Transition or Revolution? Rethinking the South African Earlier-Middle Stone Age
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 18/05/2019

This paper deals with interpretation of gradualism versus revolution with reference to the African Middle Stone Age (MSA). The earliest MSA dates to 315 kya and is associated with the first appearance of Homo sapiens, from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. The MSA is generally defined based on blade, point and prepared core technology. However, the presence of many of these technological traits are noted in Earlier Stone Age (ESA) assemblages in South Africa, particularly the ESA sequence from Cave of Hearths, Makapansgat, which has yielded archaic hominins rather than Homo sapiens. The paper will focus on the early evidence for MSA-like technologies in the ESA South African record - and investigate
what this may mean about the transition from archaic to modern biology and culture South of the Sahara. It contrasts typology and technology, and how the former approach is unsuited to understand complex patterns of change through deep time.

Full title: Transition or Revolution? Rethinking the South African Earlier-Middle Stone Age in the Context of the Fauresmith and Pieterbsurg Technocomplexes

Patrick S. Randolph-Quinney (University of Central Lancashire)

TAG Deva 2018
Session: Rethinking Transitions