Carry that weight: coastal foraging and transport of marine resources during the South African Middle Stone Age

Gerrit Leendert Dusseldorp · Geeske H. J. Langejans

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Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology Archaeology and Rock Art Studies Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

Abstract

The influence of transport and processing behaviour on the composition of archaeological assemblages is often poorly understood. We study the influence of changing transport distances, due to Late Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations, on the representation of marine resources at Middle Stone Age sites in South Africa. We show that the representation of some marine resources does not decrease proportionally with increased transport distance. This suggests that the organisation of foraging behaviour changed as sea levels fluctuated. We develop a model of the organisation of Middle Stone Age coastal foraging strategies, explaining the exploitation of marine resources as a function of fluctuations in the productivity of terrestrial relative to marine resources.

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References

1983The Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy 2007Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene 1978The Food-sharing Behavior of Protohuman Hominids 1982The archaeology of place 2003The Origin of Modern Human Behavior 2011A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa 2001Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels 1988Hadza Hunting, Butchering, and Bone Transport and Their Archaeological Implications

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