Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T05:12:36.129Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What happened to the human mind after the Howiesons Poort?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2011

Marlize Lombard  and
Isabelle Parsons
Marlize Lombard
Affiliation:
1Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park 2006, South Africa (Email: [email protected])
Isabelle Parsons
Affiliation:
2Department of Anthropology & Archaeology, University of South Africa, P.O. Box 329, UNISA 0003, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The authors deliver a decisive blow to the idea of unidirectional behavioural and cognitive evolution in this tightly argued account of why the bow and arrow was invented and then possibly laid aside by Middle Stone Age communities in southern Africa. Finding that all are modern humans (Homo sapiens), they paint a picture of diverse strategies for survival and development from 75 000 years ago onwards. It is one in which material inventions can come and go, human societies negotiating their own paths through a rugged mental landscape of opportunity.

Keywords

southern AfricaStone AgeHowiesons Poortevolutionprojectileshuman mind
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 330 , December 2011 , pp. 1433 - 1443
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambrose, S.H. 1998a. Chronology of the Later Stone Age and food production in East Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 25: 377–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambrose, S.H. 1998b. Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans. Journal of Human Evolution 34: 623–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ambrose, S.H. 2002. Small things remembered: origins of early microlithic industries in sub-Saharan Africa, in Kuhn, S. & Elston, R. (ed.) Thinking small: global perspectives on microlithization (Anthropological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 12): 9–29. Arlington (VA): American Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Ambrose, S.H. & Lorenz, K.G.. 1990. Social and ecological models for the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa, in Mellars, P. (ed.) The emergence of modern humans: 3–33. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Attenbrow, V., Robertson, G. & Hiscock, P.. 2009. The changing abundance of backed artefacts in south-eastern Australia: a response to Holocene climate change? Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 2765–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Beaune, S.A. 2004. The invention of technology. Current Anthropology 45: 139–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, K., Marean, C.W., Herries, A.I.R., Jacobs, Z., Tribolo, C., Braun, D., Roberts, D.L., Meyer, M.C. & Bernatchez, J.. 2009. Fire as an engineering tool of early modern humans. Science 325: 859–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, J.L. & Plug, I.. 2008. Animal exploitation strategies during the South African Middle Stone Age: Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort fauna from Sibudu Cave. Journal of Human Evolution 54: 886–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conard, N.J. 2010. Cultural modernity: consensus or conundrum? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107: 7621–2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deacon, H.J. 1989. Late Pleistocene palaeoecology and archaeology in the southern Cape, South Africa, in Mellars, P. & Stringer, C. (ed.) The human revolution: behavioural and biological perspectives on the origins of modern humans: 547–64. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, J. 2005. Guns, germs and steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. London: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Goldberg, P., Miller, C.E., Schiegl, S., Ligouis, B., Berna, F., Conard, N.J. & Wadley, L.. 2009. Bedding, hearths and site maintenance in the Middle Stone Age of Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Science 1: 95–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henrich, J. 2004. Archaeology, demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses-the Tasmanian case. American Antiquity 69: 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S. 2005. Stratigraphic integrity of the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, in D'Errico, F. & Backwell, L. (ed.) From tools to symbols: from early hominids to modern humans: 441–58. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S. 2007. Fully symbolic sapiens behaviour: innovations in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa, in Mellars, P., Boyle, K., Bar-Yosef, O. & Stringer, C. (ed.) Rethinking the human revolution: new behavioural and biological perspectives on the origin and dispersal of modern humans: 123–32. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S. & Marean, C.W.. 2003. The origin of modern human behaviour: a critique of the models and their test implications. Current Anthropology 44: 627–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henshilwood, C.S., D'Errico, F. & Watts, I.. 2009. Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 57: 27–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hovers, E. & Belfer-Cohen, A.. 2006. ‘Now you see it, now you don't’: modern human behaviour in the Middle Paleolithic, in Hovers, E. & Kuhn, S.L. (ed.) Transitions before the transition: evolution and stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: 295–304. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Z. & Roberts, R.G.. 2008. Testing times: old and new chronologies for the Howiesons Poort and Still Bay industries in environmental context. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10: 9–34.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Z. & Roberts, R.G.. 2009. Catalysts for Stone Age innovations: what might have triggered two short-lived bursts of technological and behavioral innovation in southern Africa during the Middle Stone Age? Communicative & Integrative Biology 2: 191–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R.G., Galbraith, R.F., Deacon, H.J., Grün, R., Mackay, A., Mitchell, P., Vogelsang, R. & Wadley, L.. 2008. Ages for the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa: implications for human behavior and dispersal. Science 322: 733–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, R.G. 2001. Southern Africa and modern human origins. Journal of Anthropological Research 57: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R.G. 2009. The human career: human biological and cultural origins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R.G., Avery, G., Cruz-Uribe, K., Halkett, D., Parkington, J.E., Steele, T., Volman, T.P. & Yates, R.. 2004. The Ysterfontein 1 Middle Stone Age site, South Africa, and early human exploitation of coastal resources. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101: 5708–715.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuhn, S.L. 2006. Trajectories of change in the Middle Paleolithic in Italy, in Hovers, E. & Kuhn, S.L. (ed.) Transitions before the transition: evolution and stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: 109–120. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombard, M. 2007a. Evidence for change in Middle Stone Age hunting behaviour at Blombos Cave: results of a macrofracture analysis. South African Archaeological Bulletin 62: 62–7.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. 2007b. The gripping nature of ochre: the association of ochre with Howiesons Poort adhesives and Later Stone Age mastics from South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 53: 406–419.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lombard, M. 2008a. Finding resolution for the Howiesons Poort through the microscope: micro-residue analysis of segments from Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 26–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombard, M. 2008b. From testing times to high resolution: the late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age of South Africa and beyond. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10: 180–88.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. 2009. The Howieson's Poort of South Africa amplified. South African Archaeological Bulletin 189: 4–12.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. & Clark, J.L.. 2008. Variability and change in Middle Stone Age hunting behaviour: aspects from the lithic and faunal records, in Badenhorst, S., Mitchell, P. & Driver, J.C. (ed.) People, places and animals of Africa: essays in honour of Ina Plug: 46–56 (British Archaeological Reports international series 1849). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. & Parsons, I.. 2010. Fact or fiction? Behavioural and technological reversal after 60 ka in southern Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 65: 224–8.Google Scholar
Lombard, M. & Phillipson, L.. 2010. Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64 000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Antiquity 84: 635–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mccall, G.S. 2007. Behavioral ecological models of lithic technological change during the later Middle Stone Age of South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 34: 1738–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellars, P. 2006. Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa ca. 60,000 years ago? Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103: 9381–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mellars, P. 2007. Rethinking the human revolution: Eurasian and African perspectives, in Mellars, P., Boyle, K., Bar-Yosef, O. & Stringer, C. (ed.) Rethinking the human revolution: new behavioural and biological perspectives on the origin and dispersal of modern humans: 1–14. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P. 2008. Developing the archaeology of Marine Isotope Stage 3. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10: 52–65.Google Scholar
Powell, A., Shennan, S. & Thomas, M.G.. 2009. Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 324: 1298–1301.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riede, F. 2008. The Laacher See-eruption (12,920 BP) and material culture change at the end of the Allerød in northern Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 591–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholtz, C.A., Johnson, T.C., Cohen, A.S., King, J.W., Peck, J.A., Overpeck, J.T., Talbot, M.R., Brown, E.T., Kalindekafe, L., Amoako, P.Y.O., Lyons, R.P., Shanahan, T.M., Castaeda, I.S., Heil, C.W., Forman, S.L., Mchargue, L.R., Beuning, K.R., Gomez, J. & Peison, J.. 2007. East African megadroughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago and bearing on early-modern human origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104: 16416–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shea, J.J. 2009. The impact of projectile weaponry on Late Pleistocene hominin evolution, in Hublin, J. & Richards, M.P. (ed.) The evolution of hominin diets: integrating approaches to the study of Paleolithic subsistence. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Shea, J.J. 2011. Homo sapiens is as Homo sapiens was: behavioural variability versus ‘behavioural modernity’ in Paleolithic archaeology. Current Anthropology 52: 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shea, J.J. & Sisk, M.L.. 2010. Complex projectile technology and Homo sapiens dispersal into western Eurasia. PaleoAnthropology 2010: 100–122.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. 2001. Demography and cultural innovation: a model and its implications for the emergence of modern human culture. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11: 5–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, R. & Wymer, J.. 1982. The Middle Stone Age at Klasies River Mouth in South Africa. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Texier, P-J., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J-P., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R., Steele, T. & Vernai, C.. 2010. A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107: 6180–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Villa, P., Soriano, S., Teyssandier, N. & Wurz, W.. 2010. The Howiesons Poort and MSA III at Klasies River main site, Cave 1A. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 630–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadley, L. 2010. Compound-adhesive manufacture as a behavioral proxy for complex cognition in the Middle Stone. Current Anthropology 51 (Supplement 1): S111–S119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wadley, L. In press. Some combustion features at Sibudu, South Africa, between 65,000 and 58,000 years ago. Quaternary International doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2010.10.026.Google Scholar
Wadley, L., Hodgskiss, T. & Grant, M.. 2009. Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106: 9590–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, S. 1932. The roles of mutation, inbreeding, crossbreeding and selection in evolution. Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Genetics 1: 356–66.Google Scholar
Wurz, S. 2008. Modern behaviour at Klasies River. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series 10: 150–56.Google Scholar