The middle stone age at Klasies River, South Africa

Sarah Wurz

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Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology Archaeology and Rock Art Studies Language and cultural evolution

Abstract

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Late Pleistocene, Middle Stone Age artefact sequence at the Klasies River main site, was studied to establish what information this held for inferences on the emergence of symbolic thought and communication. The approach adopted was to complement traditional typological analysis by a technological study of artefact production within the framework of the chafne opératoire. The results show that technology was aimed at producing preformed blanks. In the choice of materials, the technique and method of blank production and the retouch of blanks, arbitrary or stylistic choices were made. Changes in stylistic conventions can be documented through the sequence. Changing conventions in artefact production show that the lives of the people who made the artefacts were structured in a symbolic web. These results together with evidence from evolutionary biology, show that by at least 115 000 years ago, people were able to think and speak symbolically. This African archaeological evidence for the emergence of symbolism, a defining attribute of modem peoples, is much older than previously considered. KEYWORDS: Klasies River, Middle Stone Age, technology, symbolic communication, human evolution.

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2003The invisible frontier. A multiple species model for the origin of behavioral modernity 2003Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language, Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective 2001An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language 2001Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels 2006Additional evidence for bone technology in the southern African Middle Stone Age 2006Blade technology and tool forms in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa: the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort at Rose Cottage Cave 2002Variability in the Middle Stone Age Lithic Sequence, 115,000–60,000 Years Ago at Klasies River, South Africa 2015Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

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