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Browsing by Author "Shaw, Matthew"

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  • Late acheulean occupations at Montagu Cave and the pattern of middle Pleistocene behavioral change in Western Cape, southern Africa
    Publication . Archer, Will; Presnyakova, Darya; Aldeias, Vera; Colarossi, Debra; Hutten, Louisa; Lauer, Tobias; Porraz, Guillaume; Rossouw, Lloyd; Shaw, Matthew
    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. Many of these localities are surface and deflated contexts, others were excavated prior to the availability of modern field documentation techniques, and yet other relevant assemblages contain low numbers of characteristic artifacts relative to volume of excavated deposit. The site of Montagu Cave, situated in the diverse ecosystem of the Cape Floral Region, South Africa, contains the rare combination of archaeologically rich, laminated and deeply stratified Acheulean layers followed by a younger Middle Stone Age occupation. Yet little is known about the site owing largely to a lack of contextual information associated with the early excavations. Here we present renewed excavation of Levels 21-22 at Montagu Cave, located in the basal Acheulean sequence, including new data on site formation and ecological context, geochronology, and technological variability. We document intensive occupation of the cave by Acheulean tool-producing hominins, likely at the onset of interglacial conditions in MIS 7. New excavations at Montagu Cave suggest that, while Middle Stone Age technologies were practiced by 300 ka in several other regions of Africa, the classic Acheulean persisted later in the Fynbos Biome of the southwestern Cape. We discuss the implications of this regionalized persistence for the biogeography of African later Middle Pleistocene hominin populations, for the ecological drivers of their technological systems, and for the pattern and pace of behavioral change just prior to the proliferation of the southern African later Middle Stone Age. (c) 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
    2023Journal article Open access Show more
  • Nubian Levallois reduction strategies in the Tankwa Karoo, South Africa
    Publication . Hallinan, Emily; Shaw, Matthew
    The Middle Stone Age record in southern Africa is recognising increasing diversity in lithic technologies as research expands beyond the coastal-montane zone. New research in the arid Tankwa Karoo region of the South African interior has revealed a rich surface artefact record including a novel method of point production, recognised as Nubian Levallois technology in Late Pleistocene North Africa, Arabia and the Levant. We analyse 121 Nubian cores and associated points from the surface site Tweefontein against the strict criteria which are used to define Nubian technology elsewhere. The co-occurrence of typically post-Howiesons Poort unifacial points suggests an MIS 3 age. We propose that the occurrence of this distinctive technology at numerous localities in the Tankwa Karoo region reflects an environment-specific adaptation in line with technological regionalisation seen more widely in MIS 3. The arid setting of these assemblages in the Tankwa Karoo compares with the desert context of Nubian technology globally, consistent with convergent evolution in our case. The South African evidence contributes an alternative perspective on Nubian technology removed from the 'dispersal' or 'diffusion' scenarios of the debate surrounding its origin and spread within and out of Africa.
    2020Journal article Open access Show more
  • The nature of Nubian: developing current global perspectives on Nubian Levallois technology and the Nubian complex
    Publication . Hallinan, Emily; Barzilai, Omry; Beshkani, Amir; Cascalheira, João; Demidenko, Yuri E.; Goder‐Goldberger, Mae; Hilbert, Yamandú H.; Hovers, Erella; Marks, Anthony E.; Nymark, Andreas; Olszewski, Deborah I.; Oron, Maya; Rose, Jeffrey I.; Shaw, Matthew; Usik, Vitaly I.
    Nubian Levallois technology has recently risen to the forefront ofdebates surrounding Late Pleistocene human technological behavior,cultural traditions, and demographic histories. Named after the regionwhere it was first identified, Nubian Levallois describes a specificmethod of lithic point production that occurs in Middle Palaeolithic (or Middle Stone Age) assemblages across arid North Africa, the Levant and Arabia.1–9However, the recent identification of Nubian technology in separate, disconnected regions, such as SouthAfrica10–12and possibly India13,14suggests there are more diversescenarios of its emergence and spread than the original model of abroad Nubian technocomplex related to a single, expandingpopulation from its north‐east African heartland.3While fewassemblages containing Nubian technology are directly dated, itsproposed MIS 5 timing coincides with early modern human dispersalsout of Africa, adding a further dimension of whether certain lithictechnologies can be linked to specific geographic populations.
    2022Journal article Restricted access Show more