Earliest evidence for the structure of Homo sapiens populations in Africa (Quaternary Science Reviews) (original) (raw)
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The North African Middle Stone Age and its place in recent human evolution
Abstract The North African Middle Stone Age (NAMSA, ~300-24 thousand years ago, or ka) features what may be the oldest fossils of our species as well as extremely early examples of technological region- alization and ‘symbolic’ material culture (d’Errico et al., 2009; Scerri, 2013a; Richter et al., 2017). The geographic situation of North Africa and an increased understanding of the wet-dry climatic pulses of the Sahara Desert also show that North Africa played a strategic role in continental-scale evolutionary processes by modulating human dispersal and demographic structure (Drake et al., 2011; Blome et al., 2012). However, current understanding of the NAMSA remains patchy and subject to a bewildering array of industrial nomenclatures that mask underlying variability. These issues are compounded by a geographic research bias skewed toward non-desert regions. As a result, it has been difficult to test long-established narratives of behavioral and evolutionary change in North Africa and to resolve debates on their wider significance. In order to evaluate existing data and identify future research directions, this paper provides a critical overview of the component elements of the NAMSA and shows that the timing of many key behaviors has close parallels with others in sub-Saharan Africa and Southwest Asia.
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Lithics of the North African Middle Stone Age: assumptions, evidence and future directions
2019
North Africa features some of the earliest manifestations of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and fossils of our species, Homo sapiens, as well as early examples of complex culture and the long distance transfer of exotic raw materials. As they are elsewhere, lithics (i.e., stone tools) present by far the most abundant source of information on this cultural period. Given the importance of North Africa in human origins, understanding the character and distribution of MSA lithics is therefore crucial, as they shed light on early human behaviour and culture. However, the lithics of the North African MSA are poorly understood, and their technological variability is frequently obfuscated by regionally specific nomenclatures, often repeated without criticism, and diverse methods of analysis that are often incompatible. Characterising dynamic technological innovations as well as apparent technological stasis remains challenging, and many narratives have not been tested quantitatively. This significantly problematizes hypotheses of human evolution and dispersals invoking these data that extend beyond North Africa. This paper therefore presents a description of the lithics of the North African MSA, including their technological characteristics, chronology, spatial distribution and associated research traditions. A range of interpretations concerning early H. sapiens demography in North Africa are then re-evaluated in the light of this review, and the role and power of lithic data to contribute to such debates is critically assessed.
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Stone tool assemblages and models for the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa
The dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa has been extensively researched across several disciplines. Here we review the evidence for spatial and temporal variability in lithic (stone tool) technologies relative to the predictions of two major hypotheses: 1) that a single successful dispersal occurred 60–50 thousand years ago (ka), marked by a trail of geometric/microlithic technologies, and 2) that multiple dispersals occurred, beginning much earlier (probably in Marine Isotope Stage [MIS] 5), associated with Middle Palaeolithic technology in its early phase. Our results show that Late Pleistocene geometric/microlithic technologies exhibit significant temporal and regional differences between each other. These differences suggest independent, convergent origins for these technologies, which are likely to have been repeatedly re-invented. In contrast, we identify similarities between East African lithic technologies from MIS 8 onwards and Middle Palaeolithic assemblages as far east as India by MIS 5. That this constellation of technological features – particularly an emphasis on centripetal Levallois reduction reflecting interchangeable preferential and recurrent methods, along with particular retouched forms such as points – transcends ecologies and raw material types suggests that it is unlikely to entirely reflect technological convergence (analogy). Our results indicate an early onset of multiple dispersals out of Africa. The hypothesis of an early onset to successful dispersal is entirely consistent with the possibility of further subsequent (post-MIS 5) dispersals out of Africa. Testing such hypotheses through quantified comparative lithic studies and interdisciplinary research is therefore likely to significantly advance understanding of the earliest H. sapiens dispersals.
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The Aterian and its place in the North African Middle Stone Age (Quaternary International)
The Aterian is a frequently cited manifestation of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of North Africa, yet its character and meaning have remained largely opaque, as attention has focused almost exclusively on the typology of ‘tanged’, or ‘pedunculated’, lithics. Observations of technological similarities between the Aterian and other regional technocomplexes suggest that the Aterian should be considered within the wider context of the North African MSA and not as an isolated phenomenon. This paper critically reviews the meaning and history of research of the Aterian. This highlights a number of serious issues with definitions and interpretations of this technocomplex, ranging from a lack of definitional consensus to problems with the common view of the Aterian as a ‘desert adaptation’. Following this review, the paper presents the results of a quantitative study of six North African MSA assemblages (Aterian, Nubian Complex and ‘MSA’). Correspondence and Principal Components Analyses are applied, which suggest that the patterns of similarity and difference demonstrated do not simplistically correlate with tradi- tional divisions between named industries. These similarity patterns are instead structured geographi- cally and it is suggested that they reflect a population differentiation that cannot be explained by isolation and distance alone. Particular results include the apparent uniqueness of Haua Fteah compared to all the other assemblages and the observation that the Aterian in northeast Africa is more similar to the Nubian in that region than to the Aterian in the Maghreb. The study demonstrates the existence of population structure in the North African MSA, which has important implications for the evolutionary dynamics of modern human dispersals.
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Unexpected technological heterogeneity in northern Arabia indicates complex Late Pleistocene demography at the gateway to Asia
The role and significance of the Arabian Peninsula in modern human dispersals out of Africa is currently contentious. While qualitative observations of similarities between Arabian Middle Palaeolithic and African Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages have been made, these inferences remain untested and often situated within overly broad dichotomies (e.g. 'Africa' versus the 'Levant') which distort concepts of geographic scale and subsume local variability. Here, we quantitatively test the hypothesis that assemblages from Jubbah, in the Nefud Desert of northern Saudi Arabia are similar to MSA industries from northeast Africa. Based on the quantitative analysis of a suite of metric and morphological data describing lithic reduction sequences, our results show that early and late core reduction at Jubbah is distinct from equivalent northeast African strategies, perhaps as a result of raw material factors. However, specific techniques of core shaping, preparation and preferential flake production at Jubbah draw from a number of methods also present in the northeast African MSA. While two Jubbah lithic assemblages (JKF-1 and JKF-12) display both similarities and differences with the northeast African assemblages, a third locality (JSM-1) was significantly different to both the other Arabian and African assemblages, indicating an unexpected diversity of assemblages in the Jubbah basin during Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5, ~125-70,000 years ago, or ka). Along with evidence from southern Arabia and the Levant, our results add quantitative support to arguments that MIS 5 hominin demography at the interface between Africa and Asia was complex.
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Journal of human evolution, 2014
The role and significance of the Arabian Peninsula in modern human dispersals out of Africa is currently contentious. While qualitative observations of similarities between Arabian Middle Palaeolithic and African Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages have been made, these inferences remain untested and often situated within overly broad dichotomies (e.g., 'Africa' versus the 'Levant'), which distort concepts of geographic scale and subsume local variability. Here, we quantitatively test the hypothesis that assemblages from Jubbah, in the Nefud Desert of northern Saudi Arabia are similar to MSA industries from northeast Africa. Based on the quantitative analysis of a suite of metric and morphological data describing lithic reduction sequences, our results show that early and late core reduction at Jubbah is distinct from equivalent northeast African strategies, perhaps as a result of raw material factors. However, specific techniques of core shaping, preparation and pref...
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Journal of Archaeological Science
Aterian stone tools represent one of the clearest indications of technological regionalisation in the North African Middle Stone Age. Found in association with Homo sapiens skeletal remains and more recently with symbolic material culture, the Aterian is widely thought to reflect modern human identity and cognition. As a lithic industry, the Aterian has been primarily defined by the presence of stemmed or tanged tools, but there has been little quantitative study of the relationship between tangs and other forms of hafting modifications, such as shouldering and basal thinning. Understanding the diversity of these features and their relationships with one another will clarify the organisation and adaptations of North African populations during Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5, ∼130–70,000 years ago), a critical timespan for modern human dispersal. This paper presents the results of a stepped analysis of fifteen Aterian and other non-Aterian assemblages from the same spatial and temporal bracket in North Africa. Using Correspondence Analyses together with a suite of other statistics, the results indicate that tanging represents a widely applied strategy of hafting a variety of different tools. On the other hand, basal thinning is specifically correlated with lightweight, highly retouched points. The distribution of these features appears to reflect geographical proximity and shared environments, rather than articulating with traditional named industries. This in turn suggests that a continued focus on tangs to differentiate an ‘Aterian’ from other, contemporary North African MSA industries may be obfuscating regional-scale patterns of technological diversity.
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The relationship between the human groups and the Sahara is a key point in the issue of emergence, development and diffusion of anatomically modern humans in Africa. If most of the research works focus on Southern and Eastern Africa, Western Africa yielded interesting data but remained very little documented at the end of the last century. Then, since more than 15 years, the research program “Human Settlement and Palaeoenvironment in Africa” realizes fieldworks, mainly in Mali and Senegal. The studied regions (Ounjougou in Mali and the Faleme Valley in Eastern Senegal), with the only reliable chronostratigraphic data in Western Africa, are located in two different climatic areas and allow to discuss the human adaptation to the palaeoenvironmental changes. In Ounjougou, a diversity of technical complexes (Levallois, bipolar on anvil debitage, bifacial shaping etc.) is observed during OIS 5 to 3 but a settlement gap is clearly highlighted during the hyperarid stage 2. In the Faleme Valley, if the recent works also seem to recognize a strong cultural variability, some of the occupations are linked to OIS 2 and raises the question of the north-south human mobility and the settlement dynamics in relation to arid episodes, in particular the Ogolian one (20-14 Kyr BP).
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