New Excavations at Border Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Backwell, Lucinda; d’Errico, Francesco; Banks, William E.; Peña, Paloma de la; Sievers, Christine; Stratford, Dominic; Lennox, Sandra; Wojcieszak, Marine; Bordy, Emese M.; Bradfield, Justin; Wadley, Lyn

doi:10.1080/00934690.2018.1504544

Cited by 51 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Subsequently, from 310 ka to 200 ka, high values of habitat suitability correlated with the first evidence of H . sapiens in southern Africa in terms of both fossils and archaeological artefacts 29 – 31 (Figs. 2a and 3d ) as well as presence of the earliest mitochondrial DNA lineage (L0) of southern African origin 32 .…”

Section: Species Successionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions

Timmermann

Yun

Raia³

et al. 2022

Nature

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It has long been believed that climate shifts during the last 2 million years had a pivotal role in the evolution of our genus Homo1–3. However, given the limited number of representative palaeo-climate datasets from regions of anthropological interest, it has remained challenging to quantify this linkage. Here, we use an unprecedented transient Pleistocene coupled general circulation model simulation in combination with an extensive compilation of fossil and archaeological records to study the spatiotemporal habitat suitability for five hominin species over the past 2 million years. We show that astronomically forced changes in temperature, rainfall and terrestrial net primary production had a major impact on the observed distributions of these species. During the Early Pleistocene, hominins settled primarily in environments with weak orbital-scale climate variability. This behaviour changed substantially after the mid-Pleistocene transition, when archaic humans became global wanderers who adapted to a wide range of spatial climatic gradients. Analysis of the simulated hominin habitat overlap from approximately 300–400 thousand years ago further suggests that antiphased climate disruptions in southern Africa and Eurasia contributed to the evolutionary transformation of Homo heidelbergensis populations into Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, respectively. Our robust numerical simulations of climate-induced habitat changes provide a framework to test hypotheses on our human origin.

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Section: Species Successionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions

Timmermann

Yun

Raia³

et al. 2022

Nature

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“…1). It also includes fieldwork at Border Cave, further east (Backwell et al 2018) and at Grassridge Rockshelter, today in the Highveld Grassland but close to the limit of the Sub-Escarpment Savanna (Ames et al 2020). The Olieboomspoort project is part of this collective research effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

Val

Peña

Duval

et al. 2021

Archaeol Anthropol Sci

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Olieboomspoort is one of the few rock shelters in the vast interior of southern Africa documenting pulses of occupation from the Acheulean until the end of the Later Stone Age. Revil Mason excavated the site in 1954 and attributed the large Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic assemblage to his middle phase of the so-called Pietersburg Industry. Recent work at the site has focused on the Holocene layers, but little is known about the earlier phases of shelter use. Here, we provide some background to the shelter, give a history of past research and present initial results following renewed fieldwork at the site. The MSA deposits contain abundant lithic artefacts and ochre, and we present an initial description of these cultural remains. Palynological analysis reveals limited potential for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, but some faunal remains indicate open grasslands. We dated two equid teeth that provided highly consistent combined U-series-ESR estimates, resulting in a mean age of 150 ± 14 ka (1σ). Even when considering potential sources of uncertainty such as variations in water-intake, these fossils can securely be dated to Marine Isotopic Stage 6. Our reappraisal of site formation processes highlights the fact that the archaeological assemblage is strongly time-averaged. We discuss these different results in the context of a recently rekindled interest in the so-called Pietersburg Industry.

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“…Bentsen’s ( 42 ) review of the various kinds of fire evidence suggests that pyrotechnology was very important in the early part of the MSA in sub-Saharan Africa, although the number of sites is small and dominated by cave sites in South Africa, reflecting the amount of fieldwork done there. At Border Cave, hearths and ash layers have been excavated from multiple levels dating from 230 ka to 1000 CE ( 43 , 44 ). Fire was used to modify the properties of stone raw material ( 45 ), for cleaning and possibly pest control ( 44 ), and to cook starchy rhizomes ( 46 ).…”

Section: The Spatiotemporal Pattern Of Fire Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

MacDonald

Scherjon

Veen

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Control of fire is one of the most important technological innovations within the evolution of humankind. The archaeological signal of fire use becomes very visible from around 400,000 y ago onward. Interestingly, this occurs at a geologically similar time over major parts of the Old World, in Africa, as well as in western Eurasia, and in different subpopulations of the wider hominin metapopulation. We interpret this spatiotemporal pattern as the result of cultural diffusion, and as representing the earliest clear-cut case of widespread cultural change resulting from diffusion in human evolution. This fire-use pattern is followed slightly later by a similar spatiotemporal distribution of Levallois technology, at the beginning of the African Middle Stone Age and the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. These archaeological data, as well as studies of ancient genomes, lead us to hypothesize that at the latest by 400,000 y ago, hominin subpopulations encountered one another often enough and were sufficiently tolerant toward one another to transmit ideas and techniques over large regions within relatively short time periods. Furthermore, it is likely that the large-scale social networks necessary to transmit complicated skills were also in place. Most importantly, this suggests a form of cultural behavior significantly more similar to that of extant Homo sapiens than to our great ape relatives.

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New Excavations at Border Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Cited by 51 publications

References 28 publications

Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions

Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions

The place beyond the trees: renewed excavations of the Middle Stone Age deposits at Olieboomspoort in the Waterberg Mountains of the South African Savanna Biome

Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

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