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
Stone Age signatures in northernmost South Africa: early archaeology in the Mapungubwe National Park and vicinity
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
Laboratorio di Antropologia, Via del Proconsolo No. 12, Firenze 50122, Italy
Abstract
The oldest archaeological sites currently known in northernmost South Africa are found in the Mapungubwe National Park (formerly known as the Vhembe-Dongola National Park) and neighbouring farms, where there is a widespread distribution of open-air sites in deflated contexts. They are sealed by Holocene sands, which at some of the sites contain Later Stone Age (LSA) artefacts. The industry to which the older assemblages are most comparable is final Earlier Stone Age (ESA) in character, with parallels to the Sangoan Industry, or what has locally been proposed as the Charaman from Zimbabwe. A developed phase of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) with segments and retouched points is also represented on one landscape. Rockshelter sites are being investigated to locate stratified deposits to which the open sites may be compared. In the interim, the material provides a form of ‘archaeological signature’ that can contribute to the overall evaluation of Stone Age occupations in northernmost South Africa. Large-scale climatic fluctuations during the course of the Pleistocene have influenced occupations across southern Africa. The archaeology of the Mapungubwe area appears to have more in common with developments north of the Limpopo than it does with the South African sequence.
Résumé
Les plus anciens sites préhistoriques de la région septentrionale de l'Afrique du Sud se trouvent dans le Parc National de Mapungubwe (appelé auparavant Parc National de Vhembe-Dongola) et dans les fermes voisines. Il s'agit de gisements de plein air localisés dans des plaines et recouverts de formations sableuses datant de l'Holocène qui contiennent, dans certains des sites, des objets du Later Stone Age. Les industries les plus anciennes de la région sont comparables à celles de la fin du Early Stone Age (ESA), avec quelques ressemblances avec le Sangoan ou le Charaman du Zimbabwe. Une phase évoluée du Middle Stone Age (MSA), avec des segments et des pointes retouchées, a également été identifiée dans une zone. Des abris sous roche font actuellement l'objet de prospections avec l'objectif de localiser des dépôts archéologiques stratifiés auxquels rattacher les sites de plein air.
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- Information
- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 163 - 182Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005