Phytoliths from Middle Stone Age habitats in the Mozambican Rift (105–29 ka)

Mercader, Julio; Bennett, Tim; Esselmont, Chris; Simpson, Steven; Walde, Dale

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.10.013

Cited by 22 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Of these, the lower six samples were barren. We followed extraction protocols employed on Middle Stone Age sites from adjacent countries 66 and modern topsoils 67 . The procedure included sieving, drying, deflocculating, acid/base treatment, and sequential density separation by manipulating the specific gravity of sodium polytungstate.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a non-unilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest

et al. 2018

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Mercader (2009) concluded that grass seeds were eaten during the MSA in Mozambique because of starch grains that he identified on stone tools from Ngalue. Phytolith identifications can provide supplementary evidence for other plant remains in MSA sites and the method has been used effectively for environmental reconstruction in Mozambique (Mercader et al 2013). There, it was also possible to establish, using phytolith analysis, that dense wooded landscapes occurred between about 105-29 kya in the Mozambique Rift System (Mercader et al 2013).…”

Section: Oreotragus Oreotragusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Phytolith identifications can provide supplementary evidence for other plant remains in MSA sites and the method has been used effectively for environmental reconstruction in Mozambique (Mercader et al 2013). There, it was also possible to establish, using phytolith analysis, that dense wooded landscapes occurred between about 105-29 kya in the Mozambique Rift System (Mercader et al 2013). At Melikane, Lesotho, phytolith analysis has demonstrated changing proportions of grass and woody vegetation between MIS 5-3 (Stewart et al in press).…”

Section: Oreotragus Oreotragusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

181

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…Phytoliths are also frequently identified in ash‐derived materials (Albert, Bar‐Yosef, Meignen, & Weiner, ). These amorphous silica deposits forming in various plant tissues are particularly abundant in grasses and are used by archaeologists to identify main fuel sources (Braadbaart, van Brussel, van Os, & Eijskoot, ) or to reconstruct past environments (Mercader, Bennett, Esselmont, Simpson, & Walde, ). The abundance of phytoliths contributes to the high silica concentrations of some hearth ashes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origin of smectite in the soil of the Kruger 2 archaeological site, Brompton (Québec), Canada

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Kruger 2 is unique among Late Paleoindian sites of eastern Canada because of the presence of a potential hearth (feature #1) characterized by a concentration of blackened fire-cracked rock and burnt bone embedded in a thick Ae horizon.Comparative mineralogical analysis (X-ray diffraction) of Ae samples collected inside and outside the feature reveal the absence of calcite and apatite, two minerals commonly found in ashes, and the presence of smectite in the Ae inside feature #1.Smectite genesis is attributed to the weathering of mica and chlorite under geochemical conditions (high base cations, Si and pH; low Al) that are unique in time and space. We hypothesize that these conditions were created by the dissolution, 10,000 years ago, of a layer of hearth ashes resting on an incipient soil.Results confirm the intense weathering of mica and chlorite. We also show that ash dissolution could generate the conditions for smectite formation in the presence of altered mica and chlorite, allowing the development of a chronology explaining this finding. The data largely support our hypothesis and constitute a strong basis for future investigations on the links between hearth ash weathering and smectite genesis in acidic soils. K E Y W O R D Sashes, eluvial Ae horizon, hearth, Late Paleoindian, mineralogy, smectite

show abstract

Phytoliths from Middle Stone Age habitats in the Mozambican Rift (105–29 ka)

Cited by 22 publications

References 52 publications

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

The origin of smectite in the soil of the Kruger 2 archaeological site, Brompton (Québec), Canada

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About