Christopher S. Henshilwood

Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language, Symbolism, and Music—An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective

In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the development of conscious symbolic storage, the emergence of musical traditions, and the archaeological evidence for the diversification of languages during the Upper Paleolithic. This critical reappraisal contradicts the hypothesis of a symbolic revolution coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago, but also highlights inconsistencies in the anatomically–culturally modern equation and the potential contribution of anatomically “pre-modern” human populations to the emergence of these abilities. No firm evidence of conscious symbolic storage and musical traditions are found before the Upper Paleolithic. However, the oldest known European objects that testify to these practices already show a high degree of complexity and geographic variability suggestive of possible earlier, and still unrecorded, phases of development.

A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Early humans mixed and stored ochre pigments in shells 100,000 years ago, an indication of the emergence of higher planning. The conceptual ability to source, combine, and store substances that enhance technology or social practices represents a benchmark in the evolution of complex human cognition. Excavations in 2008 at Blombos Cave, South Africa, revealed a processing workshop where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced and stored in two Haliotis midae (abalone) shells 100,000 years ago. Ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones, and hammerstones form a composite part of this production toolkit. The application of the mixture is unknown, but possibilities include decoration and skin protection.

Early Use of Pressure Flaking on Lithic Artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa

Ancient Innovations Pressure flaking is a method of forming points, grooves, and notches on stone tools in which a tool is pressed up against another stone, instead of striking it. It has been thought to be a fairly recent innovation, arising in the Upper Paleolithic 20,000 or so years ago. Mourre et al. (p. 659), show that tools from Blombos Cave, dating to about 75,000 years ago, have grooves and patterns resembling production by heat treatment followed by pressure flaking. Replication experiments were performed using similar source material followed by microscopic study of the tools. Despite the evidence for an early innovation, it seems that pressure flaking was not used widely elsewhere until much later; thus, such early innovations may have been sporadic ephemeral. Tools dating to ~75,000 years ago show evidence of pressure flaking, long before the technique became widespread. Pressure flaking has been considered to be an Upper Paleolithic innovation dating to ~20,000 years ago (20 ka). Replication experiments show that pressure flaking best explains the morphology of lithic artifacts recovered from the ~75-ka Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. The technique was used during the final shaping of Still Bay bifacial points made on heat‐treated silcrete. Application of this innovative technique allowed for a high degree of control during the detachment of individual flakes, resulting in thinner, narrower, and sharper tips on bifacial points. This technology may have been first invented and used sporadically in Africa before its later widespread adoption.

An Engraved Bone Fragment From c. 70,000-Year-Old Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for the Origin of Symbolism and Language

Examination of marks on a bone from Blombos Cave reveals that they were intentionally engraved and there is evidence of bone working techniques at the site. Engraved designs have also been identified on pieces of ochre from Blombos Cave, suggesting such engraving was a symbolic act with symbolic meaning.

The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, 77-59 ka: Symbolic Material Culture and the Evolution of the Mind during the African Middle Stone Age

Variations in the material culture in Africa in the Late Pleistocene indicate that it was a period of rapid cultural change not previously observed in the Middle Stone Age. In southern Africa, two techno-traditions, the Still Bay and the Howiesons Poort, have raised interest because of their relatively early cultural complexity. What might have driven the development of the innovative practices and ideas between ca. 77,000 and 59,000 years ago? Explanations for the ascent and demise of these two entities must focus on analyses of recovered materials and in situ features such as hearths and spatial patterning. They must also consider whether these innovations are likely to have ensued from cognitive evolution in Homo sapiens and trace the changes in brain organization and cognitive functions that best explain them. This article presents an updated review of the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort industries and argues that innovations during the Late Pleistocene must be related to a previous expansion of the higher association areas of the temporal and parietal cortices underlying higher theory of mind, perspective taking, and attentional flexibility.

A revised chronology for pastoralism in southernmost Africa : new evidence of sheep at c. 2000 b.p. from Blombos Cave, South Africa

New excavation at Blombos Cave, in the southern Cape of South Africa, and new radiocarbon dates for its sequence further illuminate the chronology of pastoralism in southern Africa, and the relations between pottery-using and shepherding.

The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort at Sibudu and Blombos: Understanding Middle Stone Age Technologies

The classification of archaeological assemblages in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa in terms of diversity and temporal continuity has significant implications with respect to recent cultural evolutionary models which propose either gradual accumulation or discontinuous, episodic processes for the emergence and diffusion of cultural traits. We present the results of a systematic technological and typological analysis of the Still Bay assemblages from Sibudu and Blombos. A similar approach is used in the analysis of the Howiesons Poort (HP) assemblages from Sibudu seen in comparison with broadly contemporaneous assemblages from Rose Cottage and Klasies River Cave 1A. Using our own and published data from other sites we report on the diversity between stone artifact assemblages and discuss to what extent they can be grouped into homogeneous lithic sets. The gradual evolution of debitage techniques within the Howiesons Poort sequence with a progressive abandonment of the HP technological style argues against the saltational model for its disappearance while the technological differences between the Sibudu and Blombos Still Bay artifacts considerably weaken an interpretation of similarities between the assemblages and their grouping into the same cultural unit. Limited sampling of a fragmented record may explain why simple models of cultural evolution do not seem to apply to a complex reality.

Climate, Environment and Early Human Innovation: Stable Isotope and Faunal Proxy Evidence from Archaeological Sites (98-59ka) in the Southern Cape, South Africa

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, and in particular its Still Bay and Howiesons Poort lithic traditions, represents a period of dramatic subsistence, cultural, and technological innovation by our species, Homo sapiens. Climate change has frequently been postulated as a primary driver of the appearance of these innovative behaviours, with researchers invoking either climate instability as a reason for the development of buffering mechanisms, or environmentally stable refugia as providing a stable setting for experimentation. Testing these alternative models has proved intractable, however, as existing regional palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records remain spatially, stratigraphically, and chronologically disconnected from the archaeological record. Here we report high-resolution records of environmental shifts based on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments, faunal remains, and shellfish assemblages excavated from two key MSA archaeological sequences, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. We compare these records with archaeological material remains in the same strata. The results from both sites, spanning the periods 98–73 ka and 72–59 ka, respectively, show significant changes in vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity of the sites during periods of human occupation. While these changes clearly influenced human subsistence strategies, we find that the remarkable cultural and technological innovations seen in the sites cannot be linked directly to climate shifts. Our results demonstrate the need for scale-appropriate, on-site testing of behavioural-environmental links, rather than broader, regional comparisons.

Diachronic change within the Still Bay at Blombos Cave, South Africa

Characteristically shaped bifacial points are stone artefacts with which the Middle Stone Age Still Bay techno-complex in Southern Africa is identified. Traditional approaches such as chaîne opératoire and two-dimensional metrics in combination with attribute analyses have been used to analyse variability within Still Bay point assemblages. Here we develop a protocol to extract and analyse high resolution 3-dimensional geometric morphometric information about Still Bay point morphology. We also investigate ways in which the independent variables of time, raw-material and tool size may be driving patterns of shape variation in the Blombos Cave point assemblage. We demonstrate that at a single, stratified Still Bay site points undergo significant modal changes in tool morphology and standardization. Our results caution against (1) treatment of the Still Bay as a static technological entity and (2) drawing demographic inferences stemming from grouping Still Bay point collections within the same cultural label.

Early Evidence for the Extensive Heat Treatment of Silcrete in the Howiesons Poort at Klipdrift Shelter (Layer PBD, 65 ka), South Africa

Heating stone to enhance its flaking qualities is among the multiple innovative adaptations introduced by early modern human groups in southern Africa, in particular during the Middle Stone Age Still Bay and Howiesons Poort traditions. Comparatively little is known about the role and impact of this technology on early modern human behaviors and cultural expressions, due, in part, to the lack of comprehensive studies of archaeological assemblages documenting the heat treatment of stone. We address this issue through an analysis of the procedure used for heating and a technological analysis of a lithic assemblage recovered from one Howiesons Poort assemblage at Klipdrift Shelter (southern Cape, South Africa). The resulting data show extensive silcrete heat treatment, which adds a new dimension to our understanding of fire-related behaviors during the Howiesons Poort, highlighting the important role played by a heat treatment stage in the production of silcrete blades. These results are made possible by our new analytical procedure that relies on the analysis of all silcrete artifacts. It provides direct evidence of a controlled use of fire which took place during an early stage of core exploitation, thereby impacting on all subsequent stages of the lithic chaîne opératoire, which, to date, has no known equivalent in the Middle Stone Age or Middle Paleolithic record outside of southern Africa.