Wurz, S. 2008. Modern behaviour at Klasies River. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10:150-156. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Proceedings of the …, 2009
Recent investigations into the origins of symbolism indicate that personal ornaments in the form of perforated marine shell beads were used in the Near East, North Africa, and SubSaharan Africa at least 35 ka earlier than any personal ornaments in Europe. Together with instances of pigment use, engravings, and formal bone tools, personal ornaments are used to support an early emergence of behavioral modernity in Africa, associated with the origin of our species and significantly predating the timing for its dispersal out of Africa. Criticisms have been leveled at the low numbers of recovered shells, the lack of secure dating evidence, and the fact that documented examples were not deliberately shaped. In this paper, we report on 25 additional shell beads from four Moroccan Middle Paleolithic sites. We review their stratigraphic and chronological contexts and address the issue of these shells having been deliberately modified and used. We detail the results of comparative analyses of modern, fossil, and archaeological assemblages and microscopic examinations of the Moroccan material. We conclude that Nassarius shells were consistently used for personal ornamentation in this region at the end of the last interglacial. Absence of ornaments at Middle Paleolithic sites postdating Marine Isotope Stage 5 raises the question of the possible role of climatic changes in the disappearance of this hallmark of symbolic behavior before its reinvention 40 ka ago. Our results suggest that further inquiry is necessary into the mechanisms of cultural transmission within early Homo sapiens populations.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 1998
I report the results of a microscopic study of the bone modification in the identified bovid assemblage from Cave 1 at Klasies River Mouth (KRM), in South Africa. The study was undertaken in an effort to resolve divergent interpretations of the predatory competence of the early modern humans there. The microscopic data suggest that the hominids had relatively unrestricted access to the choicest parts of bovids in all size classes. The carnivore damage signature is ephemeral; it does not support assertions that large carcasses were carnivore-ravaged before their appropriation by hominids or that carnivores contributed a meaningful number of smaller bovids to the faunal assemblage. The data therefore lead to the conclusion that hominids were the sole, regular accumulators of bovids in all size classes. That many of those bovids were obtained by active hunting is suggested by the tip of a stone point embedded in a cervical vertebra of the extinct giant buffalo, Pelorovis antiquus. Finally, some attributes of the butchering patterning hint that the Klasies hominids formed socially mediated task groups to accomplish labourintensive tasks. These results challenge the general perception that modern morphology pre-dated modern behaviour and the specific assertion that the KRM hominids were behaviourally very primitive. The KRM hominids were apparently active hunters who produced composite tools and who planned and executed complex tasks within a social framework. To the extent that these behaviours presage the modern condition, the KRM hominids were as behaviourally near-modern as they were anatomically near-modern.
In the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic after about 35,000 years ago, abstract or depictional images provide evidence for cognitive abilities considered integral to modern human behavior. Here we report on two abstract representations engraved on pieces of red ochre recovered from the Middle Stone Age layers at Blombos Cave in South Africa. A mean date of 77,000 years was obtained for the layers containing the engraved ochres by thermoluminescence dating of burnt lithics, and the stratigraphic integrity was confirmed by an optically stimulated luminescence age of 70,000 years on an overlying dune. These engravings support the emergence of modern human behavior in Africa at least 35,000 years before the start of the Upper Paleolithic.
Goodwin Series, 2008
Cultural traditions are capable of sensitive adaptations to ecological change and local environment. This may have been the case especially at the start of the Still Bay period in the Western Cape at~77 ka ago and in a subsequent phase, the Howieson's Poort, after~65-50 ka ago. This paper examines the role that climatic and ecological change may have had in spurring changes in modern human behaviour during the Late Pleistocene in the Western Cape. It was relatively warm in the Cape after about~80 ka ago and moisture levels were higher than during the Late Holocene. The nearby coastlines provided a rich source of marine food as did the terrestrial plains, and ecological circumstances were probably conducive to population growth. Is it coincidental that the~77-72 ka old Still Bay phase of the Middle Stone Age (MSA), known for material culture that signifies modern cognitive behaviour, fits within, and may have been driven by, a period of rapid climatic deterioration in the Western Cape? Ultimately, climatic change may also have been a prominent factor in the demise of this innovative phase of the MSA. Several millennia could separate the Howieson's Poort and the Still Bay but further precision of age estimates is required to substantiate this claim. An age estimate of 65 ka ago for the start of the Howieson's Poort is reasonable and this coincides with a very cold period during the Last Glacial. The cultural complexity of the Howieson's Poort, considered 'precocious' by some, may also have been driven by intensification of adverse climatic conditions. A return, after~50 ka ago, to a lithic technology characteristic of the much earlier MSA II (~90-80 ka ago) marks the demise of the Howieson's Poort and it is followed by a reduction in the number of archaeological sites and a probable rapid decrease in the human population of the Western Cape. Human behaviour is clearly modified by environmental change, both in the present and in the past, and there are many examples that illustrate this link in recent times. Extending this intimate relationship to beyond 50 ka ago is more tenuous and the evidence is mostly fragmentary. This research approach has been hampered mainly by a lack of refinement concerning precise dating of climatic events in the Late Pleistocene in Africa and of the palaeoecological variations that occurred on a millenial scale or greater. Over the past decade and beyond, concentrated efforts by archaeologists, climatologists, geographers and environmental scientists have been contributing to a fine-tuning of the climatic variations in southern Africa after the end of the previous interglacial. Together with recent improvements in archaeologically-related dating techniques it has provided the potential for archaeologists to relate their site data, in some cases even individually-dated depositional levels, to particular climatic conditions during past stadials or interstadials in the Late Pleistocene. In this paper I examine whether there is a discernible relationship between climatic conditions and human behaviour during two extraordinary periods of the southern African MSA, the Still Bay and the Howieson's Poort.