Middle Stone Age

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The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African Prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It began around 300.000 years ago and ended around 50.000 years ago. It is considered as an equivalent of European Middle Paleolithic[1].

Middle Stone Age artefacts were found at Blombos Cave in South Africa. Pierced and ochred Nassarius shell beads were also recovered from Blombos, with even earlier examples (Middle Stone Age, Aterian) from Grotte des Pigeons, Taforalt, Morocco.

Contents

[edit] The Middle Stone Age – Behavior and language

See also: modern behaviour

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Africa starts at c. 300 ka or slightly earlier [2] and is associated with anatomically modern or almost modern Homo sapiens. Early physical evidence comes from Omo [3] and Herto [4], both in Ethiopia and dated respectively at c. 195 ka and at c. 160 ka. A review of the African evidence by McBrearty and Brooks (2000) indicates a variable montage of cognitive advances associated with anatomically modern humans can be detected in the MSA. However, the development of modern behaviour in the MSA is likely to have been a vast and complex series of events that developed in a mosaic way and a number of authors make the point that the likely scale and repertoire of modern behaviour in the Middle to Late Pleistocene is enormous [5].

During the Acheulian to MSA transition the Middle Awash valley of Ethiopia and the Olorgesailie basins of Kenya constituted a major center for behavioural innovation [6]. It is likely that the large terrestrial mammal biomass of these regions supported substantial human populations with subsistence and manufacturing patterns similar to those of ethnographically known forager. Blades and backed pieces from the Twin Rivers and Kalambo Falls sites in Zambia dated at c. 300 ka indicate a suite of new behaviours [7] and Barham [8] believes that syntactic language was one behavioural aspect that allowed these MSA people to settle in the tropical forests of the Congo. A high level of technical competence is also indicated for the c. 280 ka blades recovered from the Kapthurin Formation, Kenya [9]. Wurz et al. (2003) contend that distinct technological changes in lithic style between the MSA I period (c. 110 – 115 ka) and the MSA II (c. 94 -85 ka) at Klasies in the Western Cape is associated with cognitively modern behaviour. Ochre is reported from some early MSA sites, for example at Kapthurin and Twin Rivers, and is common after c. 100 ka [10]. Barham [11] argues that even if some of this ochre was used in a symbolic, colour related role then this abstraction could not have worked without language. Ochre, he suggests, could be one proxy for trying to find the emergence of language. Formal bone tools are frequently associated with modern behaviour by archaeologists [12]. Sophisticated bone harpoons manufactured at Katanda, West Africa at c. 90 ka [13] and those from Blombos Cave dated at c. 77 ka [14] may then also serve as examples of material culture associated with modern language.

Evidence for modern subsistence behaviour in the MSA that may also link with the origins of syntactic language comes from a number of sites. Based on his analysis of the MSA bovid assemblage at Klasies, Milo (1998) reports MSA people were formidable hunters and that their social behaviour patterns approached those of modern humans. Deacon [15] maintains that the management of plant food resources through deliberate burning of the veld to encourage the growth of plants with corms or tubers in the southern Cape during the Howiesons Poort (c. 70 - 55 ka) is indicative of modern behaviour. A family basis to foraging groups, colour symbolism and the reciprocal exchange of artefacts and the formal organization of living space are, he suggests, further evidence for modernity in the MSA.

By c. 80 – 50 ka MSA humans spread out of Africa to Asia, Australia and Europe [16], perhaps only in small numbers initially [17], but by c. 30 ka they had replaced Neanderthals and Homo erectus. Based on the measurement of a large number of human skulls a recent study supports a central/southern African origin for Homo sapiens as this region shows the highest intra-population diversity in phenotypic measurements. Genetic data supports this conclusion [18].

What made these African hominids so successful? A critical factor was their behaviour. Although the advent of anatomical physical modernity cannot confidently be linked with palaeoneurological change [19] it does seem probable that hominid brains evolved through the same selection processes as other body parts [20]. Genes that promoted a capacity for symbolism may have been selected suggesting the foundations for symbolic culture may well be grounded in biology but behaviour that was mediated by symbolism may have only come later, even though this physical capacity was already in place much earlier. Symbolically mediated behaviour may variously have been adopted, perhaps rejected and re-adopted. Only when these new behaviours conferred a sustainable advantage during this proofing process would their adoption have become permanent.

Many authors have speculated that at the core of this symbolic explosion, and in tandem, was the development of syntactic language that evolved through a highly specialized social learning system [21] providing the means for semantically unbounded discourse [22]. Syntax would have played a key role in this process and its full adoption could have been a crucial element of the symbolic behavioural package in the MSA [23].

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Biological origins of modern humans
  2. ^ McBrearty and Brooks 2000
  3. ^ McDougall et al. 2005
  4. ^ White et al. 2003
  5. ^ cf. Chase and Dibble 1990; Foley and Lahr 1997, 2003; Gibson 1996; Renfrew 1996; Deacon 2001; McBrearty and Brooks 2000; Henshilwood and Marean 2003
  6. ^ Brooks 2006
  7. ^ Barham 2002a
  8. ^ 2001:70
  9. ^ Deino and McBrearty, 2002
  10. ^ Watts 2002
  11. ^ 2002b
  12. ^ e.g. Klein 2000; Henshilwood et al. 2001b
  13. ^ Yellen et al. 1995; Brooks et al. 1995
  14. ^ Henshilwood et al. 2001b
  15. ^ 2001:6
  16. ^ Mellars 2006
  17. ^ Manica et al 2007
  18. ^ Manica et al 2007:346
  19. ^ Holloway 1996
  20. ^ Gabora 2001
  21. ^ Richerson and Boyd 1998
  22. ^ Rappaport 1999
  23. ^ Bickerton 2003

[edit] Bibliography

  • Barham, L. S. (2001). Central Africa and the emergence of regional identity in the Middle Pleistocene, in L. S. Barham and K. Robson-Brown (eds.), Human Roots: Africa and Asia in the Middle Pleistocene. Bristol: Western Academic and Specialist Press, 65-80.
  • Barham, L. S. (2002b). Systematic pigment use in the Middle Pleistocene of south central Africa. Current Anthropology 31(1): 181–190.
  • Barham. L. S. (2002a) Backed tools in Middle Pleistocene central Africa and their evolutionary significance. Journal of Human Evolution 43: 585–603.
  • Bickerton, D. (2003). Symbol and structure: A comprehensive framework for language evolution, in M. H. Christiansen and S. Kirby (eds.), Language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 77–93.
  • Brooks, A. S. (2006). Recent perspectives on the Middle Stone Age of Africa. Paper presented at the African Genesis Symposium on Hominid Evolution in Africa: Johannesburg.
  • Chase, P. G. and Dibble, H. L. (1990). On the emergence of modern humans. Current Anthropology 31(1): 58-59.
  • Deacon, H. J. (2001). Modern human emergence: an African archaeological perspective, in P. V. Tobias, M. A. Raath, J. Maggi-Cecchi, and G. A. Doyle (eds.), Humanity from African naissance to coming millennia-Colloquia in human biology and palaeoanthropology. Florence: Florence University Press, 217–226.
  • Deino, A.L. and McBrearty, S. (2002). 40Ar/39Ar dating of the Kapthurin Formation, Baringo, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 42: 185–210.
  • Foley, R. and Lahr, M. (1997). Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1: 3-36.
  • Foley, R. and Lahr, M. (2003). On stony ground: lithic technology, human evolution and the emergence of culture. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 109-122.
  • Gabora, L. (2001). Cognitive mechanisms underlying the origin and evolution of culture. Ph. D thesis. Center Leo Apostel For interdisciplinary Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Brussels, Belgium.
  • Gibson, K. R. (1996). The biocultural human brain, seasonal migrations, and the emergence of the Upper Palaeolithic, in P. Mellars and K. R. Gibson (eds.), Modeling the early human mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs, 33-48.
  • Henshilwood, C. S. and Marean, C. W. (2003). The origin of modern human behaviour: A review and critique of models and test implications. Current Anthropology 44(5): 627-651.
  • Henshilwood, C. S., d’Errico, F., Marean, C., Milo, R., and Yates, R. (2001b). An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language. Journal of Human Evolution 41: 631-678.
  • Holloway, R. (1996). Evolution of the human brain, in A. Lock and C. R. Peters (eds.), Handbook of human symbolic evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Klein, R. G., (2000). Archaeology and the evolution of human behavior. Evolutionary Anthropology 9: 17-36.
  • Manica, A., Amos, W., Balloux, F., Hanihara, T. (2007). The effect of ancient population bottlenecks on human phenotypic variation. Nature 448:346-348.
  • McBrearty, S. and Brooks, A. S. (2000). The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453–563.
  • McDougall, I., Brown, F. H. and Fleagle, J. G. (2005). Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature 433: 733-6.
  • Milo, R. G. (1998). Evidence for hominid predation at Klasies River Mouth, South Africa, and its implications for the behavior of early modern humans. Journal of Archaeological Science 25: 99-133.
  • Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Renfrew, C. (1996). The sapient behaviour paradox: how to test for potential?, in K. Gibson and P. Mellars (eds.), Modeling the early human mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs, 11-14.
  • Richerson, P. and Boyd, R. (1998). The Pleistocene and the origins of human culture: built for speed. Paper presented at the 5th Biannual Symposium on the Science of Behaviour: Behaviour, Evolution and Culture. University of Guadalajara, Mexico.
  • Watts, I. (2002). Ochre in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa: ritualized display or hide preservative? South African Archaeological Bulletin 57: 64-74.
  • White, T. D., Asfaw, B., Degusta, D., Gilbert, H., Richards, G. D., Suwa, G., and Clark Howell, F. (2003). Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423: 742 –7.
  • Wurz, S., le Roux, N. J., Gardner, S., and Deacon, H. J. (2003). Discriminating between the end products of the earlier Middle Stone Age sub-stages at Klasies River using biplot methodology. Journal of Archaeological Science 30: 1107–1126.
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