First molecular identification of a hafting adhesive in the Late Howiesons Poort at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape, South Africa)

Charrié-Duhaut, Armelle; Porraz, Guillaume; Cartwright, Caroline; Igreja, Marina; Connan, Jacques; Poggenpoel, Cédric; Texier, Pierre-Jean

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.12.026

Cited by 106 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Thackeray, 2000: 157), but ochre-loaded adhesives have not been detected and may not be present at most other South African MSA sites. Instead, simple glue, such as resin from Podocarpus (yellowwood), was used for hafting MSA tools at Diepkloof (Charrié-Duhaut et al 2013) and LSA tools at Border Cave (d' Errico et al 2012a). Unidentified 'mastic' has also been detected on a late MSA blade from Apollo 11 (Wendt 1976;Vogelsang 1998).…”

Section: Azania: Archaeological Research In Africa 175mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A range of hunting techniques developed (Backwell et al 2008;Lombard and Phillipson 2010;Lombard 2011) and there is circumstantial evidence for snares (Wadley 2010a). Not only did people in the MSA have an intimate knowledge of the properties of natural materials that they used for making weaponry and tools, they were familiar with the edible and medicinal plants (Sievers 2006; and those that could be used as glue (Charrié-Duhaut et al 2013). They knew, too, what woods could be burned in their hearths (Scholtz 1986;Allott 2004Allott , 2006Cartwright 2013) and they may have understood how to make use of wood types and wood loads to vary temperatures for dissimilar tasks (Bentsen 2012(Bentsen , 2013.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

181

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Africa's Middle Stone Age (MSA) may have lasted almost half a million years, but its earliest expression is not yet well understood. The MSA is best known for innovations that appear in the archaeological record at various times after about 200,000 years ago with the first appearance of Homo sapiens. These novel behaviours embrace hafting technology, the use of compound paints and adhesives, ingenious lithic technology that included pressure flaking and the heat treatment of rock, the engraving of ochre and eggshell with geometric designs, the stringing of shell beads and the production of a wide range of bone implements. Such innovations might have been linked to new types of social behaviour stimulated by demographic pulses and movements within and out of the continent. Population shifts may have occurred repeatedly during the MSA. Southern African sites seem concentrated in the interior of the subcontinent before 130 kya. Thus, the florescence of MSA innovations described here appears to have coincided with the dispersal after 130 kya of populations from the interior to mountainous areas, but, more particularly, to the coastal stretches of the southern and western Cape. Coastal sites are the focus of much of southern Africa's research into the MSA and some of the continent's most esteemed sites are coastal ones, particularly those containing iconic Still Bay and Howiesons Poort technocomplexes. By 58 kya occupations tended once more to shift away from the southern coast and back into the interior, or to the eastern seaboard. Some of these later MSA sites have extensive footprints, implying population growth or repeated occupations. Regional and even local variability is characteristic of stone assemblages of the time, while sites seem to have fewer ornaments or decorated items than was formerly the case. The variability in late MSA lithic assemblages is matched by apparent flexibility in the timing of the transfer from the MSA to the Later Stone Age.

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Section: Azania: Archaeological Research In Africa 175mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

181

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“…It has been argued that HP backed segments and bone points were used as bow-delivered arrow points based on use-wear, fracture patterns, and morphometrics (56)(57)(58). The interpretation that these tools were hafted is supported by the presence of mastic remnants observed on some backed pieces (31,59) (Fig. 2H).…”

Section: Cultural and Chronological Contextsmentioning

confidence: 77%

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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“…A recent molecular study of residue found on a quartz flake at the site of Diepkloof resulted in the identification of Podocarpus elongatus (Yellowwood) resin (Charri e- Duhaut et al, 2013), in contrast to the ochre-based hafting residues found at Sibudu Cave (Lombard, 2006(Lombard, , 2007(Lombard, , 2008, Rose Cottage Cave (Gibson et al, 2004) and Umhlatuzana (Lombard, 2007). These glimpses of potential differences between sites indicate that the HP was a variable and dynamic industrial complex, and the investigation of technological variability within this industry is a potentially highly fruitful avenue for research.…”

Section: The Howiesons Poort Of Southern Africamentioning

confidence: 99%