The Vegetation of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland

Current fossil, genetic, and archeological data indicate that Homo sapiens originated in Africa in the late Middle Pleistocene. By the end of the Late Pleistocene, our species was distributed across every continent except Antarctica, setting the foundations for the subsequent demographic and cultural changes of the Holocene. The intervening processes remain intensely debated and a key theme in hominin evolutionary studies. We review archeological, fossil, environmental, and genetic data to evaluate the current state of knowledge on the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa. The emerging picture of the dispersal process suggests dynamic behavioral variability, complex interactions between populations, and an intricate genetic and cultural legacy. This evolutionary and historical complexity challenges simple narratives and suggests that hybrid models and the testing of explicit hypotheses are required to understand the expansion of Homo sapiens into Eurasia.

/pdf/rethinking-the-dispersal-of-homo-sapiens-out-of-africa-53c7jybi8h.pdf

Rethinking the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa.

This article modifies an old archaeological adage—“excavation is destruction”—to demonstrate how advances in archaeological practice suggest a new iteration: “excavation is digitization.” Digitization, in a fully digital paradigm, refers to practices that leverage advances in onsite, image-based modeling and volumetric recording, integrated databases, and data sharing. Such practices were implemented in 2014 during the inaugural season of the Kaymakci Archaeological Project (KAP) in western Turkey. The KAP recording system, developed from inception before excavation as a digital workflow, increases accuracy and efficiency as well as simplicity and consistency. The system also encourages both practical and conceptual advances in archaeological practice. These involve benefits associated with thinking volumetrically, rather than in two dimensions, and a connectivity that allows for group decision-making regardless of group location. Additionally, it is hoped that the system's use of almost entirely ...

Excavation is Destruction Digitization: Advances in Archaeological Practice

Palaeoclimate in the Saharan and Arabian Deserts during the Middle Palaeolithic and the potential for hominin dispersals

The greening of Arabia: Multiple opportunities for human occupation of the Arabian Peninsula during the Late Pleistocene inferred from an ensemble of climate model simulations

Evaluating morphological variability in lithic assemblages using 3D models of stone artifacts

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa represents a period during which anatomically modern humans adopted a series of diverse cultural innovations. Researchers generally attribute these behavioral changes to environmental, neurological, or demographic causes, but none of these alone offers a satisfactory explanation. Even as patterns at site level come into focus, large-scale trends in cultural expansions remain poorly understood. This paper presents different ways to view diachronic datasets from localities in southern Africa and specifically tests hypotheses of environmental and cultural causality. We employ an array of analyses in an attempt to understand large-scale variability observed during the MSA. We evaluated the diversity of stone tool assemblages to model site use, examined transport distances of lithic raw materials to understand patterns of movement, assessed the cultural capacities required to manufacture and use different sets of tools, applied stochastic models to examine the geographic distribution of sites, and reconstructed biome classes and climatic constraints. Our large-scale analysis allowed the research team to integrate different types of information and examine diachronic trends during the MSA. Based on our results, the range of cultural capacity expanded during the MSA. We define cultural capacity as the behavioral potential of a group expressed through the problem-solution distance required to manufacture and use tools. Our dataset also indicates that the actual behavior exhibited by MSA people, their cultural performance as expressed in the archaeological record, is not equivalent to their cultural capacity. Instead we observe that the main signature of the southern African MSA is its overall variability, as demonstrated by changing sets of cultural performances. Finally, at the scale of resolution considered here, our results suggest that climate is not the most significant factor driving human activities during the MSA. Instead, we postulate that behavioral flexibility itself became the key adaptation.

Knut Bretzke

Papers

Evaluating morphological variability in lithic assemblages using 3D models of stone artifacts

Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

The environmental context of Paleolithic settlement at Jebel Faya, Emirate Sharjah, UAE

Excavations at Ghār-e Boof in the Fars Province of Iran and its bearing on models for the evolution of the Upper Palaeolithic in the Zagros Mountains

Tempering-residue on heat-treated silcrete: an experimental perspective and a potential analytical protocol