Explaining intraregional assemblage variability in southern Africa during MIS 2: Different strokes or different folks?

Summary

In southern Africa Marine Isotope Stage 2 was a period of intense cold, and palaeoenvironment and geoarchaeological data indicate inverse moisture availability in the different rainfall zones. Sea levels fell rapidly, exposing the continental shelf while the number of archaeological sites across the subcontinent decreased, likely a result of populations concentrating along the now-submerged coastline. There were, however, pockets of inland ‘refugia’. People contracted into centres of occupation in the northwestern escarpment, the Western Cape, the southern Cape Fold Mountains and the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains when the rest of the country seems largely abandoned. Similar artefacts (bladelets) suggest that these distant groups were socially enchained. In two of these regions, the northwestern escarpment and Maloti-Drakensberg, some sites dated 24-23 cal kBP conform to the popular culture: Spitzkloof A and Sehonghong, but there are also contemporaneous intraregional differences, with other sites lacking not only bladelets but also grindstones (Apollo 11 and Melikane). Two hypotheses are being tested. First, there were multiple groups on these landscapes, with some participating in attenuated social networks and others not. A second hypothesis is that the different signatures reflect differences in the use of individual sites, whether seasonally or because of variable catchment potential.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage