Assessing the Accidental Versus Deliberate Colour Modification of Shell Beads: a Case Study on Perforated<i>Nassarius kraussianus</i>from Blombos Cave Middle Stone Age levels

d’Errico, Francesco; Vanhaeren, Marian; Niekerk, Karen L. van; Henshilwood, Christopher S.; Erasmus, Rudolph M.

doi:10.1111/arcm.12072

Cited by 31 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(66 reference statements)

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“…Some of the beads, with an age in excess of 70 kya, are black from burning and it is possible that their colour was deliberately heat-altered in a reducing environment in the presence of plant material (Vanhaeren et al 2013;d'Errico et al 2015). Other shells have red ochre within them and may have been purposefully coloured, or stained from twine processed with ochre, or they may have accumulated ochre from the skin of their wearers (Henshilwood et al 2004;d'Errico et al 2005).…”

Section: Perforated Marine Shells Ostrich Eggshell Beads and Engravementioning

confidence: 99%

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

184

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Africa's Middle Stone Age (MSA) may have lasted almost half a million years, but its earliest expression is not yet well understood. The MSA is best known for innovations that appear in the archaeological record at various times after about 200,000 years ago with the first appearance of Homo sapiens. These novel behaviours embrace hafting technology, the use of compound paints and adhesives, ingenious lithic technology that included pressure flaking and the heat treatment of rock, the engraving of ochre and eggshell with geometric designs, the stringing of shell beads and the production of a wide range of bone implements. Such innovations might have been linked to new types of social behaviour stimulated by demographic pulses and movements within and out of the continent. Population shifts may have occurred repeatedly during the MSA. Southern African sites seem concentrated in the interior of the subcontinent before 130 kya. Thus, the florescence of MSA innovations described here appears to have coincided with the dispersal after 130 kya of populations from the interior to mountainous areas, but, more particularly, to the coastal stretches of the southern and western Cape. Coastal sites are the focus of much of southern Africa's research into the MSA and some of the continent's most esteemed sites are coastal ones, particularly those containing iconic Still Bay and Howiesons Poort technocomplexes. By 58 kya occupations tended once more to shift away from the southern coast and back into the interior, or to the eastern seaboard. Some of these later MSA sites have extensive footprints, implying population growth or repeated occupations. Regional and even local variability is characteristic of stone assemblages of the time, while sites seem to have fewer ornaments or decorated items than was formerly the case. The variability in late MSA lithic assemblages is matched by apparent flexibility in the timing of the transfer from the MSA to the Later Stone Age.

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Section: Perforated Marine Shells Ostrich Eggshell Beads and Engravementioning

confidence: 99%

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

184

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“…Depending on the temperature range and degree of shell surface exposure to fire, thermal alteration can result in visible physical (crazing, cracking, etc.) and color modifications (d'Errico et al 2013;March 1999a;March et al 2014;Villagran 2014a;Villagran et al 2011a). More pronounce changes can occur at the molecular level due to temperature induced mineralogical transformations of calcium carbonate polymorphs (Gaffey et al 1991;Toffolo and Boaretto 2014;Weiner 2010;Yoshioka and Kitano 1985).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shell we cook it? An experimental approach to the microarchaeological record of shellfish roasting

Aldeias

Gur-Arieh

Maria

et al. 2016

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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In this paper, we investigate the microarchaeological traces and archaeological visibility of shellfish cooking activities through a series of experimental procedures with direct roasting using wood-fueled fires and controlled heating in a muffle furnace. An interdisciplinary geoarchaeological approach, combining micromorphology, FTIR (in transmission and ATR collection modes), TGA and XRD, was used to establish a baseline on the mineralogical transformation of heated shells from aragonite to calcite and diagnostic sedimentary traces produced by roasting fire features. Our experimental design focused on three main types of roasting procedures: the construction of shallow depressions with heated rocks (pebble cuvette experiments), placing shellfish on top of hot embers and ashes (fire below experiment), and by kindling short-lived fires on top of shellfish (fire above experiments). Our results suggest that similar shellfish roasting procedures will largely create microstratigraphic signatures of anthropogenically reworked combusted material spatially Bdisconnected^from the actual combustion locus. The construction of shallow earth ovens might entail an increased archaeological visibility, and some diagnostic signatures of in situ hearths can be obtained by fire below roasting activities. We also show that macroscopic visual modifications and mineralogical characterization of discarded shellfish might be indicative of specific cooking activities versus secondary burning.

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“…82 ka at the northern (d'Errico et al ., ), and ca. 78 ka at the southern extremities of the African continent (d'Errico et al ., , ; Bouzouggar et al ., ). Beads on various materials are present in eastern Africa and the Horn by ca .…”

Section: Nature and Limitations Of Evidence For The Evolution Of Cultmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological risk, demography and technological complexity in the Late Pleistocene of northern Malawi: implications for geographical patterning in the Middle Stone Age

Thompson

Mackay

Nightingale

et al. 2017

J Quaternary Science

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The Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age (MSA) record of Africa provides early examples of standardised stone tool production and complex manufacturing sequences, superficially implying a long-term trend towards greater complexity in MSA technology at a continental scale. However, at this scale, spatial and temporal expressions of technological complexity are uneven. New lithic and chronometric data from the East-Central African record add further regional perspective to these patterns. Stone artefact assemblages from Karonga, northern, Malawi (92-22 ka), persistently lack the complexity demonstrated elsewhere in Africa at the same times, despite similar lithic raw materials. These new data provide an essential avenue for exploring hypotheses about the roles of environmental risk and demography in shaping the expression of MSA technology across the continent, not just at a local scale. When set within this framework, the simplicity of the Karonga MSA is best explained by its position in an environment that was persistently low in relative extrinsic subsistence risk. These results reinforce that motivations to invest in complex tools were variable through space and time, and that this variation, more than factors relating to behavioural capacity, may explain the patchy evidence for lithic complexity in the later MSA.

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Assessing the Accidental Versus Deliberate Colour Modification of Shell Beads: a Case Study on PerforatedNassarius kraussianusfrom Blombos Cave Middle Stone Age levels

Cited by 31 publications

References 53 publications

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Shell we cook it? An experimental approach to the microarchaeological record of shellfish roasting

Ecological risk, demography and technological complexity in the Late Pleistocene of northern Malawi: implications for geographical patterning in the Middle Stone Age

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