Foraging strategies during the final Middle Stone Age occupation at Sibudu Cave, South Africa

The Howieson's Poort fauna from Sibudu Cave: Documenting continuity and change within Middle Stone Age industries

“…Given that the Sibudu fauna is known to be heavily fragmented (Cain 2005;Clark and Plug 2008;Clark and Ligouis, 2010;Clark, 2011;Collins, 2016), before exploring variation in the faunal assemblage over time, it is necessary to evaluate the degree of fragmentation and its possible impacts. There are a variety of ways in which fragmentation can impact analyses based on taxonomic abundances.…”

“…The use of remote capture technology or projectile weaponry such as the bow and arrow would have served to reduce the risk, and thus the costs, of procuring this game. As such, the greater frequency of suids in the HP as compared to later occupations at Sibudu-8.1% in the post-HP MSA (J. Clark, unpublished data), 6.4% in the late MSA , and 0.2% in the final MSA (Collins, 2016)-may in part reflect differences in hunting technology.…”

Small game forgotten: Late Pleistocene foraging strategies in eastern Africa, and remote capture at Panga ya Saidi, Kenya

“…At Sibudu Cave, the circumstantial evidence for remote capture during the Howieson's Poort occupations (~63 ka) includes: high species richness; the presence of numerous small mammals including carnivores; and dominance of blue duiker and bushpig (Clark and Plug, 2008;Wadley, 2010). Subsistence during the Final MSA (~38 ka), however, is argued to not to have involved remote capture (Collins, 2016), suggesting later strategic and technological changes, potentially in response to drier conditions (Robinson and Wadley, 2018). Arguments for remote capture have been made at numerous other Late Pleistocene southern African sites: by Klein (1981) at Byneskranskop I, Die Kelders Cave, Elands Bay Cave, Klasies River Mouth, and Nelson Bay Cave; by Dusseldorp and Langejans (2015) for Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 (~100-80 ka) occupations at Blombos Cave and Klasies River; and tentatively by Reynard et al (2016) for the Howieson's Poort at Klipdrift Shelter.…”

The origins and early elaboration of projectile technology

“…However, there is no consensus about how each hominin hunted or how to best interpret variability in faunal exploitation strategies . Early modern human sites such as Sibudu Cave and Klipdrift Shelter in South Africa show an abundance of smaller ungulates that may have been acquired through traps or snares, while others show either a preponderance of large ungulates or a shift over time in accumulation patterns of small and large fauna . The demand to explain this variation has steered zooarcheological work toward understanding the processes underlying the adoption of new technological solutions, one of which is the use of projectile technology.…”

“…37 However, there is no consensus about how each hominin hunted 42 or how to best interpret variability in faunal exploitation strategies. [43][44][45] Early modern human sites such as Sibudu Cave and Klipdrift Shelter in South Africa show an abundance of smaller ungulates that may have been acquired through traps or snares, [46][47][48] They have since been recognized in different time scales and cultural periods across the world, including the Mesolithic, 59,61 Upper Palaeolithic, 62 Magdalenian, 63,64 Hamburgian, 63 and Aurignacian. 63 Although hunting lesions have been described from the Middle Pleistocene, 65,66 it is unclear if a thrusting or throwing spear was responsible.…”