The study of plant remains in archaeological sites, along with a better understanding of the use of plants by prehistoric populations, can help us shed light on changes in survival strategies of hunter-gatherers and consequent impacts on modern human cognition, social organization, and technology. The archaeological locality of Pinnacle Point (Mossel Bay, South Africa) includes a series of coastal caves, rock-shelters, and open-air sites with human occupations spanning the Acheulian through Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA). These sites have provided some of the earliest evidence for complex human behaviour and technology during the MSA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFApproximately 74 thousand years ago (ka), the Toba caldera erupted in Sumatra. Since the magnitude of this eruption was first established, its effects on climate, environment and humans have been debated. Here we describe the discovery of microscopic glass shards characteristic of the Youngest Toba Tuff-ashfall from the Toba eruption-in two archaeological sites on the south coast of South Africa, a region in which there is evidence for early human behavioural complexity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe south coast of South Africa provides the earliest evidence for Middle Stone Age (MSA) coastal resource exploitation by early Homo sapiens. In coastal archaeology worldwide, there has been a debate over the general productivity of intertidal foraging, leading to studies that directly measure productivity in some regions, but there have been no such studies in South Africa. Here we present energetic return rate estimates for intertidal foraging along the southern coast of South Africa from Blombos Cave to Pinnacle Point.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing fine and coarse resolution geoarchaeological studies at the Middle Stone Age site of PP5-6 at Pinnacle Point, Mossel Bay, South Africa, we discovered different patterns of anthropogenic input and changes in behavior through time. Through the microfacies approach, we documented the various geogenic and anthropogenic processes that formed the deposits of the site. By deciphering large scale rate differences in the production of these microfacies we estimated anthropogenic input rates and therefore gained understanding of occupational duration and intensity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThere is consensus that the modern human lineage appeared in Africa before 100,000 years ago. But there is debate as to when cultural and cognitive characteristics typical of modern humans first appeared, and the role that these had in the expansion of modern humans out of Africa. Scientists rely on symbolically specific proxies, such as artistic expression, to document the origins of complex cognition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper aims to identify the spatial patterning of burning and occupation within an early Middle Stone Age (MSA) sea cave in the Western Cape Province of South Africa by creating a multidimensional model of archaeomagnetic data recovered from all excavated units. Magnetic susceptibility and other mineral magnetic parameters are shown to provide an excellent proxy for the anthropogenic alteration and spread of burnt material into the surrounding unaltered cave deposits. The identification of combustion features and areas of occupation or different activities within the site can be determined because the movement of people throughout the cave mixes magnetically strong hearth material with magnetically weak unaltered sediments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPinnacle Point Cave 13B (PP13B) has provided the earliest archaeological evidence for the exploitation of marine shellfish, along with very early evidence for use and modification of pigments and the production of bladelets, all dated to approximately 164 ka (Marean et al., 2007). This makes PP13B a key site in studies of the origins of modern humans, one of a handful of sites in Africa dating to Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS 6), and the only site on the coast of South Africa with human occupation confidently dated to MIS 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenetic and anatomical evidence suggests that Homo sapiens arose in Africa between 200 and 100 thousand years (kyr) ago, and recent evidence indicates symbolic behaviour may have appeared approximately 135-75 kyr ago. From 195-130 kyr ago, the world was in a fluctuating but predominantly glacial stage (marine isotope stage MIS6); much of Africa was cooler and drier, and dated archaeological sites are rare. Here we show that by approximately 164 kyr ago (+/-12 kyr) at Pinnacle Point (on the south coast of South Africa) humans expanded their diet to include marine resources, perhaps as a response to these harsh environmental conditions.
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