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The First Modern Humans Arose in South Africa, Say Researchers

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Krystal Coenen
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« on: December 09, 2012, 08:53:18 pm »


The First Modern Humans Arose in South Africa, Say Researchers

Tue, Dec 04, 2012


Based on newly published research, scientists are suggesting South Africa as the birthplace of behaviorally modern humans.
The First Modern Humans Arose in South Africa, Say Researchers

The synthesis of years of research at prehistoric sites in southern Africa, as represented by research recently published in the Journal of World Prehistory, has led a number of scientists to suggest that South Africa was the primary center for the early development of modern human behavior. This would mean cognitive behavior as manifested in technology much like the material culture of modern hunter-gatherer groups throughout the world today.

The new research paper by renowned Wits University archaeologist, Prof. Christopher Henshilwood, is the first detailed summary of Middle Stone Age (280,000 - 50,000 years ago) technologies and cultural remains discovered at a number of sites in southern Africa, artifacts that fall within two established overall  "techno-tradition" periods:  Still Bay  (dated to c. 75,000 – 70,000 years ago) and Howiesons Poort (c. 65,000 – 60,000 years ago).

Henshilwood maintains that these periods were significant markers in the development of Homo sapiens behavior in southern Africa. They featured a number of innovations including, for example, the first abstract art (engraved ochre* and engraved ostrich eggshell); the first jewellery (shell beads); the first bone tools; the earliest use of the pressure flaking technique, used in combination with heating to make stone spear points; and the first probable use of stone tipped arrows launched by bow. (See examples pictured below).

“All of these innovations, plus many others we are just discovering, clearly show that Homo sapiens in southern Africa at that time were cognitively modern and behaving in many ways like ourselves. It is a good reason to be proud of our earliest, common ancestors who lived and evolved in South Africa and who later spread out into the rest of the world after about 60,000 years,” says Henshilwood.

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Krystal Coenen
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« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2012, 08:54:02 pm »

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Krystal Coenen
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« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2012, 08:54:45 pm »



(Left) An example of a pressure-flaked bifacial point recovered from the c. 18 ka Solutrean levels at Fourneau-du-Diable in Bourdeilles, Dordogne, France. This is the earliest known date for the use of pressure flaking in Eurasia. (Right) Bifacial foliate points from the 75–72 ka Still Bay levels at Blombos Cave. In the 1920s Heese (n.d.) described the ‘lance-head’ in elongated laurel-leaf form as the fossile directeur of Still Bay techno-tradition. The five silcrete examples on the right were heat-treated before flaking using hard- hammer, soft-hammer and pressure-flaking techniques. This is the earliest known use of pressure-flaking. Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand
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Krystal Coenen
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« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2012, 08:55:28 pm »



(a) Howiesons Poort segments from Sibudu Cave with ochre along their backed portions resulting from ochre-loaded adhesives (modified after Lombard 2011); (b) quartz backed artefacts from Sibudu Cave (modified after Lombard 2011); (c) hafting positions for hunting experiments with Howiesons Poort-like segments (modified after Lombard and Pargeter 2008). Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand
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« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2012, 08:56:04 pm »



Engraved ochres from the Still Bay M1 phase at Blombos Cave (modified after Henshilwood et al. 2009). (a) Two groups of incisions, one on the centre and one close to the edge. In the centre two joining lines form a ‘Y’ that is crossed by a few perpendicular parallel lines. Three incisions cross these lines; (b) Two lines that cross perpendicularly on the top right margin. Converging lines produced with a single lithic point; (c) this piece retains only a small area of the original engraved pattern. Three straight oblique lines incised on the top left with two sinuous lines that cross them; (d) three distinct sets of lines engraved on a natural surface. Piece was then knapped and a part of the engraving removed; (e) a group of sinuous lines engraved on one face. The opposite face is highly scraped and engraved with a cross-hatched pattern; (f) Cross-hatched pattern incised on one long edge. Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand
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« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2012, 08:56:55 pm »



(a) Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from the Still Bay levels at Blombos Cave. Note the deliberate perforations made with a bone tool through the aperture. At bottom left the wear facets resulting from the rubbing of the strung beads against one another are visible; (b) Afrolittorina africana shell beads from the Still Bay levels at Sibudu. Wear patterns on the perforation are visible at bottom right. Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand
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« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2012, 08:57:21 pm »

The research also addresses some of the nagging questions about what drove our ancestors to develop these innovative technologies. According to Henshilwood, answers to these questions are, in part, found in demography and climate change, particularly changing sea levels, which have been generally found to be major drivers of innovation and variability in material culture.

Henshilwood and his colleagues' extensive research in African archaeology has challenged the previous prevailing model of the emergence of behaviorally modern humans, which has suggested that modern human behavior originated in Europe after about 40,000 years ago. Now, there is increasing evidence for an African origin for behavioral and technological modernity more than 70,000 years ago, and that the earliest origin of all Homo sapiens may lie in Africa and more particulalry southern Africa.

Henshilwood writes: “In just the past decade our knowledge of Homo sapiens behaviour in the Middle Stone Age, and in particular of the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, has expanded considerably. With the benefit of hindsight we may ironically conclude that the origins of ‘Neanthropic Man’, the epitome of behavioural modernity in Europe, lay after all in Africa.”

The paper, entitled Late Pleistocene Techno-traditions in Southern Africa: A Review of the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, c. 75–59 ka, has been published online in the Journal of World Prehistory on 6 November 2012.

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« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2012, 08:57:56 pm »



Excavations in progress within the Still Bay levels at Blombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa. Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand
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« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2012, 08:58:38 pm »

This article was adapted and edited from a press release by the University of the Witwatersrand.

*Ochres are among the earliest pigments used by mankind, derived from naturally tinted clay containing mineral oxides.

Cover Photo, Top Left: Panoramic view of interior of Blombos Cave, southern Cape (image Magnus Haaland); (bottom) Interior view of Hollow Rock Shelter, Western Cape. Courtesy Christopher Henshilwood and the University of the Withwatersrand

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