Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Africa was a critical player in human evolutionary history and therefore is a pivotal continent for conducting research into our origins. Current theoretical debates concerning the origin of stone tool technology, advanced hominin brain, and modern human behavior remain anchored in the continent’s fossil and archaeological records. Funding opportunities that used to be bound to a few "iconic" localities are now supporting research initiatives in previously understudied regions of Africa. In addition to the progress in expanding field projects, human evolutionary research in the continent has greatly benefited from recent methodological advances in geochronology, isotope geochemistry and archaeometry. The goal of this session is to provide a forum for archaeologists and paleo-scientists whose research in Africa contributes new methodological insights, and archaeological, chronological and paleoclimatic datasets related to Pleistocene hominin adaptations. With these contributions, we hope to celebrate recent advances in Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa, and identify common issues hindering research in the continent.