June 2016

‘Examining patterns of cultural change within the Middle Stone Age at Sibhudu Cave’, a talk by Nicholas Conard, 8 March 2016.

Archaeologist Professor Nicholas Conard gave a talk at the Durban Natural Science Museum Research Centre on his recent work at Sibudu Cave.
Most of the archaeological deposits in Sibudu were laid down in the Middle Stone Age, a period that dates between 250,000 and 25,000 years ago.
Nick began his talk by noting that there had once been little interest in the Middle Stone Age.
Things changed in the 1980s and 1990s with the development of the ‘Out of Africa’ model of modern human origins. It is common knowledge that humans evolved in Africa and that, by 1.8 million years ago, had spread to Asia and Europe.
But not all these archaic humans gave rise to us. Only those in Africa did. We now know that all 7 billion of us on Earth today are descendants of a small group of people that lived in Africa around 100,000 years ago.
(Note that up to 4 % of the DNA of people from Eurasia, Australiasia and the Americas derives from interbreeding with the Neanderthal lineage, which separated from the modern human lineage about 400,000 years ago and then spread into Asia and Europe.)
Suddenly, the African Middle Stone Age looked more interesting, because it covers the time and place where and when modern modes of thought first emerged.
Most of the archaeological deposits in Sibhudu were laid down in the Middle Stone Age, a period that dates between 250,000 and 25,000 years ago.
Nick began his talk by noting that there had once been little interest in the Middle Stone Age.
Things changed in the 1980s and 1990s with the development of the ‘Out of Africa’ model of modern human origins. It is common knowledge that humans evolved in Africa and that, by 1.8 million years ago, had spread to Asia and Europe.
But not all these archaic humans gave rise to us. Only those in Africa did. We now know that all 7 billion of us on Earth today are descendants of a small group of people that lived in Africa around 100,000 years ago.
(Note that up to 4 % of the DNA of people from Eurasia, Australiasia and the Americas derives from interbreeding with the Neanderthal lineage, which separated from the modern human lineage about 400,000 years ago and then spread into Asia and Europe.)
Suddenly, the African Middle Stone Age looked more interesting, because it covers the time and place where and when modern modes of thought first emerged.
In his talk Nick dealt mainly with stone-artefact technology.
He described a ‘techo-functional’ analysis used to define various tool types in layers of deposit dating to about 58,000 years ago.
He calls one tool type a ‘Tongati’; it has a triangular point and originally had a handle, held in place with glue. It seems to have been a kind of double-edged cutting tool, similar to a box-cutter.
The second-most common tool from these layers is the ‘Ndwedwe’.
From the deeper layers – the team is now digging in levels that might be 100,000 years old – Nick showed us some beautifully made bifacial stone points.
Archaeologists traditionally associate these points with the Still Bay period, at about 77,000 years ago. But at Sibhudu they occur both in older layers and in younger layers.
What is clear is that the more research we do, the more data we gather, the more we disrupt and overturn fondly held beliefs!
Each layer excavated at Sibhudu and other Middle Stone Age sites brings us closer to a better understanding of life at a time when, somewhere in Africa, lived a small group of people who are parents of us all.

May 2016

GNEWS No 56, May 2016 - The South African Archaeological Society
www.archaeologysa.co.za/sites/.../2016/.../Gnews%20print%20may%202016%20LR....
May 5, 2016 - GNEWS. KwaZulu-Natal Branch Newsletter. Number 56. May 2016 ... (4 February 2016) archaeologists from the KwaZulu-Natal Museum ...

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