock-shelter in northern Tanzania – where continuous deposits span from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to the historical period – provide a unique opportunity to study trends in technology and behavioural change of early humans. Developments in symbolic thought may be evident in the production and use of ochre pigments, beads and rock art. At this site, beads and other symbolic artefacts are represented in varying quantities through the late MSA, the Later Stone Age (LSA), Neolithic, and post Stone Age cultures. Such beaded ornaments were made from various raw materials including ostrich eggshells, stone pebbles, and arthropod shells. Ancient beading technologies, discovered at Mumba and other MSA sites across the East African region, contribute to clarifying the origin and development of representational cognition in the distant past. These artefacts also reveal components of personal identity and creative expression, whose recorded remains are patchy and infrequently discussed in Sub-Saharan Africa. From a Darwinian perspective, these archaeological finds demonstrate the empirical issue of environmentally selected human responses to local stimuli. They are remnants of the synergistic adaptation that led more generally to the broader technological innovations and behavioural changes occurring through the late Middle Stone Age and later flourishing universally during the Late Stone Age culture.

The Archaeology of Nyanga, Eastern Zimbabwe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
African Region ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Farming Community

The Nyanga district of eastern Zimbabwe shows a cultural history that is similar to the rest of Zimbabwe and the southern African region. Although largely undated, the Stone Age—from the Early Stone Age, the Middle Stone Age, through to the Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers—is represented at a number of open sites and rock shelters. Later Stone Age rock art, some of which exhibits rather unique artistic attributes and characteristics such as the stripped images, has been recorded in this area. The advent of settled iron-using farming communities is also evident, as elsewhere in southern Africa dating from the 2nd to the 3rd century ce. The well-known Early Farming Communities Ziwa ceramic tradition of southern Africa is in fact named after the type site in this district. The Nyanga district is however particularly famous for its stone constructions that come in a variety of forms, consisting of stone terraced hillsides, which extend for almost sixty-five miles from north to south and cover some twenty-three hundred square miles, as well as stone-lined pit structures, hilltop forts, stone-walled enclosures, and trackways. Dating from the 14th to the early 19th century, the culture is one of the Later Farming Community cultures of Zimbabwe. The stone architecture and several other cultural aspects differ from those of the more famous Zimbabwe Culture, such that, although the two entities partly overlapped chronologically, Nyanga represents a separate cultural development in Zimbabwe’s history. The purpose of the stone structures has been a subject of archaeological debate for some time. The majority of scholars generally agree that the terracing and pit structures were constructed for agricultural and animal herding practices. However, since the early 2010s, some scholars have somewhat unconvincingly argued that gold-mining and processing were the primary motivation for the Nyanga architectural remains. The traditional view of the communities associated with the Nyanga stone architecture has largely seen them as representing basic peasant agricultural people lacking complex sociopolitical organization. However, examination of the scale and extent of the architecture, including consideration of the size of the enclosures and their spatial distribution, strongly suggests that the Nyanga people were organized as fairly complex sociopolitical formations that are archaeologically consistent with the chiefdom level, at the very least.

scholarly journals Development of Middle Stone Age innovation linked to rapid climate change

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Ziegler ◽  
Margit H. Simon ◽  
Ian R. Hall ◽  
Stephen Barker ◽  
Chris Stringer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Ocean Circulation ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract The development of modernity in early human populations has been linked to pulsed phases of technological and behavioural innovation within the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. However, the trigger for these intermittent pulses of technological innovation is an enigma. Here we show that, contrary to some previous studies, the occurrence of innovation was tightly linked to abrupt climate change. Major innovational pulses occurred at times when South African climate changed rapidly towards more humid conditions, while northern sub-Saharan Africa experienced widespread droughts, as the Northern Hemisphere entered phases of extreme cooling. These millennial-scale teleconnections resulted from the bipolar seesaw behaviour of the Atlantic Ocean related to changes in the ocean circulation. These conditions led to humid pulses in South Africa and potentially to the creation of favourable environmental conditions. This strongly implies that innovational pulses of early modern human behaviour were climatically influenced and linked to the adoption of refugia.

scholarly journals Archaeology in the Public Space in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Caleb A. Folorunso
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
African Region ◽  
The Public ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
West African Region ◽  
Early Stone Age

Nigeria, with over 200 million people, covers an area of 923,768 km2 and it occupies the eastern section of the West African region (Figure 1). The regions of Nigeria have prehistoric sites spanning from the Early Stone Age through the Middle Stone Age, the Late Stone Age/Neolithic to the Iron Age and the beginning of urbanization. Several historic empires, states and polities developed within the geographical area now occupied by Nigeria and had left archaeological relics.

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.

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.

The urgent need for health impact assessment: proposing a transdisciplinary approach to the e-waste crisis in sub-Saharan Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinah Tetteh ◽  
Lara Lengel
Keyword(s):  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Health Impact Assessment ◽  
Environmental Concern ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Environmental Communication ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Region ◽  
Sub Saharan

Electronic waste (e-waste) is a growing health and environmental concern in developing countries. In the sub-Saharan African region e-waste is considered a crisis with no end in sight yet; there is lack of structures and regulations to manage the problem. In this article, we discuss the potential of Health Impact Assessment (HIA) in addressing the health, environmental, and social impacts of e-waste in sub-Saharan Africa. We draw from environmental policy, environmental communication, global health policy, and health communication to argue that managing e-waste could be framed as ongoing HIA where all the steps of HIA are performed on a rolling basis with input from local communities. Further, we suggest that HIA should be infused into recycling legislation to help streamline the practice in order to make it safe for health and the environment and to maximize the economic benefits.

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.

Commercial production of Nile tilapia on Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Private Equity ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Fish Farm ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Net Income ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Lake Kariba ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Set Up

Abstract Lake Harvest Aquaculture (Pvt) Ltd was first developed into a freshwater tilapia fish farm business in 1996 on premises that originally farmed freshwater prawns owned by one of Zimbabwe's food companies, Cairns Foods Ltd. The farm was set up in 1997 and, ten years later, has grown to a 3000-tonne fish farm where tilapia are produced primarily for processing and export to European and regional markets. The original targeted projections for production and net income of the farm were proving accurate until 2001 when the macro-economy began to shrink. Low production on crop farms due to inadequate resources and drought brought a shortage of raw materials to the feed manufacturing companies. The continuous downward trend in feed production affected the company as it failed to support its growing fish biomass. The feed and economy problems resulted in a decision by the board to stop expansion of the business in 2002. Lake Harvest business was set up at a cost of US $10,000,000. The business was externally funded by the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC Group plc) and Comafin, a pan-African private equity fund, before the share holding structure changed in 2002. The major costs were encountered on the installation and mooring of cages, and the construction of a fish processing factory. Six sites were installed, each costing around US $350,000, including boats. The processing factory cost around US $4,000,000. The objectives of this case study are to: * Provide a scenario and overview of Lake Harvest Aquaculture as a company growing tilapia in cages in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. * Provide a means of assessment and learning for those considering developing cage-based aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa. All of the main activities carried out at Lake Harvest will be described in the same sequence as followed on-farm; production, management, and sale of the final product: * Breeding * Feeding * Sampling * Diving * Harvesting * Processing * Marketing.

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