Africa,%20Asia%20and%20Australia:%20Middle%20and%20Late%20Stone%20Age

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Africa, Asia and AustraliaMiddle and Late Stone
Age

• African Cultures
• SE Asia
• Australia and Tanzania

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Africa (40-15,000 B.P.)

• Some time around the beginning of the Upper
  Paleolithic, or in the few centuries before it,
  the Mousterian Pluvial ended and desert once
  again reclaimed the Sahara region.
• Fleeing the desert, many of the peoples settled
  in the area migrated closer and closer to the
  Nile.
• The growing barrenness of the Sahara would
  obviously cause many of the settlements to die of
  starvation, and once again survival of the human
  race in this area depended on the Nile.
• Naturally, some industries would survive and new
  ones would be created. These new industries show
  many similar trends, especially that of the
  miniaturization of tools, possibly as a desire to
  conserve resources.
• Most of the data about this period in time comes
  from the famous site of Kom Ombo.

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Time scale for the East African past
Cultural period Dates Characteristics
Iron Age 2,000 years ago to historic times first ceramics, domesticated plants and animals iron smelting and smithing village life origin and spread of Bantu speaking peoples
Later Stone Age or LSA 30/40,000 to around 2,000 years ago microlithic technology composite tools hunting and gathering
Middle Stone Age or MSA 200,000 to 30/40,000 years ago retouched flake tools such as scrapers and points with or without Levallois technology hunter/gatherers
Acheulean 1.5 million to 200,000 years ago large bifacial tools (handaxes and cleavers) later sites have flake tools made with Levallois technology hunter/gatherers
Oldowan 2.5 to 1.5 million years ago pebble and flake tools earliest evidence of technology foragers hunters or scavengers
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Kom Ombo

• Kom Ombo is located on the east bank of the Nile
  in the southern area of Upper Egypt.
• Archaeologists know that this site is from the
  Upper Paleolithic because of the existence of
  burins, small, stubby, pointed tools made of
  flakes and characterized by long, narrow flakes
  forming a point.
• The discovery of burins in Egyptian
  archaeological sites prompted Edmund Vignard, the
  discoverer of Kom Ombo, to label it a new
  industry the Sebilian.

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Mumba Shelter

• First Excavated in 1934
• The site of Mumba cave is located on the present
  day border of Tanzania
• and Zambia.
• Mumba is a cave or rock shelter that is located
  on the shore of Lake Eyasi, near grasslands and
  highlands.
• 130-45 kya

http//www.indiana.edu/origins/teach/P314/MSA20r
eports/MumbaCave.pdf
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Mumba Shelter
http//www.geo.arizona.edu/web/HumanEvolutionWorks
hop/pdf/presentations/Brooks.pdf
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Mumba Shelter

• Species represented include "zebra, warthog,
  greater kudu, buffalo, tortoise, chimpanzee,
  rabbit, porcupine, leopard, cerval, aardvark,
  Grevy's zebra, black rhino, white rhino, bush
  pig, hippo, giraffe, bushbuck, eland, bush
  duiker, reedbuck, waterbuck, roan antelope, oryx,
  addax, steinbuck, dik-dik, impala, Thompson's and
  Grant's gazelles, also guinea fowl and catfish."
  (Mehlman, 1979)

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Border Cave
http//www.africasafari.co.za/South_Africa/border_
cave.htm
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Blombos Cave, S. Africa
http//www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/
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Blombos Cave
http//www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/
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Artifacts from Blombos Cave
Shell beads
http//www.svf.uib.no/sfu/blombos/Artefact_Review2
.html
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Late Stone Age Tool Technology

• The Halfan Industry, or rather, the Halfan
  people, flourished between 18,000 and 15,000 BC
  on a diet of large herd animals and fishing.
• Fakhurian(17,000 - 15,000 BC), an industry based
  entirely on microlithic tools.
• Silsillian (c. 13,000 BC) was a highly-developed
  microblade industry that included truncated
  blades, blades of unusual shapes made
  specifically for one task, and most significant
  of all, a wide variety of bladelets for mounting
  onto spears, darts, and arrows.

http//www.touregypt.net/ebph3.htm
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Migration to Asia

• Ice Age sea levels were 300 feet lower than
  today. Dry land joined Sumatra and Borneo, which
  were connected to mainland Asia.
• Basically, people could walk from Africa to the
  islands of SE Asia.

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Land Exposed during last glacial maximum (ca.
18,000 B.P.)
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Bonbongara, New Guinea

• Waisted stone axes preserved under layer of
  volcanic ash dated to 38 kya.
• Thought to represent tree clearing.

Waisted Stone Axe from New Guinea
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Kilu, Buka Islands (Solomons)

• Rock Shelter occupied ca. 26-18 kya.
• Open water crossing would have been needed to
  settle Buka at this time (80-110 miles).
• Would have needed sturdy craft, water and stored
  food for voyage.

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SE Asian Islands
Bubongara
Kilu Rock shelter
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Australia

• Earliest settlement ca 35 kya, but some suggest
  even earlier-50 kya.
• Open ocean travel of 65 kilometers from mainland
  SE Asia (at that time).
• Typical early industry
• unifacially or bifacially flaked pebbles
• "horsehoof core" - high-domed retouched cores
  with edge angles near 90o
• flake tools
• edge-ground axes appear around 19,000-23,000
  years ago

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Australia Colonization

• Routes Into Australia.
• Two main routes northern one trending towards New
  Guinea, and a southern route towards the
  northwest coast of Australia. 
• Northern route water crossings of 65 km, southern
  one short water crossings except for the last
  which is more than 65km.
• Boats A range of boat types suggested from
  accidental voyage by a pregnant woman on an
  upturned log through rafts of bamboo to full
  canoes. 
• Must have been large enough to carry populations
  to islands that were viable.  Simulation studies
  suggest that 8-9 people are needed.

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Models

• Birdsells Model.
• Population colonize adjacent unspoiled hunting
  territories prior to attaining a maximum carrying
  capacity. At migration when achieved 60 of
  carrying capacity the duration is 2,204 years for
  settlement of Australia.
• Bowdlers Coastal Colonisation.
• If Australia settled by people already adapted to
  coastal conditions most likely that their routes
  of diffusion would have been along Pleistocene
  coastlines. Earliest inland sites at Mungo -
  easiest access is up the major river systems from
  the south.

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Australia Important early sites

• Upper Swan River
• 38,000 years old
• is the oldest well-dated site
• Devil's Lair Cave
• Earliest date is 32,500 years ago and the site
  was used regularly after 23,000 years ago
• Tool assemblage includes bone pins
• Koonalda Cave
• date to 20,000 years ago (range 24,000-15,000)
• more cave paintings

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Site Locations
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Upper Swan site

• The Upper Swan refers to the upper portion of the
  Swan River, a river feeding into the sea named
  for the indigenous black swans.
• The Swan River runs right by the city of Perth, a
  major Australian city located in southwestern
  Australia. This area is referred to as the
  Bayswater area.
• The major significance of the Upper Swan area is
  the remains of a campsite believed to be
  somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 years old.
  This campsite was left by ancient aborigines, the
  original inhabitants of Australia.
• The importance of this finding lies in the fact
  that campsites or permanent housings of ancient
  Australia are rare due to the fact that the
  aborigines, or at least their ancestors, kept
  moving from place to place.

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Devils Lair

• Devil's Lair, located in western Australia, has
  been the site for many Archaeological surveys.
• In the last twenty to thirty years it has been an
  area of many discoveries.
• Devil's Lair is a cave, so it was a logical place
  for many mammals to go to for shelter. The cave
  was so called because bones of the extinct
  Tasmanian Devil were found there.
• It has been discovered that the many incredible
  rock formations in Devils Lair have been dated
  to approximately 35,000 years ago. The cave wall
  markings may be the oldest rock art on the
  continent.

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Lake Mungo, Australia

• In south-western New South Wales, not far from
  the Darling River, there are a series of large,
  relic Pleistocene lake beds.
• On the eastern margin of these former lakes are
  extended, crescent shaped sand ridges called
  lunettes.
• In the Pleistocene, when these lakes contained
  water, people lived on the lunettes, fished and
  hunted near the lakes and occasionally buried
  their dead in the soft sand.
• In 1968, Jim Bowler, who was researching the
  development of the lakes and their associated
  lunettes, came across the exposed calcrete block
  containing the Lake Mungo 1 cremation.

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Lake Mungo today
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Lake Mungo 1

• Was found in situ deflating out of the Mungo
  stratigraphic unit at the southern end of the
  "Walls of China" lunette at Lake Mungo (Bowler et
  al. 1970).
• Radiocarbon dating of bone fragments from the
  burial obtained an age of 19,030 1410 years
  (ANU-618A) on bone apatite and 24,700 1270
  (ANU-618B) on the collagen fraction. A further
  date of 26,250 1120 (ANU-375B) was achieved with
  charcoal from a hearth, stratigraphically
  equivalent to 15 cm above the burial (Bowler et
  al. 1972).
• It was considered that the most reliable estimate
  for the age of LM1 was 24,500-26,500 years BP.
• More recent reassessment of the radiocarbon dates
  from the Willandra Lakes by Richard Gillespie
  (1997, 1998) indicates that LM 1 is probably
  closer to 17,000 years in age. Even at this
  younger date LM 1 remains the oldest, reasonably
  well dated, human burial in Australia and
  possibly the earliest human cremation from
  anywhere in the world.

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Lake Mungo 1
The Lake Mungo 1 cremation has recently been
returned to the Aboriginal community at Balranald
in south-western N.S.W. for safe keeping at the
Lake Mungo National Park.
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Koonalda

• Koonalda is a limestone cave located in the
  Nullarbor Plain of South Australia near a wide
  bay known as the Great Australian Bight. 
• 19,000 years ago sea level was ninety meters
  lower than today.  Because the sea was lower,
  Koonalda might have been one hundred eighty
  kilometers from the coastal belt rather then the
  edge as is its present day position. 
• Also, because the cave may have been located
  nearly one hundred eighty kilometers from the
  nearest habitable region, Koonalda is thought to
  have been used for rituals. 

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Koonalda cave, Australia
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Koonalda Art

• In 1956 the Nullarbor expedition explored
  Koonalda and made two discoveries marking a major
  turning point both for archaeology and rock art
  studies. 
• The expedition located Aboriginal rock art and a
  workshop where tools were made from rock found in
  the walls of the cave.  The Koonalda people left
  their marks over several thousand square feet of
  the cave. 
• The drawings, known today as meanders, date back
  19,000 to 20,000 years.  Meanders are sets of
  engraved or finger-marked geometric lines
  parallel to one another. 
• Ultraviolet light can be used to determine the
  new engravings from the old.  When ultraviolet
  light is shined on a meander, an older meander
  will not appear as bright because of the
  oxidization which has taken place over time. 

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Koonalda Art Continued

• Among the meanders adorning the cave, prehistoric
  torches and animal bones have also been
  recovered.  The Northwest Passage is garnished
  with meanders leading to the upper chamber
  believed to have been used for ritual purposes. 
• Only animal skulls and vertebrae can be found in
  this location which is extremely difficult to
  reach even with modern day equipment. 
• Koonalda Cave was abandoned nearly 19,000 years
  ago.  The reason is thought to be contributed to
  a massive rock fall within the upper chamber.

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The Bradshaw Paintings

• The Bradshaw Paintings are incredibly
  sophisticated, as you will see from the following
  digitally enhanced beautiful color images on this
  web site. They are not recent creations, but come
  from an unknown ancient culture and are believed
  to have flourished before the end of the Ice Age
  in the Kimberley region of North-West Australia
  some 40,000 years ago.
• These paintings were first discovered by Joseph
  Bradshaw in 1891, when he and his brother became
  lost in the Kimberley.
• The Bradshaw Paintings predate the art work of
  the present day Australian Aborigines of the
  Kimberley, who have stated that the Bradshaw
  images were "before our time", and referred to
  them as "rubbish paintings". According to
  Aborigine legends, the Bradshaws were painted by
  birds who pecked the rocks until their beaks
  bled, and then painted the images with their tail
  feathers.

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Bradshaw Paintings

• This art is of such antiquity that no pigment
  remains on the rock surface, making it impossible
  to use carbon dating technology. The composition
  of the original paints cannot be determined, and
  whatever pigments were used appear to have locked
  into the rock itself as shades of Mulberry red,
  and have become impervious to the elements.
• Fortuitously, in 1996 Grahame Walsh discovered a
  Bradshaw Painting partly covered by a fossilized
  Mud Wasp nest, which scientists have removed and
  analyzed using a new technique of dating,
  determining it to be 17,000 years old. This
  discovery lends solid support to Grahame's
  theories about the true antiquity of these works
  of art.

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This figure is one of the smaller examples of a
Ceremonial Tassel Bradshaws. It has the less
impressive Narrow Shoulders detail, and a Half
Tram Track feature aligned close over the
headdress and face.  
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Their profile heads, decorated with large Dunce
Cap Headdresses hanging over the right shoulder,
almost invariably face left. This is one of the
few examples where the head silhouette suggests
facial detail, particularly the nose and receding
forehead line.
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In this early Tassel Bradshaw Painting, the of
grace, vigor, and the joy of living, so often
expressed by man in the form of dance. This
painting shows the quite remarkable
sophistication of the culture of the Bradshaw
People.  
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This fine Sash Bradshaw displays a wide range of
decorations. The long headdress has a single
feather mounted at the top. Other decorations
armpit, a cluster of four Chilli-shaped Armpit
Decorations beneath the left, a Three Point Sash,
and a Long Pubic Apron. Double Boomerangs are
held in each hand, with an additional Whisk in
the right.
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This Stylized Bradshaw is a fine example from
headdress, waist and forearms. More intact
examples suggest these lines of dots are
surviving remnants of bichrome ribbon-like
appendages, of which the less stable main cord
forms have vanished.