Applying Frames of Reference: The CLIMAP dataset and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in the Namib Desert

Summary

In his landmark work, "Constructing Frames of Reference", Lewis Binford attempted to create a series of models relating hunter-gatherer adaptive responses to observable climatic and ecological dynamics. In Southern Africa, the large scale shift toward microlithic technologies associated with the Middle to Later Stone Age transition is believed to coincide with the environmental changes that occurred around the Last glacial Maximum. It has been frequently hypothesized in the African literature that these technological shifts corresponded with shifts in mobility and foraging strategies driven by environmental change. However, datasets useful for actually testing these ideas around the Middle to Later Stone Age transition have been lacking. Here we use data from the CLIMAP Project, a synthetic model of global and regional climatic conditions at the LGM, and lithic sourcing data from two sites in the Central Namib desert of Namibia, to model conditions at the LGM and test expectations of hunter-gatherer mobility, site use, and land use patterns against archaeological data.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Archaeological Analysis Using Binford’s Environmental and Ethnographic Frames of Reference

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