What Drives the Variability in MSA Lithic Assemblages from Sibhudu Cave, South Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

After over a decade of excavation and analysis at the Middle Stone Age site of Sibhudu in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, the team from the University of Tübingen has established a uniquely complete and well-documented record of cultural change from the end or the Middle Pleistocene until ca. 50 ka BP. In the context of a symposium in honor of Harald Dibble, this paper will examine the record of change in lithic technology and typology over this long and well-stratified stratigraphic sequence. The paper will highlight competing concepts for characterizing and organizing the lithic record at Sibhudu. Additionally, the presentation will consider potential causal explanations for this dynamic record including the role of the life history of tools, environmental causality, raw material selection, and social-economic changes that may have dictated shifts in stone knapping and tool use.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part II   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36100.0