Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Profile of Professor Tobias
- List of participants
- Foreword
- Address
- Keynote address
- Searching for common ground in palaeoanthropology, archaeology and genetics
- The history of a special relationship: prehistoric terminology and lithic technology between the French and South African research traditions
- Essential attributes of any technologically competent animal
- Significant tools and signifying monkeys: the question of body techniques and elementary actions on matter among apes and early hominids
- Tools and brains: which came first?
- Environmental changes and hominid evolution: what the vegetation tells us
- Implications of the presence of African ape-like teeth in the Miocene of Kenya
- Dawn of hominids: understanding the ape-hominid dichotomy
- The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
- Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
- Vertebral column, bipedalism and freedom of the hands
- Characterising early Homo: cladistic, morphological and metrical analyses of the original Plio-Pleistocene specimens
- Early Homo, ‘robust’ australopithecines and stone tools at Kromdraai, South Africa
- The origin of bone tool technology and the identification of early hominid cultural traditions
- Contribution of genetics to the study of human origins 276
- An overview of the patterns of behavioural change in Africa and Eurasia during the Middle and Late Pleistocene
- From the tropics to the colder climates: contrasting faunal exploitation adaptations of modern humans and Neanderthals
- New neighbours: interaction and image-making during the West European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition
- Late Mousterian lithic technology: its implications for the pace of the emergence of behavioural modernity and the relationship between behavioural modernity and biological modernity
- Exploring and quantifying technological differences between the MSA I, MSA II and Howieson's Poort at Klasies River
- Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave
- Testing and demonstrating the stratigraphic integrity of artefacts from MSA deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa
- From tool to symbol: the behavioural context of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof, Western Cape
- Chronology of the Howieson's Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes: assessment and new data from luminescence
- Subsistence strategies in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu Cave: the microscopic evidence from stone tool residues
- Speaking with beads: the evolutionary significance of personal ornaments
- Personal names index
- Subject index
Summary
Abstract
Diepkloof is a large rock shelter overlooking the lower reaches of the Verlorenvlei in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Earlier excavations have shown that a series of Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages underlie a shallow Later Stone Age (LSA) occupation of the shelter. Current excavations under the direction of the authors have resolved the cultural stratigraphy and generated valuable associations between stone tool sets, faunal, plant and wood charcoal remains and a large series of intentionally marked ostrich eggshell fragments, including at least one demonstrable water flask mouth. Stone tool assemblages of characteristically Howieson's Poort forms are overlain by MSA assemblages with unifacial points and quite different raw materials and underlain by MSA assemblages that are as yet hard to classify. The intentionally marked ostrich eggshell fragments are found in the upper part of the Howieson's Poort series.
Résumé
Diepkloof est un grand abri qui domine l'estuaire du Verlorenvlei, situé dans la Province du Western Cape, en Afrique du Sud. Les premières fouilles du site ont mis en évidence une séquence comprenant une fine couche du Later Stone Age (LSA) sus-jacent plusieurs couches contenant des assemblages du Middle Stone Age (MSA). Les fouilles en cours, menées sous la direction des auteurs, ont précisé la stratigraphie du site et étudié la relation entre les industries lithiques, les restes fauniques, les fragments de bois et de charbon d'un côté et une série de fragments d'oeufs d'autruche gravés de l'autre. Ces analyses révèlent la présence d'une industrie Howieson's Poort sous-jacente à un MSA à pointes unifaciales et utilisant des matières premières différentes. La couche inférieure contient une industrie MSA encore à définir. Les fragments d'oeuf d'autruche gravés proviennent du sommet de la couche Howieson's Poort.
Introduction
Diepkloof is one of two very high overhangs, or abris, that overlook the Verlorenvlei River about 18 km upstream from its mouth in the southern corner of Elands Bay (Fig. 1). One of these has an abundance of rock paintings and a shallow (less than a metre) deposit mostly comprising Middle Stone Age materials. It is an interesting site that demands more investigation. The other overhang, on which we concentrate here, has fewer rock paintings but a much deeper set of deposits and has been the focus of several excavations since the early 1970s.
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- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 475 - 492Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005