Late Acheulean occupations at Montagu Cave and the pattern of Middle Pleistocene behavioral change in Western Cape, southern Africa.

Patterns of so-called modern human behavior are increasingly well documented in an abundance of Middle Stone Age archaeological sites across southern Africa. Contextualized archives directly preceding the southern African Middle Stone Age, however, remain scarce. Current understanding of the terminal Acheulean in southern Africa derives from a small number of localities that are predominantly in the central and northern interior.

The first Miocene fossils from coastal woodlands in the southern East African Rift.

The Miocene was a key time in the evolution of African ecosystems witnessing the origin of the African apes and the isolation of eastern coastal forests through an expanding arid corridor. Until recently, however, Miocene sites from the southeastern regions of the continent were unknown. Here, we report the first Miocene fossil teeth from the shoulders of the Urema Rift in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.

Genomic variation in baboons from central Mozambique unveils complex evolutionary relationships with other Papio species.

Background: Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique hosts a large population of baboons, numbering over 200 troops. Gorongosa baboons have been tentatively identified as part of Papio ursinus on the basis of previous limited morphological analysis and a handful of mitochondrial DNA sequences. However, a recent morphological and morphometric analysis of Gorongosa baboons pinpointed the occurrence of several traits intermediate between P.

Experimental investigation of orangutans' lithic percussive and sharp stone tool behaviours.

Early stone tools, and in particular sharp stone tools, arguably represent one of the most important technological milestones in human evolution. The production and use of sharp stone tools significantly widened the ecological niche of our ancestors, allowing them to exploit novel food resources. However, despite their importance, it is still unclear how these early lithic technologies emerged and which behaviours served as stepping-stones for the development of systematic lithic production in our lineage.

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition at Panga ya Saidi, in the tropical coastal forest of eastern Africa.

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition is a critical period of human behavioral change that has been variously argued to pertain to the emergence of modern cognition, substantial population growth, and major dispersals of Homo sapiens within and beyond Africa. However, there is little consensus about when the transition occurred, the geographic patterning of its emergence, or even how it is manifested in the stone tool technology that is used to define it. Here, we examine a long sequence of lithic technological change at the cave site of Panga ya Saidi, Kenya, that spans the Middle and Later Stone Age and includes human occupations in each of the last five Marine Isotope Stages.

Quantifying differences in hominin flaking technologies with 3D shape analysis.

Genetic and climate-driven estimates of past population dynamics are increasingly influential in broader models of hominin migration and adaptation, yet the contribution of stone artifact variability remains more contentious. Scientists are increasingly recognizing the potential of unretouched stone flakes ('flakes') in exploring existing models of hominin behavioral evolution. This is because flakes (1) were produced by all stone tool manufacturing groups in the past, (2) are abundant from the inception of the archaeological record up into the ethnographic present, and (3) preserve under most conditions.

Introducing platform surface interior angle (PSIA) and its role in flake formation, size and shape.

Four ways archaeologists have tried to gain insights into how flintknapping creates lithic variability are fracture mechanics, controlled experimentation, replication and attribute studies of lithic assemblages. Fracture mechanics has the advantage of drawing more directly on first principles derived from physics and material sciences, but its relevance to controlled experimentation, replication and lithic studies more generally has been limited. Controlled experiments have the advantage of being able to isolate and quantify the contribution of individual variables to knapping outcomes, and the results of these experiments have provided models of flake formation that when applied to the archaeological record of flintknapping have provided insights into past behavior.

Earliest known Oldowan artifacts at >2.58 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, highlight early technological diversity.

The manufacture of flaked stone artifacts represents a major milestone in the technology of the human lineage. Although the earliest production of primitive stone tools, predating the genus and emphasizing percussive activities, has been reported at 3.3 million years ago (Ma) from Lomekwi, Kenya, the systematic production of sharp-edged stone tools is unknown before the 2.

Site fragmentation, hominin mobility and LCT variability reflected in the early Acheulean record of the Okote Member, at Koobi Fora, Kenya.

From its initial appearance at ∼1.7 Ma, the Acheulean was prevalent through a vast chronological span of hominin behavioural evolution that lasted nearly 1.5 million years.

Publisher Correction: 78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest.

The originally published version of this Article contained an error in Fig. 3, whereby an additional unrelated graph was overlaid on top of the magnetic susceptibility plot. Furthermore, the Article title contained an error in the capitalisation of 'Stone Age'.

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later stone age innovation in an East African tropical forest.

The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya.

What is Still Bay? Human biogeography and bifacial point variability.

'Still Bay' is the name given to a cultural phase within the southern African Middle Stone Age, which remains critical to our understanding of modern human behavioural evolution. Although represented in only a handful of sites, the Still Bay is widespread geographically and, at certain localities, persisted over a substantial period of time. Many studies have focused on tracing the temporal range and geographic reach of the Still Bay, as well as inferring degrees of early modern human demographic connectedness from these parameters.

Earliest evidence of dental caries manipulation in the Late Upper Palaeolithic.

Prehistoric dental treatments were extremely rare, and the few documented cases are known from the Neolithic, when the adoption of early farming culture caused an increase of carious lesions. Here we report the earliest evidence of dental caries intervention on a Late Upper Palaeolithic modern human specimen (Villabruna) from a burial in Northern Italy. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy we show the presence of striations deriving from the manipulation of a large occlusal carious cavity of the lower right third molar.

Diachronic Change within the Still Bay at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Characteristically shaped bifacial points are stone artefacts with which the Middle Stone Age Still Bay techno-complex in Southern Africa is identified. Traditional approaches such as chaîne opératoire and two-dimensional metrics in combination with attribute analyses have been used to analyse variability within Still Bay point assemblages. Here we develop a protocol to extract and analyse high resolution 3-dimensional geometric morphometric information about Still Bay point morphology.

Documenting Differences between Early Stone Age Flake Production Systems: An Experimental Model and Archaeological Verification.

This study investigates morphological differences between flakes produced via "core and flake" technologies and those resulting from bifacial shaping strategies. We investigate systematic variation between two technological groups of flakes using experimentally produced assemblages, and then apply the experimental model to the Cutting 10 Mid -Pleistocene archaeological collection from Elandsfontein, South Africa. We argue that a specific set of independent variables--and their interactions--including external platform angle, platform depth, measures of thickness variance and flake curvature should distinguish between these two technological groups.

Quantifying traces of tool use: a novel morphometric analysis of damage patterns on percussive tools.

Percussive technology continues to play an increasingly important role in understanding the evolution of tool use. Comparing the archaeological record with extractive foraging behaviors in nonhuman primates has focused on percussive implements as a key to investigating the origins of lithic technology. Despite this, archaeological approaches towards percussive tools have been obscured by a lack of standardized methodologies.

Early Pleistocene aquatic resource use in the Turkana Basin.

Evidence for the acquisition of nutritionally dense food resources by early Pleistocene hominins has implications for both hominin biology and behavior. Aquatic fauna may have comprised a source of highly nutritious resources to hominins in the Turkana Basin at ∼1.95 Ma.

Investigating the signature of aquatic resource use within Pleistocene hominin dietary adaptations.

There is general agreement that the diet of early hominins underwent dramatic changes shortly after the appearance of stone tools in the archaeological record. It is often assumed that this change is associated with dietary expansion to incorporate large mammal resources. Although other aspects of the hominin diet, such as aquatic or vegetal resources, are assumed to be a part of hominin subsistence, identifying evidence of these adaptations has proved difficult.