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Lithic technological responses to Late Pleistocene glacial cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa

2017-03Journal article Open access
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dc.contributor.authorWilkins, Jayne
dc.contributor.authorBrown, Kyle S.
dc.contributor.authorOestmo, Simen
dc.contributor.authorPereira, Telmo
dc.contributor.authorRanhorn, Kathryn L.
dc.contributor.authorSchoville, Benjamin J.
dc.contributor.authorMarean, Curtis W.
dc.date.accessioned2018-12-07T14:53:38Z
dc.date.available2018-12-07T14:53:38Z
dc.date.issued2017-03
dc.description.abstractThere are multiple hypotheses for human responses to glacial cycling in the Late Pleistocene, including changes in population size, interconnectedness, and mobility. Lithic technological analysis informs us of human responses to environmental change because lithic assemblage characteristics are a reflection of raw material transport, reduction, and discard behaviors that depend on hunter-gatherer social and economic decisions. Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 (PP5-6), Western Cape, South Africa is an ideal locality for examining the influence of glacial cycling on early modern human behaviors because it preserves a long sequence spanning marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 4, and 3 and is associated with robust records of paleoenvironmental change. The analysis presented here addresses the question, what, if any, lithic assemblage traits at PP5-6 represent changing behavioral responses to the MIS 5-4-3 interglacial-glacial cycle? It statistically evaluates changes in 93 traits with no a priori assumptions about which traits may significantly associate with MIS. In contrast to other studies that claim that there is little relationship between broad-scale patterns of climate change and lithic technology, we identified the following characteristics that are associated with MIS 4: increased use of quartz, increased evidence for outcrop sources of quartzite and silcrete, increased evidence for earlier stages of reduction in silcrete, evidence for increased flaking efficiency in all raw material types, and changes in tool types and function for silcrete. Based on these results, we suggest that foragers responded to MIS 4 glacial environmental conditions at PP5-6 with increased population or group sizes, 'place provisioning', longer and/or more intense site occupations, and decreased residential mobility. Several other traits, including silcrete frequency, do not exhibit an association with MIS. Backed pieces, once they appear in the PP5-6 record during MIS 4, persist through MIS 3. Changing paleoenvironments explain some, but not all temporal technological variability at PP5-6.
dc.description.sponsorshipSocial Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; NORAM; American-Scandinavian Foundation; Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia [SFRH/BPD/73598/2010]; IGERT [DGE 0801634]; Hyde Family Foundations; Institute of Human Origins; National Science Foundation [BCS-9912465, BCS-0130713, BCS-0524087, BCS-1138073]; John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University
dc.identifier.doi10.1371/journal.pone.0174051
dc.identifier.issn1932-6203
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/11610
dc.language.isoeng
dc.peerreviewedyes
dc.publisherPublic Library Science
dc.subjectMiddle Stone-Age
dc.subjectDiepkloof Rock Shelter
dc.subjectModern Human-Behavior
dc.subjectWestern Cape Province
dc.subjectModern Human Origins
dc.subjectStill Bay Industry
dc.subject13B Mossel Bay
dc.subjectHowiesons-Poort
dc.subjectBlombos Cave
dc.subjectHuman-Evolution
dc.titleLithic technological responses to Late Pleistocene glacial cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa
dc.typejournal article
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.awardURIinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/SFRH/SFRH%2FBPD%2F73598%2F2010/PT
oaire.citation.issue3
oaire.citation.startPagee0174051
oaire.citation.titlePlos One
oaire.citation.volume12
oaire.fundingStreamSFRH
person.familyNamePereira
person.givenNameTelmo
person.identifier.ciencia-id3D1E-491C-AE00
person.identifier.orcid0000-0002-7588-2090
person.identifier.ridAAS-2664-2021
person.identifier.scopus-author-id55951852100
project.funder.identifierhttp://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
project.funder.nameFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
rcaap.rightsopenAccess
rcaap.typearticle
relation.isAuthorOfPublication535b8b70-79ea-47ef-ba19-bdd74cd2a7ec
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery535b8b70-79ea-47ef-ba19-bdd74cd2a7ec
relation.isProjectOfPublication84b0207c-8470-4923-9224-ff452ae23212
relation.isProjectOfPublication.latestForDiscovery84b0207c-8470-4923-9224-ff452ae23212

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