Lithic miniaturization as adaptive strategy: a case study from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa
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(2020) 12:225
ORIGINAL PAPER
Lithic miniaturization as adaptive strategy: a case study from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa Justin Pargeter 1,2
&
J. Tyler Faith 3
Received: 2 January 2019 / Accepted: 5 August 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Lithic miniaturization is a multivariate and evolutionarily significant technological phenomenon involving backed tools, bladelets, small retouched tools, flakes, and small cores. This paper investigates the proximate causes for variability in lithic miniaturization processes during Marine Isotope Stage 2 (c. 29–12 ka) in southern Africa. We test the hypothesis that lithic miniaturization represents a form of adaptive behavior by examining its relationship to site occupation intensity and rainfall seasonality at Boomplaas Cave in South Africa. These are two widely cited explanations for shifts in the organization of huntergatherer technologies and the data required for testing them are also readily available. We combine several lithic variables, macrofauna and microfauna indicators, and other archeological data to test the hypotheses. We find evidence that demographic processes impacted choices of technology within contexts of shifting rainfall seasonality, aridity, and rapidly rising Late Glacial sea-levels. In this context, Late Glacial humans converged on a small number of high payoff strategies including technological efficiency through bipolar bladelet production, greater production of ostrich eggshell ornaments and water containers, and a reorganized subsistence strategy targeting lower yield small mammals. The results demonstrate that lithic miniaturization was a strategic choice rather than an inevitable technological outcome. The outcomes have implications for understanding global instances of lithic miniaturization and their relationship to rapidly shifting paleoenvironments. Keywords Lithic miniaturization . Rainfall seasonality . Demography . Boomplaas Cave . South Africa
Introduction Late Pleistocene (c. 125–12 ka) humans evolved in contexts of climatic volatility, episodic intense cooling, and landscape reorganization as the globe cycled through relatively warm and cool interglacial-glacial climatic shifts, seas rose and fell, and ancient coastlines advanced and retreated (Marean 2016). These broad climate patterns had dramatic and variable effects on local climate and vegetation with consequences for key resources (plants, animals, and water) upon which foraging societies depended. Patterning in climate and environment * Justin Pargeter [email protected] 1
Department of Anthropology, New York University, New York, NY, USA
2
Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, South Africa
3
Natural History Museum of Utah & Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
that influences resource availability is a key influence on human behavioral variability (Binford 2001; Kelly 2013). Shifts in these biogeographic dynamics precipitated significant demographic, genom
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