Shipton Ceri, Blinkhorn James, Archer Will, Kourampas Nikolaos, Roberts Patrick, Prendergast Mary E, Curtis Richard, Herries Andy I R, Ndiema Emmanuel, Boivin Nicole, Petraglia Michael D
Institute of Archaeology, Gordon Square, University College London, London, WC1H 0PY, UK; Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2000, Australia.
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, TW20 0EX, UK; Pan-African Evolution Research Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.
J Hum Evol. 2021 Apr;153:102954. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.102954. Epub 2021 Mar 11.
The Middle to Later Stone Age transition is a critical period of human behavioral change that has been variously argued to pertain to the emergence of modern cognition, substantial population growth, and major dispersals of Homo sapiens within and beyond Africa. However, there is little consensus about when the transition occurred, the geographic patterning of its emergence, or even how it is manifested in the stone tool technology that is used to define it. Here, we examine a long sequence of lithic technological change at the cave site of Panga ya Saidi, Kenya, that spans the Middle and Later Stone Age and includes human occupations in each of the last five Marine Isotope Stages. In addition to the stone artifact technology, Panga ya Saidi preserves osseous and shell artifacts, enabling broader considerations of the covariation between different spheres of material culture. Several environmental proxies contextualize the artifactual record of human behavior at Panga ya Saidi. We compare technological change between the Middle and Later Stone Age with on-site paleoenvironmental manifestations of wider climatic fluctuations in the Late Pleistocene. The principal distinguishing feature of Middle from Later Stone Age technology at Panga ya Saidi is the preference for fine-grained stone, coupled with the creation of small flakes (miniaturization). Our review of the Middle to Later Stone Age transition elsewhere in eastern Africa and across the continent suggests that this broader distinction between the two periods is in fact widespread. We suggest that the Later Stone Age represents new short use-life and multicomponent ways of using stone tools, in which edge sharpness was prioritized over durability.
中石器时代向晚石器时代的过渡是人类行为变化的关键时期，关于这一时期，人们有多种观点，认为它与现代认知的出现、人口的大量增长以及智人在非洲内外的大规模迁徙有关。然而，对于过渡发生的时间、其出现的地理格局，甚至它在用于界定该时期的石器技术中的表现方式，人们几乎没有达成共识。在这里，我们研究了肯尼亚潘加亚赛迪洞穴遗址中一长串的石器技术变化，该遗址跨越了中石器时代和晚石器时代，包括过去五个海洋同位素阶段中的每一个阶段的人类居住情况。除了石器技术，潘加亚赛迪还保存了骨器和贝壳制品，这使得我们能够更广泛地考虑物质文化不同领域之间的协变关系。几个环境指标为潘加亚赛迪人类行为的人工制品记录提供了背景信息。我们将中石器时代和晚石器时代的技术变化与晚更新世更广泛气候波动的现场古环境表现进行了比较。潘加亚赛迪中石器时代和晚石器时代技术的主要区别特征是对细粒石材的偏好，以及小薄片（小型化）的制作。我们对东非其他地区和整个非洲大陆中石器时代向晚石器时代过渡的回顾表明，这两个时期之间的这种更广泛的区别实际上是普遍存在的。我们认为，晚石器时代代表了使用石器的新的短使用寿命和多部件方式，其中边缘锋利度比耐用性更受重视。
