Blade Technology Characterizing the MIS 5 D-A Layers of Sibudu Cave, South Africa

ABSTRACT

Blade technology, long associated solely with the Upper Paleolithic (UP) as an indicator of modern behavior, appears as early as the Middle Pleistocene and is present during the Middle Paleolithic (MP) and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). The nature behind the appearance of early laminar assemblages remains poorly understood. Yet current excavations at Sibudu Cave (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) have yielded MIS 5 lithic assemblages that contribute to the understanding of the diversity of blade technologies during the MSA. Following the chaîne opératoire approach, we explain how the knappers at Sibudu developed a laminar reduction strategy characterized by unidirectional cores with a lateral crest opposite a flat surface. The core configuration facilitated the production of blades with different intended morphological characteristics. Our results highlight the distinctiveness of the laminar reduction system of the D-A layers and foster the discussion on the role of this technological choice within the Southern African MSA.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa
• behavioral modernity
• MIS 5
• Middle Stone Age
• lithic technology
• blade production

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of AMAFA, Heritage KwaZulu-Natal for the excavation permit (number 2931CA070, reference 0011/14). We thank our colleagues from the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg, Carolyn Thorp, who kindly provided us with lab space, Gavin Whitelaw and Ghilraen Laue for fruitful discussions, Mudzunga Munzhedzi and Dimakatso Tlhoaele, who always helped concerning logistics. We would also like to express our thanks to the members of the Sibudu research team, in particular, Veerle Rots (TraceoLab, University of Liège), Gregor D. Bader, Manuel Will, Christopher E. Miller, and Susan M. Mentzer (University of Tübingen). Furthermore, we sincerely thank Christian Lepers (University of Liège) for conducting the experiments and for giving constructive input due to his expertise, Heike Würschem (University of Tübingen) for helping with the illustrations, Feng Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Tübingen) for helping with the 3D modeling and David Witelson (University of the Witwatersrand) for the English editing and constructive feedback. We finally thank the reviewers, who contributed to enhance the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Viola C. Schmid, M. A., has been a PhD candidate since 2013 in a binational joint PhD program between the University of Tübingen and the University of Paris X-Nanterre. She is supervised by Prof. Nicholas J. Conard (Tübingen) and Prof. Éric Boëda (Paris). Schmid earned her B.A. in Paleolithic archaeology at the University of Vienna. She continued as a graduate student at the University of Tübingen and completed her master thesis on the Early MSA of Elands Bay Cave in South Africa. The master thesis was integrated in the project “The lithic technology of the Early Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa” (funded by the German Research Foundation). In 2015, she was awarded a doctoral scholarship under the state of Baden-Württemberg law for the promotion of graduates and became a member of the doctoral association “the Evolution of Cultural Modernity”. Schmid gained fieldwork experience on excavations in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates and most importantly South Africa, including Elands Bay Cave, Bushman Rock Shelter, Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Hoedjiespunt, and Sibudu Cave. Her PhD research focusses on MSA lithic technology in general and the C-A layers of Sibudu Cave older than 77,000 years in particular.

Dr Guillaume Porraz is a research fellow at the CNRS since 2010 and member of the AnTET (Anthropology of Techniques, Spaces and Territories of the Pliocene and Pleistocene) team led by Prof. Éric Boëda (UMR 7041 belonging to the ArScAn based at the University of Paris X-Nanterre). He earned his doctoral degree at the Université d’Aix-Marseille 1, studying with Pierre-Jean Texier. He received a Fyssen post-doctoral fellowship from 2006 to 2008 at the University of Cape Town and a Humboldt fellowship from 2008 to 2010 at the University of Tübingen. Porraz was posted at the French Institute of South Africa from 2013 to 2018. He is an honorary fellow of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Porraz co-directs important research projects in Southern Africa and Western Europe including sites such as Bushman Rock Shelter, Heuningneskrans, Elands Bay Cave as well as Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, Pomongwe in Zimbabwe, and the Jabron valley in the Southeast of France. Porraz is a specialist on lithic technology and his main research focus concerns the evolution of technical systems in hunter-gatherer societies.

Dr Mohsen Zeidi is an associated researcher of the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology and the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment of the University of Tübingen. Zeidi earned his B.A. and M.A. in Archaeology at the University of Tehran in 2001 and 2004. He received his Dr. rer. nat. at the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology of the University of Tübingen, where he wrote his thesis with the title: “The Early Holocene Human Adaptations in the Foothills of the Zagros Mountains, Western Iran”, studying with Nicholas J. Conard, Hans-Peter Uerpmann and Simone Riehl. He attended several excavations and survey projects. Zeidi co-directed fieldwork at Ghar-e Boof and Chogha Golan in Iran. He was part of the team at the Research Center for archaeological survey of the National Museum of Iran from 2002 to 2003. Zeidi worked as a researcher at the Iranian Center for Archaeological Research from 2005 to 2007. His main areas of research encompass Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeology, lithic technology, settlement history of the Near East and the origins of agriculture and sedentism.

Prof. Nicholas J. Conard, PhD, is the head of the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the University of Tübingen since 1995. He received his bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and chemistry at the University of Rochester in 1983. Conard also earned an interdisciplinary MSc degree in anthropology, geology and physics in Rochester in 1986. Following studies in Freiburg and Cologne, Conard earned master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology at Yale University in 1988 and 1990. He is director of the Urgeschichtliches Museum in Blaubeuren and the Archäopark Vogelherd in Niederstotzingen. In 2008, he was elected founding Director of the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen. In 2009, he co-founded the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment of the University of Tübingen. He has directed numerous excavations and survey projects in Germany, South and East Africa, Near East, documenting important Lower, Middle, Upper, Epipaleolithic, and Neolithic sites. Conard has served on many scientific committees, advisory and editorial boards. Conard was awarded the Verdienstorden des Landes Baden-Württemberg in 2010 and was elected to the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in 2011.

ORCID

Viola C. Schmid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8630-4782

Guillaume Porraz http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0103-9583

Nicholas J. Conard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4633-0385

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the projects CO226/27-01 and CO226/34-1/WI 4978/1-1 of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the ROCEEH project (the role of culture in early expansions of humans) of the Heidelberger Academy of Science. The work of Viola C. Schmid was funded by a Doctoral Dissertation Grant in the research project “The Evolution of Cultural Modernity” based in the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and financed by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Art.