Canteen Kopje: A new look at an old skull

Smith, Patricia; Nshimirimana, Robert; Beer, Frikkie de; Morris, David; Jacobson, Leon O.; Chazan, Michael; Horwitz, Liora Kolska

doi:10.4102/sajs.v108i1/2.738

Cited by 13 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The Canteen Kopje skull found by a diamond digger working the Vaal River gravels of South Africa in 1929 was once also thought to be a robust ancestor of Homo in South Africa. This interpretation has changed, however, because recent X-ray tomography demonstrates that it lacks archaic features and is likely to be a Later Stone Age (LSA) intrusion into the Vaal Gravels (Smith et al 2012).…”

Section: Hominids Of the Late Earlier Stone Age And Middle Stone Agementioning

confidence: 97%

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: Hominids Of the Late Earlier Stone Age And Middle Stone Agementioning

confidence: 97%

Those marvellous millennia: the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Wadley

2015

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa

184

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“…55 The most recent confirmation of this interpretation stems from the re-analysis of Border Cave lithic material. 56 The Canteen Kopje skull, with an uncertain age, 57 and the Tuinplaas skeleton, tentatively dated to ~20-11 ka, but probably only slightly older than the minimum age estimate of ~11 ka, 58 are anatomically fully modern. Slightly younger skeletons from Elands Bay Cave and Matjes River, possibly dating to the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene at ~11-10 ka, are anatomically similar to modern Khoe-San, 59 and the deliberate burial of individuals now seems common.…”

Section: Final Middle Stone Age/early Later Stone Age Homo Sapiensmentioning

confidence: 98%

Pleistocene Homo and the updated Stone Age sequence of South Africa

2013

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We provide a brief overview of how the rich South African Pleistocene Homo fossil record correlates with the recently revised Stone Age sequence. The overview and correlation of the data is intended to highlight gaps in the record and/or our understanding thereof, and to stimulate interdisciplinary research and debate on the Homo fossil and archaeological records spanning the Pleistocene. As an updated resource we present a complete inventory of known Pleistocene fossil material assigned to the genus Homo, and, where possible, its association with archaeological material. We demonstrate that (1) anatomical changes are not necessarily paralleled by changes in the archaeological sequence currently based on a range of technocomplexes, (2) the early Homo record of South Africa probably differs from that of East Africa, (3) mid-Pleistocene Homo might be associated with the Earlier to Middle Stone Age transitional phase and (4) the fossil record associated with the Middle Stone Age has wide anatomical variation. Also, hiatuses in the fossil record, such as that associated with the appearance of early Khoe-San-like populations, do not show concurrent hiatuses in the archaeological record. Thus, for a broader understanding of the demographic history of South Africa during the Pleistocene, both sources of information should be considered in tandem.

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