The MIS 5a (~80 ka) Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages from Melikane Rockshelter, Lesotho: Highland adaptation and social fragmentation

Pazan, Kyra; Dewar, Genevieve; Stewart, Brian

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2020.11.046

Cited by 14 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…The Lesotho Highlands are a consistent feature of both refugia, whereas the Ethiopian Highlands only feature within the 95% refugia. The earliest currently known occupation in Lesotho dates to 80 ka [ 38 ], whereas the history of highland occupation in Ethiopia is shorter, dating to 40 ka [ 36 ]. This potentially indicates that high-altitude regions demanded specific adaptations and, given that their occupation has not spanned the entire Late Pleistocene, may be excluded from more general models of African refugia for human populations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These Rift Valley water sources probably acted both as catalysts and barriers to human interaction [ 34 ], as they do ethnographically [ 35 ]. High-altitude landscapes have been highlighted as potential refugia owing to their enhanced humidity in contrast with surrounding lowlands, such as in the Ethiopian Rift [ 36 , 37 ] or the Lesotho Highlands [ 38 , 39 ]. Similarly, enhanced precipitation experienced in proximity to the coast has been indicated as a feature that may have supported enduring occupation of sites in eastern and southern Africa (e.g.…”

Section: The Role Of Refugia In African Palaeoanthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa

Blinkhorn

Timbrell

Grove

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Homo sapiens have adapted to an incredible diversity of habitats around the globe. This capacity to adapt to different landscapes is clearly expressed within Africa, with Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens populations occupying savannahs, woodlands, coastlines and mountainous terrain. As the only area of the world where Homo sapiens have clearly persisted through multiple glacial-interglacial cycles, Africa is the only continent where classic refugia models can be formulated and tested to examine and describe changing patterns of past distributions and human phylogeographies. The potential role of refugia has frequently been acknowledged in the Late Pleistocene palaeoanthropological literature, yet explicit identification of potential refugia has been limited by the patchy nature of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records, and the low temporal resolution of climate or ecological models. Here, we apply potential climatic thresholds on human habitation, rooted in ethnographic studies, in combination with high-resolution model datasets for precipitation and biome distributions to identify persistent refugia spanning the Late Pleistocene (130–10 ka). We present two alternate models suggesting that between 27% and 66% of Africa may have provided refugia to Late Pleistocene human populations, and examine variability in precipitation, biome and ecotone distributions within these refugial zones. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Tropical forests in the deep human past’.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Refugia In African Palaeoanthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa

Blinkhorn

Timbrell

Grove

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Apollo 11 Rock Shelter: Wendt, 1972;Vogelsang et al, 2010;Lombard and H€ ogberg, 2018;Klein Kliphaus Shelter: Mackay, 2010;Spitzkloff Rockshelter: Dewar and Stewart, 2012) and mountains (e.g. Melikane Rock Shelter: Stewart et al, 2012;Pazan et al, 2022). The majority of sites are however either associated with the escarpment that rings the sub-continent, including the Drakensberg Mountains and Namibian uplands, or the coast, rather than the interior, though the value and significance of interior, open air sites is beginning to emerge, as exemplified by the recent work at Bundu Farm in the Karoo, where MSA material dated to 300e150 ka is linked to cooler and wetter grassland conditions (Kiberd and Pryor, 2021).…”

Section: The Southern African Legacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Lacustrine geoarchaeology in the central Kalahari: Implications for Middle Stone Age behaviour and adaptation in dryland conditions

Thomas

Burrough

Coulson

et al. 2022

Quaternary Science Reviews

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“…Inclusion in this technocomplex of Melikane, located in the modern Grassland Biome in Lesotho, seems questionable. The Phase IV assemblage there has ages of 83.2 ±6.2 ka and 79.5 ±3.1 ka, but its technological characteristics feature the production of small blades from multi-directional cores made on locally-available chert pebbles, and their subsequent reduced by bipolar techniques (184). There is no evidence of heat treatment, though this site falls outside the 'silcrete belt' and as noted earlier, heat treatment has not yet been documented on lithologies other than silcrete in the region.…”

Section: Lithicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental influences on human innovation and behavioural diversity in southern Africa 92–80 thousand years ago

et al. 2022

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VR003 has been excavated over five seasons between 2009 and 2016. The initial two seasons had the primary objective of assessing the potential of the deposit, and only selected finds were plotted. The final three seasons 2014-2016 involved plotting of all cultural items using different size cut-offs for different classes of material (≥20 mm for lithics, ≥25 mm for bone). Some classes of material, notably OES, were only plotted if modified. All plotted artefacts were assigned unique provenience ID's and individually bagged. Sedimentary aggregates were plotted with a single indicative point location, and volume was quantified as proportional bucket volume (FULL, ¾, ½, ¼). All aggregates were sieved on site through nested 3 mm and 1.5 mm mesh, and the residues from each bagged separately. All plotting was undertaken using a local grid, managed by control points emplaced around the site.We currently recognise nine archaeological horizons and eight geological horizons in the Main Area sequence (1); for the sake of simplicity in this paper we refer to the lower two archaeological horizons (I-08 and I-09) in aggregate as the Lower Deposits. All horizons in the Main Area are associated with the MSA. Inside the small extant shelter (known as Sector III) we identify 23 geological horizons (III-01 through III-23), with Late Holocene LSA comprising the upper 14 strata (0.6-0.9 m depth). In the Main Area, I-04 was assigned to the Howiesons Poort and Still Bay (1), though initially dated by OSL in the Main Area to 45.7 ±2.8 ka. Inside the shelter in Sector III, Howiesons Poort artefacts occur in strata III-18 through III-23, with initial OSL ages of 42.3 ±2.7 ka and 41.7 ±2.9 (1) (Still Bay has yet to be encountered in this part of the site). In both areas these ages are unusually young for the Howiesons Poort. We provide a redating here (SI Geochronology below) using OSL on quartz grains from III-18 to III-20 that places the Howiesons Poort between 71.6±6.2 and 60.8±5.2, consistent with ages elsewhere, with ages for the immediately overlying post-Howiesons Poort stratum III-17 of 55.7 ±4.4 and 66.1 ±5.3 ka (Figure S1).The fossiles directeur for the Howiesons Poort and Still Bay (backed artefacts and bifacial points respectively) occur as a discrete band across the entire site and include a single piece of engraved OES in the Link Trench (Figure S1). In the Main Area there is no recurrence of such artefacts in the underlying deposits, which we assign to the pre-Still Bay MSA.

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The MIS 5a (~80 ka) Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages from Melikane Rockshelter, Lesotho: Highland adaptation and social fragmentation

Cited by 14 publications

References 97 publications

Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa

Evaluating refugia in recent human evolution in Africa

Lacustrine geoarchaeology in the central Kalahari: Implications for Middle Stone Age behaviour and adaptation in dryland conditions

Environmental influences on human innovation and behavioural diversity in southern Africa 92–80 thousand years ago

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