The Acheulean in South Africa, with announcement of a new site (Penhill Farm) in the lower Sundays River Valley, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Lotter, Matt G.; Kuman, Kathleen

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2017.08.065

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 128 publications

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“…The limited size of the assemblage, combined with the absence of chronology and recent techno-typological appraisal of the OBP ESA lithic assemblage, likely explains why syntheses on the southern African Acheulean rarely mention the site (e.g. Lotter and Kuman 2018; but see Kuman 2016). We hope to tackle this issue in the framework of this project.…”

Section: The Chrono-cultural Sequencementioning

confidence: 99%

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

Val

Peña

Duval

et al. 2021

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Olieboomspoort is one of the few rock shelters in the vast interior of southern Africa documenting pulses of occupation from the Acheulean until the end of the Later Stone Age. Revil Mason excavated the site in 1954 and attributed the large Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic assemblage to his middle phase of the so-called Pietersburg Industry. Recent work at the site has focused on the Holocene layers, but little is known about the earlier phases of shelter use. Here, we provide some background to the shelter, give a history of past research and present initial results following renewed fieldwork at the site. The MSA deposits contain abundant lithic artefacts and ochre, and we present an initial description of these cultural remains. Palynological analysis reveals limited potential for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, but some faunal remains indicate open grasslands. We dated two equid teeth that provided highly consistent combined U-series-ESR estimates, resulting in a mean age of 150 ± 14 ka (1σ). Even when considering potential sources of uncertainty such as variations in water-intake, these fossils can securely be dated to Marine Isotopic Stage 6. Our reappraisal of site formation processes highlights the fact that the archaeological assemblage is strongly time-averaged. We discuss these different results in the context of a recently rekindled interest in the so-called Pietersburg Industry.

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Section: The Chrono-cultural Sequencementioning

confidence: 99%

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

Val

Peña

Duval

et al. 2021

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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“…At PHF, Middle Pleistocene hominins were seemingly visiting the area to exploit raw materials within exposed terraces of the Sundays River. While collecting and reducing cores for small flakes (<10cm) and formal tool production, large flake blanks for shaping handaxes were brought into the area (Lotter & Kuman 2018a;Lotter 2020a;Lotter & Caruana 2021). These archaeological trends speak the fact that hominins visited the PHF area to produce flake tools, while some shaping of LCTs took place at other localities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Basic techno-typological descriptions and regional inter-site comparisons of the PHF assemblage have been provided in several recent papers (Lotter & Kuman 2018a, Lotter 2020aLotter & Caruana 2021;Mesfin et al 2021;Lotter in press a, b). It is comprised of 9904 artefacts in total, a limited number of LCTs (n=49, with n=16 handaxes), and over 85% of all artefacts have been produced on quartzite and less frequently on siltstone (n=363, 7.5%) and hornfels (n=255, 5.2%).…”

Section: Background Regional Trends or One Homogenous Entity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing morphological variability in handaxes from Penhill Farm and Amanzi Springs, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Caruana

Lotter

2023

safa

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Recent excavations at Penhill Farm and Amanzi Springs have reinvigorated interest in the Acheulean archaeological record of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. While this research now provides valuable detail on hominin adaptations in environments that differ from the interior, few Acheulean assemblages in this region have been recorded or thoroughly analysed. Here we compare Acheulean handaxes from Penhill Farm and the Amanzi Springs Area 1 locality to help characterise the expression of this technocomplex in the Eastern Cape. We employ a multivariate analysis of allometry to highlight the relationship between shape variance in relation to the size of handaxes, which further provide perspective on shaping processes. Results demonstrate high levels of techno-morphological variability that may distinguish Acheulean handaxes in the Eastern Cape region from sites elsewhere. We further argue that morphological variation in handaxes from Penhill Farm and Amanzi Springs may have also been influenced by site function, discard behaviours and group mobility patterns. These data refute the notion that the Acheulean technocomplex represents a single, homogenous technological entity, but rather was a flexible tradition that was influenced by region-specific factors.

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“…Chronological advances are being made, especially with assemblages coming from fluviatile contexts (e.g. Lotter and Kuman 2017;Lotter 2020a,b), and technological studies reveal important insights into the development of prepared core technology in South Africa (e.g. Li et al 2017;Porat et al 2010;Wilkins et al 2010), which was introduced across the region during the timeframe proposed for H. naledi.…”

Section: The South African Archaeological Recordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining the Likely Technological Niches of Late Middle Pleistocene Hominins with Homo naledi as Case Study

Dusseldorp

Lombard

2021

J Archaeol Method Theory

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We develop a framework to differentiate the technological niches of co-existing hominin species by reviewing some theoretical biases influential in thinking about techno-behaviours of extinct hominins, such as a teleological bias in discussing technological evolution. We suggest that some stone-tool classification systems underestimate technological variability, while overestimating the complexity of the behaviours most commonly represented. To model the likely technological niches of extinct populations, we combine ecological principles (i.e. competitive exclusion) with physical anthropology and the archaeological record. We test the framework by applying it to the co-existence of Homo naledi and Homo sapiens during the late Middle Pleistocene in southern Africa. Based on our analysis, we suggest that tool use was probably not an essential part of H. naledi’s niche, but that technology occasionally provided caloric benefits. In contrast, tool use was a structural part of the H. sapiens way of life. We provide reasoning for our interpretation that the latter population is associated with more sophisticated reduction strategies and the development of prepared core technology. The method also has applicability to cases such as the co-existence of different toolmakers during the Earlier Stone Age (ESA) in East Africa and the co-existence of Neanderthals and H. sapiens in Eurasia.

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The Acheulean in South Africa, with announcement of a new site (Penhill Farm) in the lower Sundays River Valley, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Cited by 24 publications

References 128 publications

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

Comparing morphological variability in handaxes from Penhill Farm and Amanzi Springs, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Constraining the Likely Technological Niches of Late Middle Pleistocene Hominins with Homo naledi as Case Study

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