Archeology, Environment, and Chronology of the Early Middle Stone Age Component of Wonderwerk Cave
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Archeology, Environment, and Chronology of the Early Middle Stone Age Component of Wonderwerk Cave Michael Chazan 1,2 & Francesco Berna 3 & James Brink 4 & Michaela Ecker 5,6 & Sharon Holt 4 & Naomi Porat 7 & Julia Lee Thorp 6 & Liora Kolska Horwitz 8 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract Although the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, associated with major cultural innovation including aspects of symbolic behavior and the development of complex hunting tools, has been the focus of intensive research, well-documented contexts for the early Middle Stone Age (EMSA) are rare. Here, we present archeological and ecological data on the EMSA occupation of Wonderwerk Cave excavated by Peter Beaumont, along with the results of luminescence dating of associated sediments to ca. 240–150 kyr, overlapping with the timing of the first known modern humans. The lithic assemblage shows a shift to prepared core flake production but lacks complex hunting equipment characteristic of the later MSA. Although ocher is present, there is no evidence of ornaments or incised objects. Multiproxy paleoclimate data from Wonderwerk Cave demonstrate that the EMSA occupation occurred under significantly wetter environmental conditions than the current semiarid regime. The Wonderwerk Cave EMSA provides strong support for the argument that critical aspects of the MSA archeological record developed long after the first appearance of modern humans. Keywords MIS 6–7 paleoclimate . Lithic analysis . Micromorphology . Faunal isotope
analysis . Modern human origins The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa was a period of technological and cultural innovation, including use and decoration of ocher and ostrich eggshell, manufacture of shell ornaments, blade tools, pressure flaking of lithic artifacts, heat treatment of lithic raw material, and development of complex hunting equipment (Brown et al. 2009; Henshilwood et al. 2009, 2011, 2014; Lombard and Pargeter 2008; Mackay and Welz 2008; Marean et al. 2007; Texier et al. 2010). The MSA is also associated with novel * Michael Chazan [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology
subsistence strategies, particularly the intensification of marine resource exploitation (Clark 2011; Esteban et al. 2018; Faith 2011, 2013; Klein et al. 2004; Marean et al. 2007; Marean 2011). However, despite over a decade of focus on the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa, the early stages of this period still remain poorly understood, and welldocumented assemblages attributed to the early MSA (EMSA) are extremely rare (Dusseldorp et al. 2013; Lombard et al. 2012; Wurz 2013) leaving open questions regarding the timing of the onset of innovations in culture and adaptation. The southern margin of the Kalahari Basin offers a promising context in which to investigate the initial stages of the Middle Stone Age. The Earlier Stone Age (ESA) record for this region is particularly rich with multiple major Pleistocene archeologica
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