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Blobrana


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Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa
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Earliest Known Bug-Repellent Plant Bedding Found at South African Rock Shelter

What were the daily lives of modern humans like more than 50,000 years ago?
Rare finds such as early ornaments, cave drawings and Middle Stone Age engravings are the subjects of a good deal of anthropological study and they provide clues. But in today's journal Science, an international team of researchers report another find that could give additional insight. What's more, it could place the use of herbal medicines much earlier than previously known.
Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwátersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa, along with a team of archaeologists, botanists and paleobotonists, recently dug up and analysed the earliest known plant bedding at Sibudu, a South African rock shelter in Northern KwaZulu-Natal.
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Blobrana


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Tools give earlier date for modern-thinking humans
An international team, including Oxford University archaeologists, has dated two explosions of sophisticated stone tool making in southern Africa much more precisely than has previously been possible.
The team dated the two events, known as the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort industries, to around 80,000 and 60,000 years ago respectively.

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Title: Ages for the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Implications for Human Behaviour and Dispersal
Authors: Zenobia Jacobs, Richard G. Roberts, Rex F. Galbraith, Hilary J. Deacon, Rainer Grün, Alex Mackay, Peter Mitchell, Ralf Vogelsang, Lyn Wadley

The expansion of modern human populations in Africa 80,000 to 60,000 years ago and their initial exodus out of Africa have been tentatively linked to two phases of technological and behavioural innovation within the Middle Stone Age of southern Africathe Still Bay and Howieson's Poort industriesthat are associated with early evidence for symbols and personal ornaments. Establishing the correct sequence of events, however, has been hampered by inadequate chronologies. We report ages for nine sites from varied climatic and ecological zones across southern Africa that show that both industries were short-lived (5000 years or less), separated by about 7000 years, and coeval with genetic estimates of population expansion and exit times. Comparison with climatic records shows that these bursts of innovative behaviour cannot be explained by environmental factors alone.

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