McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Downing Street Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, UK.
British Institute in Eastern Africa, Laikipia Road, Kileleshwa, Nairobi, Kenya.
Nat Commun. 2018 May 9;9(1):1832. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-04057-3.
The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a non-unilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.
非洲从中石器时代到晚期石器时代的过渡一直是人类技术、文化和认知进化的重要转变的争论点。然而，由于非洲大陆大部分地区缺乏长期、分层的遗址，目前对这一转变的研究主要集中在南部非洲。在这里，我们报告了来自肯尼亚潮湿沿海森林中的洞穴潘加亚萨伊迪的一个长达 78000 年的考古记录。在大约 67000 年前的工具包转变之后，新的符号和技术行为以非单一线性的方式聚集在一起。在持久的热带森林-草原生态过渡带的背景下，局部创新比替代的强调剧烈革命或移民更能更好地描述东非这一地区的更新世晚期。
