Supplement 1: Varsche Rivier 003: A Middle and Later Stone Age Site with Still Bay and Howiesons Poort Assemblages in Southern Namaqualand, South Africa (original) (raw)
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Southern Africa presents the best-documented Middle and Later Stone Age (MSA and LSA) records in Africa, and yet significant uncertainties still exist concerning the sequence and timing of behavioral and occupational changes in the region. A recent surge in research has provided a suite of new results that indicate more intricate and complex patterns than those previously considered. This paper describes recent excavations at the archaeological site of Varsche Rivier (VR) 003 located in the poorly-researched southern Namaqualand (Knersvlakte) region of South Africa (Western Cape Province). Two seasons of excavations have revealed a long sequence of MSA and LSA cultural materials, including lithics, fauna, ostrich eggshell, marine mollusks, beads, and pigments; bedrock has yet to be reached anywhere in our excavations. Within the shelter, we have uncovered probable Howiesons Poort material, with overlying late MSA and capped by late Holocene LSA. On the slope, the deepest materials are earlier MSA, overlain by assemblages with affinities to the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort. In addition to providing descriptions of the lithic, faunal, and pigment assemblages, we report on the results of micromorphological analysis of the sediments and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating of the sequence. Based on the analysis of single-grain samples from both parts of the excavation, OSL age estimates suggest that the putative Howiesons Poort assemblages at VR003 were deposited 45.7–41.7 kya. While our results are stratigraphi-cally consistent, they are substantially younger than any previously published Howiesons Poort chronologies. PaleoAnthropology 2016: 100−163.
Varsche Rivier 3, a new Middle Stone Age site in southern Namaqualand, South Africa
[This paper has no formal abstract; what follows might better be considered a blurb]. This paper reports on the results of the first, brief season of excavation at Varsche Rivier 3 (VR3), a collapsed shelter site in arid southern Namaqualand, South Africa. Most of the sequence as identified during this season can be ascribed to the Middle Stone Age (MSA), and markers of the Howiesons Poort and Still Bay are both present. The sequence likely extends into the earlier parts of the MSA. In addition to stone artefacts, VR3 has reasonable organic preservation throughout and worked ochre is also present. The late Pleistocene occupation of southern Namaqualand is presently poorly understood, and VR3 thus provides important new information, as well as an interesting comparative sample for the better understood region immediately to the south, represented by sites such as Diepkloof, Elands Bay Cave, Klein Kliphuis, Hollow Rock Shelter and Klipfonteinrand.
The archaeological sequence at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape Province, South Africa, provides significant clarification of the chrono-cultural patterns of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa. The richness of the archaeological remains provides the opportunity to document the diachronic changes that occurred within the MSA, including the question of the Still Bay/Howieson's Poort succession. This paper focuses on the lithic assemblage of a single MSA layer identified during recent excavations. The horizon is particularly rich in exceptionally well-preserved archaeological remains. Its lithic assemblage is characterized by selection of non-local fine-grained raw materials, systematic production of blades using marginal, soft-stone hammer percussion, and a typological corpus dominated by notched and denticulated pieces. This study underlines the distinctiveness of the lithic assemblage, which lacks conventional cultural markers and which has an estimated age exceeding 65 ka. Its stratigraphic position, located below the 'classic' Howieson's Poort (with truncated and backed pieces) from which it is clearly dissociated by a sedimentological break, leads us to a preliminary discussion on the interpretation of diachronic change, as well as its characterization.
Porraz G., Texier P.-J., Rigaud J.-P., Parkington J., Poggenpoel C., Roberts D. , 2008
The archaeological sequence at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Western Cape Province, South Africa, provides significant clarification of the chrono-cultural patterns of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa. The richness of the archaeological remains provides the opportunity to document the diachronic changes that occurred within the MSA, including the question of the Still Bay/Howieson's Poort succession. This paper focuses on the lithic assemblage of a single MSA layer identified during recent excavations. The horizon is particularly rich in exceptionally well-preserved archaeological remains. Its lithic assemblage is characterized by selection of non-local fine-grained raw materials, systematic production of blades using marginal, soft-stone hammer percussion, and a typological corpus dominated by notched and denticulated pieces. This study underlines the distinctiveness of the lithic assemblage, which lacks conventional cultural markers and which has an estimated age exceeding 65 ka. Its stratigraphic position, located below the 'classic' Howieson's Poort (with truncated and backed pieces) from which it is clearly dissociated by a sedimentological break, leads us to a preliminary discussion on the interpretation of diachronic change, as well as its characterization.
Paleosol-sediment sequences at the West Coast Fossil Park in Langebaanweg, South Africa have a stratigraphy extending over ten units occupying a total depth of 18 m ranging in age from Mid-Miocene to Holocene. Six of these units qualify as paleosols. The mineralogical assemblages and micromorphology of the paleosols and pedofacies have been studied with the objective of interpreting and reconstructing the paleoenvironments of the area. Physico-chemical parameters, mineralogical properties and micromorphology (described from thin sections) of the paleosols and pedofacies were analyzed using routine laboratory methods. The units are named following the FAO and Soil Survey Staff classification systems. An alternating stack of paleosols and sediments preserve repeated phases of paleoenvironmental changes. Rhizoliths in the Pleistocene Ck layer lend credence to a shallow standing paleowatertable during the Pliocene. Remarkable differences are observed in the mineralogy of the paleosols and sediments. Paleosols of the Middle Miocene have mixed clay mineralogy of halloysite, chlorite, muscovite mica, and kaolinitean indication that the clay sources could have either formed pedogenically or from different parent materials which may have taken place during transportation. Allophane and imogolite in the Early Pliocene paleosols are most likely to be stream-deposited while palygorskite and sepiolite indicate dry paleoclimates. Vertic properties of the paleosols were observed from their open porphyric c/frelated distribution, blocky microstructure and striated b-fabrics. Properties including calcareousness, vertic, gleyic, illuviation suggest cyclic patterns of erosion and deposition, which correlates with paleoenvironmental and climatic changes. The observed pedofeatures indicate the reddish Mid-Miocene paleosols and Pliocene pedogenic carbonates possibly formed under subtropical and Mediterranean climate conditions, while the pedosediments reflect a (semi) arid climate.
The Earliest Middle Stone Age of Northern South Africa
Unravelling the Palaeolithic, 2012
The earliest Middle Stone Age remains something of an enigma in South Africa, particularly in the north of the country. Presented here is a review of two sites, the Cave of Hearths bed IV and Bushman Rock Shelter, and a comparison of the MSA sub-stages 1 and 2a as revealed by them. At neither site was the use of PCT or blades particularly important, and ultimately it is proposed that both sites served a specialist wood processing purpose. In this, they display a developing understanding of raw-materials and a burgeoning compartmentalisation to techno-typological knowledge structures. Most importantly, this is the first publication to deal with the lower sections of the Bushman Rock Shelter sequence, which are proposed as MSA1, and the results find compelling evidence of the sites importance in Middle Stone Age studies and the desperate need for a better understanding of it. Figure 1: SiteS mentioned in text (BrS -BuShman rock Shelter; coh -cave oF hearthS; krm -klaSieS river mouth; PP13B -Pinnacle Point 13B) (© Yahoo! inc naSa, i-cuBed. inSet: © google. terrametricS, aFrigiS (PtY) the atlaS, trackS4aFrica)
2000
Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (PP13B) has provided the earliest archaeological evidence for the exploitation of marine shellfish, along with very early evidence for use and modification of pigments and the production of bladelets, all dated to approximately 164 ka . This makes PP13B a key site in studies of the origins of modern humans, one of a handful of sites in Africa dating to Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS 6), and the only site on the coast of South Africa with human occupation confidently dated to MIS 6. Along with this MIS 6 occupation there are rich archaeological sediments dated to MIS 5, and together these sediments are differentially preserved in three different areas of the cave. The sediments represent a complex palimpsest of geogenic, biogenic, and anthropogenic input and alteration that are described and interpreted through the use of a variety of macrostratigraphic, micromorphologic, and geochemical techniques. Three independent dating techniques allow us to constrain the age range of these sediments and together provide the stratigraphic context for the analyses of the material that follow in this special issue.