The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2010: the fourth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2009 fieldwork

Abstract

The paper reports on the fourth (2010) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results of analyses of artefacts and organic materials collected in the 2009 season. Ground-based LiDar has provided both an accurate 3D scan of the Haua Fteah cave and information on the cave's morphometry or origins. The excavations in the cave focussed on Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ layers below the base of the Middle Trench beside the McBurney Deep Sounding (Trench D) and on Final Palaeolithic ‘Oranian’ layers beside the upper part of the Middle Trench (Trench M). Although McBurney referred to the upper part of the Deep Sounding as more or less sterile, the 2010 excavations found evidence for small-scale but regular human presence in the form of stone artefacts and debitage, though given the sedimentary context the latter are unlikely to represent in situ knapping. The excavations of Trench M extended from the basal Capsian layers investigated in 2009 through Oranian layers to the transition with the Dabban Upper Palaeolithic. Some 17,000 lithic pieces have been studied from the Capsian and Oranian layers excavated in Trench M, in an area measuring less than 2 m by 1 m by 1.1 m deep, along with numerous animal bones, molluscs, and macrobotanical remains, as well as occasional shell beads. Preliminary studies of the lithics, bones, molluscs, and plant remains are revealing the changing character of late Pleistocene (Oranian) and early Holocene (Capsian) occupation in the Haua Fteah. Alongside the work in the Haua Fteah, the project continued its assessment of the Quaternary and archaeological sequences of the Cyrenaican coastland and completed a transect survey of surface lithic materials and their landform contexts from the pre-desert across the Gebel Akhdar to the coast, with a new focus on the al-Marj basin. Significant differences are emerging in patterns of Middle Palaeolithic and later hominin occupation and palaeodemography.

Volcanic ash layers illuminate the resilience of Neanderthals and early modern humans to natural hazards

“…At Haua Fteah, the CI is located within a continuous sequence of UP locally termed the Dabban culture, and hence, it postdates the start of the Dabban industry (38). Below the Dabban, in the same sequence, are deposits containing MP industries and two modern human jawbones, which show that modern human remains predate the CI at Haua Fteah (39).…”

Divorcing the Late Upper Palaeolithic demographic histories of mtDNA haplogroups M1 and U6 in Africa

“…Whilst a techno-typological shift occurred within the Dabban ~33 KYA [19], starker changes in the archaeological record occurred throughout North Africa and Southwest Asia ~23-20 KYA, represented by the widespread appearance of backed bladelet technologies. The appearance of these backed bladelet industries more or less coincides with the timing of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (~23-18 KYA), including: ~21 KYA in Upper Egypt [20]; ~20 KYA at Haua Fteah with the Oranian [21]; the Iberomaurusian expansion in the Jebel Gharbi ~20 KYA [22]; and the first Iberomaurusian at Tamar Hat in Algeria ~20 KYA [23]. The earliest Iberomaurusian sites in Morocco appear to be only slightly younger ~18 KYA [24].…”

“…An additional arid-humid transition occurred at 11.5–11 KYA [25]; this period coincides with a widespread change in the archaeological record that marks the beginning of Capsian lithic technologies. The Capsian is argued to have developed in situ in North Africa, marking a continuity from the Iberomaurusian and Oranian into the Capsian [21,24,26]. …”

Sediment micromorphology and site formation processes during the Middle to Later Stone Ages at the Haua Fteah Cave, Cyrenaica, Libya

“…Prehistory Project (CPP), between 2007 and 2015 have combined archaeological excavation with paleoenvironmental and chronological analyses (e.g., Barker et al, 2008Barker et al, , 2009Barker et al, , 2010Barker, Hunt, Reynolds, Brooks, & el-Rishi, 2007Farr et al, 2014;Rabett et al, 2013).…”

“…The cultural sequence revealed by Charles McBurney's excavations in the 1950s (McBurney, ) is unparalleled in North African prehistory, with the earliest deposits dating to the end of MIS 6 (Douka et al., ; Jacobs et al., ), and containing cultural material from the MSA to the present (McBurney, ). Renewed investigations by a multidisciplinary team, The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP), between 2007 and 2015 have combined archaeological excavation with paleoenvironmental and chronological analyses (e.g., Barker et al., , , ; Barker, Hunt, Reynolds, Brooks, & el‐Rishi, , ; Farr et al., ; Rabett et al., ). The present study, part of that project, combines sediment micromorphology, bulk sedimentology, and field observations to develop a sedimentological and taphonomic framework for the sediments containing the late MSA and early LSA artifacts.…”