Between the time that early modern humans appeared in Africa and when they spread to other parts of the globe, they developed complex behaviours that allowed them and us adapt to new environments.
These planning, thinking, and toolmaking behaviors were created during the Middle Stone Age (315k – 40,000 years ago), but we have a better understanding of them today. Where, Why?And HowThe archaeological evidence that these behaviors developed is limited. The most famous sites on the lush southern Cape Coast, such Blombos Cave are where we can see evidence of the Middle Stone Age. New research shows that people living in the desert regions north of Cape Town lived different lives and were sometimes more creative.
Alex Mackay, University of Wollongong, Australia, wrote an article in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Teresa SteeleProfessor of Anthropology at University of California Davis, Dr. John Davis and colleagues reported that 80,000 to 92,000 year old people occupied a site on the California coast. Knersvlakte region of In what is now South Africa’s southern Namaqualand, they were innovating in many ways, including:
- Infusing silcrete rock with impurities to create unique ways of making stone tools
- Transporting molluskshells over a distance unusually far from the coast
- Technology made from ostrich eggshells: Their first use as a medium for creativity
These innovations, which were found at Varsche Rivier003 site, aren’t present in sites 65 miles (100 km) to the south. This shows a lack of connections among these contemporaneous populations.
Steele suggested that it might be adaptations during these periods of isolation that help to motivate innovation. Steele pointed out that after a climatic shift, some thousand years later, the occupants at Varsche Rivier003 and the sites to their south started making the same stone tools industries, which demonstrates a shift toward greater geographic connections.
Cultural shifts and climate shifts drive cultural change
Steele and her coworkersIn 2009, excavations began at the site where an ancient rock shelter was located in the arid Knersvlakte. This bioregion is situated 27 miles (44 km) east of South Africa’s Atlantic coast and 185 mi (300 km) north of Cape Town.
The site contains artifacts that date back to a climate shift that occurred around 92,000 years ago. This was when the region was more welcoming to humans and had milder winds and higher summer rainfall.. After a few thousand centuries, the climate was back to its original state, with 7 inches (175mm) average annual rainfall occurring in winter.
The Knersvlakte, however, was marginal even during the climate change, Steele said. It was a tough place for hunter-gatherer-herders to make a living, even recently. Even with a little more water, the landscape wasn’t lush. She said that the fact that people from 80,000 years ago could survive there speaks volumes about human adaptability.
The researchers stated that more research is needed to reconstruct the past climate change in the region and to shed more light about how the environment shaped innovation, and culture.
Patricia McNeill (UC Davis anthropology graduate student) is one of the co-authors.As a UC Davis undergraduate I began the project. Graduate alumnae Naomi Martisius Susan Lagle. Martisius is now a postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tulsa (Oklahoma), and Lagle a Fulbright postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Haifa, Israel.
Other co-authors are Simon Armitage of Royal Holloway University of London, Elizabeth Niespolo of Berkeley Geochronology Center and Warren Sharp of Berkeley Geochronology Center Berkeley, California Mareike Stahlschmidt of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Leipzig, Germany Alexander Blackwood of La Trobe University Bundoora Australia, Kelsey Boyd of University of Wollongong, Brian Chase University of Montpellier in France Marika A. Kaplan and Chester F. Kaplan, Cape Town, South Africa. Low of Blackheath (Australia); Ian Moffat and Rachel Rudd of Flinders University Bedford Park, Australia; Jayson Oron of ASHA Consulting.
Primary support was provided by the National Science Foundation, Leakey Foundation, and UC Davis. Other support came from the Australian Research Council, University of Wollongong, and co-authors organizations.