Blade production ∼500 thousand years ago at Kathu Pan 1, South Africa: support for a multiple origins hypothesis for early Middle Pleistocene blade technologies

Wilkins, Jayne; Chazan, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.031

Cited by 141 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…The first evidence of blade production was found in Africa at two sites, Kathu Pan (Wilkins & Chazan 2012) and Kapturin (Johnson & McBrearty 2010), both approximately 500,000 years old ( Figure 1). …”

Section: The Blade Phenomenon In the Middle Paleolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between the flake and the blade: Associated systems of production at Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, northern Italy)

Carmignani

2017

JLS

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Abstract:The Riparo Tagliente site (Verona, Italy) shows three macro phases in which high technological variability can be observed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the specific role of the Middle Paleolithic blade production within this variability. Preliminary results show a complex scenario in which the role of the blade is strictly linked with flake production through mixed reduction systems.Two different approaches were used for analysing the lithic assemblages from the site. The first analysis focused on the identification of the reduction systems by determining the techniques, methods and concepts underlying the entire chaîne opératoire. The second approach concentrated on analysing blade production in order to identify its variability.Evidence of blade technology from the Middle Pleistocene (MIS 8-6) has been found in northern Europe (France, Belgium). Later, during MIS 5 blades can be found over a larger area, this time also including north-western Germany and the central-southern part of France. A third period (MIS 4-3) marks the appearance of laminar production in southern Europe, including in the Italian peninsula. Based on the present state of research these three phases appear to be on-and-off events without clear evolutionary continuity.By repositioning the sequence of Riparo Tagliente within the Italian context we can observe that at the end of the Mousterian period the technological patterns differ greatly, with laminar production being one of its most evident expressions. The origin of this fragmentation is questionable.

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Section: The Blade Phenomenon In the Middle Paleolithicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between the flake and the blade: Associated systems of production at Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, northern Italy)

Carmignani

2017

JLS

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“…Unfortunately, no fossil material is present at these sites, but they are often thought to be associated with H. heidelbergensis (Porat et al, 2010). At KP1, unifacial and unretouched points are consistent with use as hafted spear-tips (also see Chapter 5 and 6), and the development of hafting at this time presents a major technological advance over prior industries (Wilkins et al, 2012).…”

Section: 22)mentioning

confidence: 74%

“…However, the frequency with which they occur can be consistent with certain assemblage-scale behavioral patterns ( Figure 12). Less than 2% of tools exposed to trampling incurred a DIF, whereas >40% of experimental tools that are used as projectiles develop a DIF, and sites where hunting technology and site function are well known have shown systematic differences in the frequency of DIFs (Wilkins et al, 2012). For instance, points recovered from Holocene kill sites have nearly 43% DIFs, whereas residential sites only have ~15% DIFs on points that are known to have been used as arrows (Fischer et al, 1984;Villa et al, 2009b;Sano, 2012).…”

Section: Inferring Tool Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Africa (Porat et al, 2010;Wilkins and Chazan, 2012), and clearly after 300 ka, in the Kapthurin (McBrearty and Tryon, 2005;Tryon et al, 2005) and Gademotta (Sahle et al, 2013;Sahle et al, 2014) formations in Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively. However, these early expressions of MSA technologies tend to lack evidence of complexity and symbolic behaviors found in later MSA sites.…”

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Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Schoville

2016

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

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This study explores how early modern humans used stone tool technology to adapt to changing climates and coastlines in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. The MSA is associated with the earliest fossil evidence for modern humans and complex cultural behaviors during a time period of dramatic climate change. Human culture allows for the creation, use, and transmission of technological knowledge that can evolve with changing environmental conditions. Understanding the interactions between technology and the environment is essential to illuminating the role of culture during the origin of our species. This study is focused on understanding ancient tool use from the study of lithic edge damage patterns at archaeological assemblages in southern Africa by using image-based quantitative methods for analyzing stone tools. An extensive experimental program using replicated stone tools provides the comparative linkages between the archaeological artifacts and the tasks for which they were used. MSA foragers structured their tool use and discard behaviors on the landscape in several ways -by using and discarding hunting tools more frequently in the field rather than in caves/rockshelters, but similarly in coastal and interior contexts. This study provides evidence that during a significant microlithic technological shift seen in southern Africa at ~75,000 years ago, new technologies were developed alongside rather than replacing existing technologies. These results are compared with aspects of the European archaeological record at this time to identify features of early human technological behavior that may be unique to the evolutionary history of our species.ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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“…We know that AMHs emerged in Africa between 200 and 160 ka (7-9), but some behaviors considered as "modern" are present in Africa before this speciation event. Ochre use appears at around 300 ka (10), and laminar blade production is observed perhaps as early as 500 ka (11). Other modern cultural traits are only observed in the African archaeological record after ca.…”

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confidence: 99%

Identifying early modern human ecological niche expansions and associated cultural dynamics in the South African Middle Stone Age

d’Errico

Banks

Warren

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The archaeological record shows that typically human cultural traits emerged at different times, in different parts of the world, and among different hominin taxa. This pattern suggests that their emergence is the outcome of complex and nonlinear evolutionary trajectories, influenced by environmental, demographic, and social factors, that need to be understood and traced at regional scales. The application of predictive algorithms using archaeological and paleoenvironmental data allows one to estimate the ecological niches occupied by past human populations and identify niche changes through time, thus providing the possibility of investigating relationships between cultural innovations and possible niche shifts. By using such methods to examine two key southern Africa archaeological cultures, the Still Bay [76-71 thousand years before present (ka)] and the Howiesons Poort (HP; 66-59 ka), we identify a niche shift characterized by a significant expansion in the breadth of the HP ecological niche. This expansion is coincident with aridification occurring across Marine Isotope Stage 4 (ca. 72-60 ka) and especially pronounced at 60 ka. We argue that this niche shift was made possible by the development of a flexible technological system, reliant on composite tools and cultural transmission strategies based more on "product copying" rather than "process copying." These results counter the one niche/one human taxon equation. They indicate that what makes our cultures, and probably the cultures of other members of our lineage, unique is their flexibility and ability to produce innovations that allow a population to shift its ecological niche.Middle Stone Age | Still Bay | Howiesons Poort | ecological niche modeling | paleoclimate R esearch on animal behavior has made it clear that culture represents a second inheritance system that may have changed the dynamics of evolution on a broad scale (1-3). Understanding how this process has affected the evolution of our genus is a major challenge in paleoanthropology. In what ways, and through what phases of evolutionary history, has human culture extended beyond culture seen in other species? Are the cultural adaptations and associated cultural innovations that we observe in the archaeological record the direct consequence of our biological evolution, or are they the outcome of mechanisms largely independent of it? In our lineage, if cultural innovations were directly linked to classic Darwinian evolutionary processes, such as isolation, random mutation, selection, and speciation, one would expect a clear correspondence between the emergence of a new species and a related set of novel cultural behaviors. By shaping a new hominin species, natural selection would provide this species with a new cognitive setting resulting in the capacity for particular cultural innovations or behaviors. Such a mechanism would provide the possibility for cultural variability but would narrow its range of expression to the species' biologically dictated potential. Although some would still argue ...

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Blade production ∼500 thousand years ago at Kathu Pan 1, South Africa: support for a multiple origins hypothesis for early Middle Pleistocene blade technologies

Cited by 141 publications

References 48 publications

Between the flake and the blade: Associated systems of production at Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, northern Italy)

Between the flake and the blade: Associated systems of production at Riparo Tagliente (Veneto, northern Italy)

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

Identifying early modern human ecological niche expansions and associated cultural dynamics in the South African Middle Stone Age

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