Putting North Africa on the map of modern human origins

Patterns of Hominin Occupation and Cultural Diversity Across the Gebel Akhdar of Northern Libya Over the Last ~200 kyr

“…This appears to be the case at other sites in North Africa, including Haua Fteah, where the putative Aterian layers are succeeded by "Mousterian" layers (McBurney 1967;Wendorf and Schild 1992;Richter et al 2010). An absence of tanged points is argued to not necessarily denote the absence of the Aterian (Garcea 2012a), as other lithic technologies are also included in the Aterian, such as bifacial foliates, small Levallois and discoidal cores, an increase in flake laminarity (Stringer and Barton 2008) and flakes with bulbar basal thinning and bifacial retouch (Garcea 2010a). Yet, all of these can be part of non-Aterian MSA assemblages in North Africa, elsewhere in Africa and outside Africa.…”

“…North Africa during the last glacial-interglacial-glacial cycle witnessed a number of complex demographic and behavioral changes. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils in North Africa, from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, currently point to colonization of the region during MIS 6 (Hublin 2001: 110;Smith et al 2007;Stringer and Barton 2008;Balter 2011;Hublin and McPherron 2012). The first MSA technologies in North Africa also date to MIS 6 and to even earlier in MIS 7 (e.g., McBrearty and Brooks 2000;Garcea 2010aGarcea , 2012Hawkins 2012), where the latter raises the question of which hominin populations and species were responsible for the early MSA across the region.…”

“…These broad-scale changes from MIS 6-2 are only highlights of what would have been a far more complex period in recent human evolution, the details of which are becoming apparent only recently as North Africa gains more prominent status in paleoanthropological debates (e.g., Stringer and Barton 2008;Balter 2011;Hublin and McPherron 2012). Focusing on this critical period in recent human evolution, this study explores new archaeological evidence from northern Cyrenaica in Libya and addresses several key questions relating to past behaviors and population dynamics.…”

The role of cryptotephra in refining the chronology of Late Pleistocene human evolution and cultural change in North Africa

“…The region contains some of the richest known archaeological and paleontological collections from caves and rock shelters of this period and yet in comparison to East and South Africa it has received far less scientific attention. This is partly due to the historical focus of research work on sub-Saharan areas of the continent but also to the fact that relatively little of its relevant fossil and cultural material has yet been comprehensively published (Stringer and Barton, 2008). North Africa, as with the rest of Africa, also shares the distinction that all of the technological changes and behavioural developments over the past~200 ka BP appear to have occurred within H. sapiens populations.…”

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“…Interestingly, while early dated shell remains from occupation layers in Africa are only associated with anatomically modern humans (AMHs), molluscs recovered from Middle Palaeolithic (MP) layers in Europe are mainly related to Neanderthal occupations (Gutiérrez-Zugasti et al, 2013). Although some researchers have argued that strategies for exploiting coastal resources do not differ between European Neanderthals and AMHs in Africa during the MP and MSA (Stringer & Barton, 2008), others interpret the evidence differently, with Neanderthals exploiting marine environments infrequently compared to AMH (Shipman, 2015). Researchers make detailed analyses of adornments, radiometric dates and stratigraphic information to explain innovations in shell beads, as well as the spread of cultural traditions (Kuhn et al, 2001).…”