Journal article
Still Bay and Howiesons Poort Foraging Strategies: Recent Research and Models of Culture Change
The African archaeological review, Vol.29(1), pp.7-50
2012
DOI: 10.1007/s10437-012-9107-y
Abstract
The Still Bay (SB) and Howiesons Poort (HP) industries, endemic to southern Africa and dating to approximately 72-59 ka, have received a great deal of archaeological attention by virtue of their striking patterns of technology and their close association with some of the earliest unambiguously symbolic objects found in southern Africa. This paper reviews recent literature concerning SB and HP lithic assemblages, faunal remains, paleoenvironmental contexts, and chronological information. It argues that SB biface-dominated technology was designed to be multifunctional and to economize lithic raw material, a strategy well-suited to foragers moving frequently across a wide range of ecological zones in which access to resources and prey encounters were unpredictable. In contrast, HP blade-based tools, using backed blades as modular components in compound weapons, were efficient and reliable hunting weapons designed for specific tasks. More costly and difficult to maintain, HP technology resulted from the targeting of known, localized, and seasonal resources through planned logistical forays. We argue that these complicated patterns of innovation represent separate cultural responses to environmental instability during Marine Isotope Stage 4 and demographic pressures in southern Africa at this time. Against the backdrop of environmental and demographic shifts, the emergence of these innovative tools and associated symbolic objects reflects distinct but quintessentially modern cultural behaviors ethnographically associated with risk reduction, reciprocity, and information sharing. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Still Bay and Howiesons Poort Foraging Strategies: Recent Research and Models of Culture Change
- Creators
- Grant S MCCALL - Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, 101 Dinwiddie Hall, New Orleans, LA 70118, United StatesJonathan T THOMAS - Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa, 114 Macbride Hall, Iowa City, IA 52242, United States
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- The African archaeological review, Vol.29(1), pp.7-50
- Publisher
- Springer
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10437-012-9107-y
- ISSN
- 0263-0338
- eISSN
- 1572-9842
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2012
- Academic Unit
- Rhetoric
- Record Identifier
- 9984083823402771
Metrics
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