Technological Trends in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa between MIS 7 and MIS 3
2013; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 54; Issue: S8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1086/673283
ISSN1537-5382
Autores Tópico(s)Archaeology and Rock Art Studies
ResumoPrevious articleNext article FreeTechnological Trends in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa between MIS 7 and MIS 3Sarah WurzSarah WurzPDFPDF PLUSAbstractFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreAbstractThe range of technological elements that marks the Middle Stone Age originated more than 300,000 years ago and formed the basic tool kit for an extended period of time. No spatial and chronological patterns can be identified from the Early Middle Stone Age until marine isotope stage (MIS) 5, and there is no cumulative trend of increasing complexity and diversity; instead, periods of complexity come and go. The Howiesons Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes, broadly associated with MIS 4, are recognized across various ecological zones of South Africa. These techno-complexes contain relatively more retouched tools and exhibit heightened levels of what is described as innovative practices. The Howiesons Poort is the best understood industry in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. Its unifying technological characteristic is the almost exclusive use of a blade and bladelet production system, but subtle changes in types of backed artefacts, other retouched tools, and raw material exploitation patterns occur through time. Technological preferences change in the ensuing MIS 3 period, and other strategies and implement types become popular, particularly unifacial points, but trends once again are less clear. This historical review of the technological diversity in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa emphasizes that the roots of some innovations may lie in the earlier Middle Stone Age and that innovation is best understood within the context of local historical trajectories of technological change in South Africa.The Middle Stone Age period of South Africa is a key milieu within which Homo sapiens developed, diverged, and migrated (e.g., Behar et al. 2008; Dusseldorp, Lombard, and Wurz 2013; Lombard, Schlebusch, and Soodyall, forthcoming; Pickrell et al. 2012; Schlebusch et al. 2012). Numerous Middle Stone Age cave and open-air sites occur all over South Africa and bear testimony to the successful adaptation of hunter-gatherers over the past 300,000 years. Stratified sequences from caves acted as culture-stratigraphic anchors since the “Middle Stone Age” (MSA) concept was established (Goodwin 1928). A recent exercise in ordering Stone Age sites with relatively recent chronometric dates shows that some progress has been made in expanding the MSA spatiotemporal framework of South Africa and Lesotho (Lombard and Haidle 2012). The aim here is to describe MSA technological developments from South Africa, a large area covering more than 1.2 million square kilometers. The considerable size of the area precludes an exhaustive discussion, and only fairly general trends are addressed. The noticeable growth in investigations into the MSA in the past decade involve some cave sites from the Cape coastal area, which necessarily biases this discussion toward these locations, but sites from other regions—for example, Sibudu Cave, Border Cave, and Kathu Pan—also contribute significantly to the latest insights.The dominant narrative for the MSA of South Africa emerging from a number of recent publications (e.g., Compton 2011; McCall 2007; McCall and Thomas 2012; Mellars 2006; Mourre, Villa, and Henshilwood 2010; Soriano, Villa, and Wadley 2007; Villa, Delagnes, and Wadley 2005; Villa et al. 2010; Ziegler et al. 2013) is that “Middle Paleolithic–like” variability occurred from the earliest MSA until around 77,000 years ago. The first time that “Upper Paleolithic–like” variability developed was during marine isotope stage (MIS) 4, with a spurt of innovation and complexity associated with the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort techno-complexes. The innovations include formal bone tools, beads, processing of ochre, engraved ochre and ostrich eggshell, and compound adhesive manufacture. The technological sophistication of the Howiesons Poort and the Still Bay is evident in the manufacture of geometric-backed tools and bifacial points, specific techniques of blade and bladelet reduction, pressure flaking, and heat treatment of stone. These levels of innovation and complexity are thought to signify symbolically mediated behavior (Henshilwood and Marean 2003) or cognitive complexity (Wadley, Hodgkiss, and Grant 2009), perhaps even conferring evolutionary advantage to the groups of Homo sapiens who migrated out of Africa after ∼60,000 years ago (Mellars 2006; Mourre, Villa, and Henshilwood 2010). After ∼58,000 years there is a return to Middle Paleolithic–like technological variability and a dearth of complex stone tools. The lack of perceived complexity and sophistication of the post–Howiesons Poort technologies indicates a return to “nonmodern” levels of behavior and cognition (but see Lombard and Parsons 2010; Marean 2010; Wurz 2008). This narrative exaggerates, but it does capture the dominant perception of the development of technological complexity in the MSA of South Africa. A historical perspective on the spatiotemporal variability of stone tool assemblages dating to between ca. 300,000 and 40,000 years ago provides the opportunity to evaluate whether this narrative is the best-fit model for the MSA of South Africa. The MISs are used as an organizational framework only as it is clear that terrestrial temperature and precipitation changes do not coincide with them (Blome et al. 2012).Early Middle Stone AgeThe transition from the Early Stone Age to the MSA is ambiguous, and handaxes and other large cutting tools co-occur with typical MSA flakes, blades, and points for an extended period, from 500,000 to 125,000 years ago, mainly in open-air sites all over South Africa. The Fauresmith industry, considered transitional between the Early Stone Age and the MSA, contains small handaxes, blades, and points. Its temporal designation is unclear, and although relatively young dates (around 150,000 years ago) at, for example, Bundu Farm and Rooidam (Herries 2011) are noted, dates of between 280,000 and 500,000 years ago may be more realistic (Beaumont and Vogel 2006; Herries 2011; Porat et al. 2010). The Sangoan from the northern parts of South Africa, with its core axes and MSA debitage, is as yet undated but is in all probability also a regionally distinct transitional industry (Kuman 2007). At Duinefontein in the Western Cape (fig. 1), large cutting tools occur as late as 125,000 years ago (Feathers 2002; Klein et al. 1999). The chronological ambiguities often associated with Middle Pleistocene sites (cf. Barham 2012) impede a clear understanding of when handaxes and other core tools ceased being part of the technological repertoire of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. The earliest MSA assemblage recorded without Acheulean elements is an a ca. 280,000-year-old assemblage from Florisbad (Grün et al. 1996; Kuman, Inbar, and Clark 1999). It is not particularly diagnostic, and platform cores and a small number of triangular flakes and blades are described.Figure 1. Map of sites mentioned in the text.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointThe Early MSA dates to between 300,000 and 130,000 years ago (Lombard et al. 2012; Volman 1984) and is characterized by prepared-core technologies, including Levallois, discoid, and blade methods. These methods had been invented more than half a million years ago. A recurring issue is whether the origin of the Levallois in South Africa is in the Victoria West industry (Van Riet Lowe 1945). In the Victoria West industry, a Levallois-like technique is employed to prepare a domed surface for the removal of a large preferential flake, resulting in different shapes of discarded cores, including the famous hoenderbek (hen beak) cores (Lycett 2011; McNabb and Beaumont 2012). Subsequent investigations of these cores describe them as “proto-Levallois” (White, Ashton, and Scott 2011) or “para-Levallois” to avoid assumptions of phylogenetic relationships (Lycett 2009). At Canteen Kopje, Victoria West technology dating to more than 500,000 years ago occurs alongside prepared-core or Levallois technology (McNabb and Beaumont 2011, 2012). Thus, a unilinear evolution from the Acheulean to Levallois technology is highly unlikely. The early presence of Levallois at this site confirms that it has deep roots in South Africa and co-occurs with typical Early Stone Age methods. In the South African MSA, “Levallois” encompasses several types of prepared cores, including radial cores (Volman 1984; Wilkins, Pollarolo, and Kuman 2010). Whether these cores conform strictly to the “Levallois” concept or not is less important than appreciating that prepared-core technology provided a new level of technological flexibility (White, Ashton, and Scott 2011).In South Africa, as in East Africa (Tryon and Faith 2013) and the Levant (Hovers and Belfer-Cohen 2013), laminar technology occurs in the earlier part of the Middle Pleistocene. Large blades together with small Fauresmith handaxes, Levallois points and flakes are associated with sites from the Northern Cape (Beaumont and Morris 1990; Sampson 1974). For one of these assemblages—Kathu Pan 1 stratum 4a, recently redated to ∼500,000 years ago (Porat et al. 2010)—a systematic blade production system is described (Wilkins and Chazan 2012), confirming Sampson’s (1968) impression that large blade production has an ancient origin in South Africa. The cores are centripetally prepared before the removal of blades with hard-hammer percussion. The blade cores are “Levallois-like” (Wilkins and Chazan 2012:15), but they are not Levallois in concept because the flaking surfaces are much more convex than the lower platform surfaces, and the intersection of the surfaces is not a plane. A number of bladelets (<12 mm in width) also occur in this assemblage. Some laminar products are retouched into unifacial points, and these and nonretouched triangular flakes show evidence for hafting and use as spear tips (Wilkins et al. 2012). It is significant that this level of complexity occurs at such an early date, and it would be more so if it could be demonstrated more comprehensively that the museum collections analyzed originate from the recently dated “stratum 4a” at Kathu Pan (Wadley 2013).There has been very little opportunity to integrate paleoenvironmental and technological data of the Early MSA because regional environmental proxies and technological trajectories still need to be developed. An exception is the “Cape Floral Region—South Coast Model” for the origins of modern humans (Marean 2010:432, 2011). In this model MIS 6, one of the coldest and perhaps most arid stages of the Quaternary (Marean 2010; Petit et al. 1999), is related to a genetic bottleneck (e.g., Behar et al. 2008; Blum and Jakobsson 2011; Fagundes et al. 2007; Gonder et al. 2007) when populations crashed and survived only in favorable refugia. The 162,000-year-old (Jacobs 2010) assemblage from Cave 13B at Pinnacle Point on the southern Cape coast is considered such a refugium (Compton 2011; Marean 2010). The southern Cape coast, being somewhat buffered from extreme aridity effects, would have provided predictable faunal, geophyte, and shellfish food resources. The continued occupation of sites such as Klasies River and Blombos Cave in MIS 5 on the southern Cape coast is seen as a fluorescence of populations that survived in the southern Cape refugium during MIS 6. The Cave 13B assemblage is associated with the earliest use of shellfish (Marean et al. 2007) and with Levallois technology, points, blades, and bladelets ( 120 ka or MIS 5c-a (Avery et al. 2008) is a flake industry in mainly silcrete and calcrete with a few blades. The formal tool component consists of denticulates (Wurz 2012). The nearby Hoedjies Punt industry of the last interglacial age resembles YFT 1 technology closely (Will et al. 2013) and that from Sea Harvest (Volman 1978). The three Western Cape techno-complexes differ from the Klasies River occurrence, and there is a strong possibility that they are younger (Will et al. 2013).The Mossel Bay from Klasies River dating to between ∼100,000 and 80,000 years ago is characterized by a unipolar recurrent Levallois reduction process for points and blades. The majority of the end products have large, faceted platforms associated with prominent bulbs of percussion and straight profiles (Wurz 2000, 2002). A similar assemblage comes from Diepkloof (Porraz et al. 2013b) and Cape St. Blaize (Sampson 1974; Thompson and Marean 2008). The Pinnacle Point Cave 13B assemblage is typologically but not necessarily technologically similar (Thompson, Williams, and Minichillo 2010). Commonalities between the stratified sequences from Cave of Hearths (not dated) from the north of South Africa and Klasies River have been noted (Sampson 1974; Sinclair and McNabb 2005; Volman 1984). In Bed 4, Cave of Hearths, long flake-blades and convergent points occur, while the overlying levels comprise a Levallois industry with blades, radial flakes, and, especially noticeable, convergent points. The Cave of Hearth assemblage served as a comparative basis for the many surface occurrences found in the Free State (Sampson 1968). The South African interior contains a multitude of surface sites (Beaumont and Morris 1990; Sampson 1968, 1974). For example, in an area of 216 square miles in the middle reaches of the floodplains of the Orange River, 290 MSA well-preserved occurrences, though undated, are identified (Sampson 1968). Sampson comments on their similarity to the pre–Howiesons Poort Klasies River and Cave of Hearths assemblages. One important difference, however, is a much larger extent of bifacial and unifacial flaking at the Cave of Hearths, Orange River, and also Border Cave assemblages in what has been termed the “Pietersburg” Industry (Mason 1962; Sampson 1974). It would be interesting to discover how these bifacials and unifacials compare with those of other time periods and areas. This will provide the context for understanding technological innovations involving invasive uni- and bifacial retouch. The blades and points are probably multifunctional tools. Some triangular pointed flakes and blades have damage consistent with use in a longitudinal cutting action (Brink and Henderson 2001; Henderson 2001; Kuman 1989). The unretouched MIS 5 points from Cave 13B at Pinnacle Point (Bird, Minichillo, and Marean 2007; Schoville 2010) were used in a similar way. It is likely that both the retouched and unretouched points of this time period served as spear tips (Lombard and Phillipson 2010; McBrearty and Brooks 2000; Wilkins et al. 2012). The populations of MIS 5 were efficient hunters (see Clark and Kandel 2013) and gatherers, and integrating technological and foraging behavior more extensively is a priority for future research (d’Errico and Banks 2013).The Still Bay and Howiesons PoortStill BayThe Still Bay techno-complex has fascinated researchers and collectors since the first discovery of bifacial lanceolate points, the type artefact of the Still Bay, on the Cape Flats in 1870 (Henshilwood 2012; Minichillo 2005). A number of Still Bay sites occur in stratified contexts—for example, Dale Rose Parlour (Trappieskop), Peers Cave, Diepkloof, Hollow Rock Shelter, Blombos Cave in the Western Cape, Sibudu Cave and Umhlatuzana in KwaZulu Natal, and Apollo 11 in Namibia—in addition to several surface occurrences (Minichillo 2005; Steele et al. 2012; Wadley 2007). Most of the current dating evidence suggests that the Still Bay spans the end of MIS 5 and the beginning of MIS 4 (72–60 ka; Blome et al. 2012). There are relatively few dates, but optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating assays from Blombos Cave, Sibudu, Apollo 11, and Diepkloof indicate a duration for the Still Bay period of around 7,700 years, from 75,500 to 67,800 years ago (Henshilwood 2012; Jacobs et al. 2008, 2012), while Högberg and Larsson report preliminary OSL dates of ca. 72,000 and 80,000 BP. Thermoluminescence dates place the Still Bay industry from Diepkloof much earlier, with a mean age of 109,000 years ago (Tribolo et al. 2009, 2013). This implies that the Still Bay may have a much longer duration in South Africa than previously thought (Porraz et al. 2013a, 2013b; Tribolo et al. 2013).The Still Bay is characterized by bifacially retouched foliate points with lenticular cross-sections. Their shapes vary from narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, and they either have a wide-angled pointed butt or two pointed apices (Henshilwood 2012; Minichillo 2005; Villa et al. 2009; Wadley 2007). The shape of Still Bay points may be unique in the MSA (cf. Porraz et al. 2013b). An intersite comparative study involving bifacial points from Dale Rose Parlour, Hollow Rock Shelter, Peers Cave, Blombos Sands, Kleinjongensfontein, and Cape Hangklip (fig. 1) demonstrates that they occur in a wide variety of sizes: they vary from 34 mm to more than 120 mm in length (Minichillo 2005). The technology of blank production in the Still Bay is relatively unknown and consists of three rather short production sequences—a unifacial flake reduction sequence and two versions of a bifacial block chaîne opératoire—at Hollow Rock shelter (Högberg and Larsson 2011). At Diepkloof a reduction sequence for the production of laminar blanks and flakes is present but awaits further description (Porraz et al. 2013b).An extensive attribute analysis of bifacial points is presented by Villa et al. (2009) on the largest available collection (352 bifacial elements) in South Africa, from Blombos Cave (Henshilwood 2012). Direct internal percussion (with a hard hammer) and shaping by marginal percussion (with a soft or soft stone hammer) were used in the production process of silcrete, quartzite, and quartz bifacials. Initially, it was felt that pressure flaking and heat treatment (Brown 2011; Brown et al. 2009) were not part of the bifacial production process, but subsequent experimentation (Mourre, Villa, and Henshilwood 2010) finds evidence for both pressure flaking and heat treatment on 4% of the silcrete bifacial points from Blombos Cave. Mourre replicated bifacial points on heat treated silcrete using a bone tool for pressure flaking. New diagnostic traits for this technique are described, and heat treatment is regarded as a prerequisite for pressure flaking on silcrete. Mourre, Villa, and Henshilwood (2010) regard pressure flaking used for the Still Bay bifacials as the first occurrence of its kind anywhere in the world, thus an invention or innovation. Intentionally heated silcrete artefacts also occur in the Diepkloof SB (Porraz et al. 2013b; Schmidt et al. 2013). Some bifacials at Hollow Rock Shelter appear to have been pressure flaked with a fine-tipped small tool without heat treatment (Högberg and Larsson 2011), a technique purportedly different from the more advanced pressure-flaking techniques found in Europe and North America. The Diepkloof Still Bay bifacial elements () are not pressure flaked (Porraz et al. 2013b), and this is also true for the bifacials from Sibudu (Soriano et al. 2007; Wadley 2013), a feature that is partly related to the raw materials used.The majority of bifacial points in the Still Bay are in local or near-local materials. At Blombos Cave, for example, 72% of the bifacials are in silcrete, which probably originated 20–30 km from the site. At Diepkloof most bifacials are in local quartzite (80%), and at Hollow Rock Shelter and Sibudu Cave about half are in local quartzite and dolerite, respectively. It is likely that the bifacials are multifunctional tools (Henshilwood 2012)—residue patterns on complete bifacials suggest that they functioned as knives as well as projectile points (Lombard 2006; Wadley 2007). One proposition is that they were used exclusively as parts of hand-delivered spears because their morphometric attributes and macrofractures are similar to Paleo-Indian points (Villa and Soriano 2010; Villa et al. 2009). Another is that they may have functioned as darts (Shea 2009). Because the bifacials from Diepkloof display rare impact-like fractures and frequent resharpening of the lateral edges, they may have primarily functioned as cutting implements (see also Minichillo 2005).The onset of the Still Bay is correlated with climatic changes that occurred at the end of MIS 5 (Thackeray 2009; Ziegler et al. 2013). This may have pressured populations to adopt bifacial reduction as a strategy to economize lithic raw material and maintain tools more intensively in the context of long-distance residential moves, a pattern inferred for bifacial industries from other parts of the world as well (McCall and Thomas 2012). A period of severe climatic instability did occur ∼72,000 years ago as indicated by, for example, the Crevice Cave carbon isotopic record (Bar-Matthews et al. 2010), the EPICA EDML curve (EPICA Community Members 2006), and core CD154-17-17K (Ziegler et al. 2013). For Bar-Matthews et al. (2010) and Ziegler et al. (2013), the Still Bay signals a technological innovation in response to this punctuated environmental event, a scenario that becomes unlikely in the face of a longer duration of the Still Bay.Howiesons PoortThe Howiesons Poort (HP) is the most widespread MSA industry recorded in southern Africa and is known from more than 20 sites south of the Zambezi (Henshilwood 2012; Lombard 2005, 2009), and new occurrences were reported recently (e.g., Kandel and Conard 2012; Steele et al. 2012). Thanks to the distinctiveness of the geometric-backed artefacts, the industry has served as horizon marker for the MSA of South Africa (Deacon 1989, 1992) for decades. Howiesons Poort sites occur at, for example, the HP name site, Boomplaas, Border Cave, Diepkloof, Klasies River, Klein Kliphuis, Rose Cottage Cave, Sibudu, and Umhlatuzana in South Africa; at Melikane and Ntloana Tsoana in Lesotho; and at Apollo 11 in Namibia and a number of surface sites. The HP is sometimes considered to be a relatively short-lived entity occurring within well-understood time limits because eight sites have single-grain OSL dates of between ca. 64,800 and 59,500 years ago (Cochrane, Doelman, and Wadley 2013; Jacobs et al. 2008).There are a number of younger and older dates for the HP. At Klasies River, for example, the HP is associated with electron spin resonance and thermoluminescence dates of between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago (Eggins et al. 2005; Feathers 2002; Tribolo, Mercier, and Valladas 2005). The HP from Border Cave dates to around 75,000 years ago (Grün and Beaumont 2001; Grün, Beaumont, and Stringer 1990), and this is somewhat similar to dates from Pinnacle Point and Diepkloof. Unit SADBS at Pinnacle Point 5–6 (Brown 2011; Brown et al. 2012) contains small blades, notched pieces, and backed artefacts as well as quartzite blades and points. This industry is interpreted as transitional to the HP (Brown et al. 2012), but in most respects it falls within the techno-typological range of variability of the HP (see also Porraz et al. 2013b). The Diepkloof TL dates are between ∼109,000 and ∼52,000 years ago (Porraz et al. 2013b; Tribolo et al. 2013). It is suggested that the single-grain OSL dates for the early HP (previously interpreted as Still Bay) are erroneous because of methodological problems (Guérin et al. 2013; Tribolo et al. 2013). Whether the TL dating from Diepkloof demonstrates that the HP is not a horizon marker and is of much longer duration than previously thought (Porraz et al. 2013a, 2013b; Tribolo et al. 2013) is still open to debate.Despite the increased research focus on the HP, its primary elements remained unchanged. It is a small-blade industry with backed and notched artefacts and lesser proportions of pieces esquillées, scrapers, unifacial points, and partly bifacial points (Deacon 1995; Goodwin and Van Riet Lowe 1929; Harper 1997; Kaplan 1990; Minichillo 2005; Sampson 1974; Singer and Wymer 1982; Thackeray 1992; Volman 1984; Wurz 1999). The blades originate from a recurrent blade production system using a soft hammer, with preparation of the lateral and distal convexities by elongated débordantes or sometimes flat centripetal removals. The small blades—with high-angled, sometimes extremely small, off-center platforms with rubbed dorsal edges—are typical of the HP (Wurz 2000). Recent descriptions from a strict French chaîne opératoire perspective (Porraz et al. 2013b; Soriano, Villa, and Wadley 2007; Villa et al. 2010) provide more details on the blade reduction strategy followed at Klasies River, Rose Cottage Cave, and Diepkloof. It is described as non-Levallois (Porraz et al. 2013b; Villa et al. 2010) because the
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