A charcoal study from the Middle Stone Age, 77,000 to 65,000 years ago, at Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract

New charcoal identifications are reported from the archaeological site, Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal. From six layers dated 77,000 to 65,000 years ago, 617/769 specimens were identified to 54 different woody taxa and of these 37 were identified to species level. The wood bundles are mostly from taxa suitable as fuel (including tinder); to a lesser extent there is wood from plants that may have been collected for medicinal purposes. The woody taxa in combustion features vary spatially, suggesting that specific wood may have been collected for predetermined purposes. Low and medium-density wood occurs in the combustion features more often than high-density wood and this supports previous studies which concluded that moderate fire temperatures were desired and that people deliberately selected wood types to achieve such temperatures. Identified woody taxa are from evergreen forest and savanna or cliff scrub vegetation communities so a mosaic of habitats is implied. Trees such as Afrocarpus/Podocarpus, Ptaeroxylon obliquum, Buxus macowanii, Harpephyllum caffrum and Curtisia dentata belong to forest, Searsia spp. to the forest margins, and Protea caffra and Erica caffra to cliff scrub. Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5a and 4 are represented in the 77,000 to 65,000-year-old occupations at Sibudu and during the cooler conditions that probably existed in MIS4 the numbers of deciduous genera increased together with taxa diversity, possibly implying that both the forest and forest margins expanded. Numbers of evergreen genera remained constant through time.

Keywords:

• Marine Isotope Stages 5a and 4
• anthracology
• fuelwood
• medicinal wood
• vegetation change

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

S.J. Lennox acknowledges the support of the staff of the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and the financial assistance from the National Research Foundation (NRF, South Africa). LW was funded by an AOP grant from the NRF (grant #109275). Professor Marion Bamford is thanked for sharing her vast knowledge of palaeobotany. The initial work was presented at the 21^st conference of the Southern African Society for Quaternary Research, SASQUA, 3–7 April 2017, in Johannesburg. Opinions expressed here are those of the authors not necessarily the funding agents. Plants collected for the comparative collection are from farms with the landowners’ permission.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

S.J. Lennox received financial assistance from the National Research Foundation (NRF, South Africa). LW was funded by an AOP grant from the NRF (grant no. 109275).