Assessing Production Components of the Pre-Still Bay Lithic Assemblage from Sibhudu Cave, South Africa.

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

At Sibhudu Cave, the Still Bay technocomplex is found ~71,000 years ago and its formal tool component is dominated by bifacial points, while the deposit below, which Wadley (2012) called the pre-Still Bay, has a low density of bifacial points. The Pre-Still Bay has many flakes with few bifacial points, and it dates to between about 74,000 and 80,000 years ago. Some archaeologists have argued that because some bifacial points are present, albeit rare, the 80-74 ka assemblages also belong to the Still Bay industry. If the pre-74 ka ago layers do represent a longer Still Bay technocomplex than previously thought, it has been suggested that perhaps the bifacial points were removed from the site or will appear outside of the Wadley excavation trench in another part of the cave. This paper presents preliminary data from a study which aims to identify whether there was indeed substantial bifacial tool production at this time period, through a technological core reduction study of the cores and various lithic products. The results of such a study would provide further questions about the technological progression of the Middle Stone Age, especially for the continuing work at Sibhudu Cave.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40359.0