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
The impact of new excavations from the Cradle of Humankind on our understanding of the evolution of hominins and their cultures
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
Excavations of poorly known or previously understudied sites within the Sterkfontein region over the past several years have revealed an abundance of new information concerning the mode and tempo of hominin evolution and culture, faunal variability and faunal change through time, and the chronology of sites. They have also increased our understanding of cave formation processes, which have a bearing on the taphonomy of fossil assemblages. As excavations have extended, it has become clear that early hominin cultural remains are more prevalent than has been previously hypothesised and the presence or absence of cultural remains appears to be more closely related to the excavations’ proximity to cave entrances than to other factors. Additionally, the increased diversity of work has offered considerable insight into supposedly rare faunal forms and the frequency of their occurrence in the South African assemblages. The extension of research into these ‘new’ sites has also yielded information about the chronological ‘windows’ preserved in the region. The application of new technologies, in particular GIS, promises to allow greater understanding of these assemblages.
Résumé
Des fouilles dans des sites peu connus ou qui n'avaient pas fait l'objets d'analyses systématiques dans la région de Sterkfontein ont révélé au cours des dernières années des nouvelles informations sur les populations d'hominidés qui ont vécu dans cette région, sur leurs cultures, sur la variabilité et les changements des faunes et sur la chronologie des sites. Ils nous ont également permis d'accroître notre compréhension du mode de formation des cavités et des dépôts, fait crucial pour comprendre la taphonomie des assemblages fossiles. En élargissant les surfaces fouillées est apparue une abondance insoupçonné de restes et la concentration de ceux-ci à l'entrée des cavités.
Ces nouvelles fouilles ont également produit des nouvelles informations sur la présence et fréquence de certains taxons dans les assemblages fauniques sud-africains et sur la chronologie des gisements. L'application de techniques SIG offre une nouvelle clef pour la compréhension de ces gisements.
Introduction
Within the Sterkfontein valley area – now designated the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site by UNESCO – cave sites bearing stone tools have been considered rare.
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- Information
- From Tools to SymbolsFrom Early Hominids to Modern Humans, pp. 152 - 162Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2005