Lithic Technology News Today

Klipfonteinrand 1 (KFR1) is a foundational but poorly documented Middle Stone Age (MSA) site located in the south west of South Africa. Originally excavated by John Parkington in 1969 but undated for more than 50 years, the MSA component of the sequence formed a part of Thomas Volman's influential culture-historic technocomplex scheme. Renewed excavations identified four distinct MSA stratigraphic units at the site, the oldest two of which date to ∼85 ka and ∼156 ka. This paper presents...

Silcrete heat treatment was the earliest known transformative process enhancing the mechanical properties of materials. Its study has implications for our understanding of the cultural evolution of early humans in the Middle Stone Age and southern Africa. Here, we analyze a silcrete assemblage from the South African site Klein Kliphuis. We first investigate the relative prevalence of heat treatment in assemblage and then the position of heat treatment within reduction sequences. We found that �...

Recent archaeological investigations in Sri Lanka have reported evidence for the exploitation and settlement of tropical rainforests by Homo sapiens since c. 48,000 BP. Information on technological approaches used by human populations in rainforest habitats is restricted to two cave sites, Batadomba-lena and Fa-Hien Lena. Here, we provide detailed study of the lithic assemblages of Kitulgala Beli-lena, a recently excavated rockshelter preserving a sedimentary sequence from the Late Pleistocene t...

Standardization can be applied to a lithic assemblage via raw material selection, blank production, blank selection, and/or retouch. Here we explore the baseline level of morphological standardization achievable through blank production alone. By quantifying how little morphological variability is inherently involved in different blank-producing lithic technologies that span much of the Stone Age, we seek to gain a long-term perspective on the evolution of lithic standardization. 728 flakes were...

We explore the correspondence between changing palaeoenvironments, patterns of site use, and lithic technology at the rock shelter site Klein Kliphuis (South Africa) across the interval 65–55 000 years before present. This period coincides with the termination of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4, and the disappearance of an iconic late Pleistocene archaeological unit known as the Howiesons Poort. Wood charcoals indicate sufficient soil moisture around Klein Kliphuis throughout the Howiesons Poort ...

Early stone tools, and in particular sharp stone tools, arguably represent one of the most important technological milestones in human evolution. The production and use of sharp stone tools significantly widened the ecological niche of our ancestors, allowing them to exploit novel food resources. However, despite their importance, it is still unclear how these early lithic technologies emerged and which behaviours served as stepping-stones for the development of systematic lithic production in o...

Discussions of heat treatment in the southern African Middle Stone Age often focus on the importance of this innovation to the development of complex technologies and the evolution of modern human cognition. Debates regarding the context of silcrete heat treatment typically include the amount of time and resource investment needed, and when the earliest occurrences of heat treatment appear in the archaeological record. However, silcrete is a heterogeneous material and the potential effects of th...