Renewed Geoarchaeological Investigations of Mwanganda's Village (Elephant Butchery Site), Karonga, Malawi

Abstract

The site of Mwanganda's Village, located along a paleochannel in northern Malawi, is one of only a few sites that have characterized the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of Malawi for decades (Clark & Haynes, ; Clark et al., ; Kaufulu, ). The Malawi Earlier‐Middle Stone Age Project has re‐examined the site using new mapping and chronometric tools in order to reinterpret the site's significance within the context of current debates surrounding human origins and the potential role the environment played in shaping human behavior. The new data do not support the previous hypothesis that the site was an elephant butchery location (contra Clark & Haynes, ; Clark et al., ; Kaufulu, ). Instead, the evidence shows successive colonization of riparian corridors by MSA hunter‐gatherers focused on exploiting localized resources during periods of generally humid climates while other lakes desiccated across Africa. We challenge the hypothesis that stable and intermediately high lake levels within the African Rift Valley System (sensu Trauth et al., ) catalyzed the evolution of regional interaction networks between 42 and 22 ka. Instead, we interpret the evidence to suggest that regional variants of technology persist into the late MSA as foragers focused on exploiting resources from local catchments.

Catchment Survey in the Karonga District: a Landscape-Scale Analysis of Provisioning and Core Reduction Strategies During the Middle Stone Age of Northern Malawi

“…This inference is supported both by the resemblance between our open site cores and those we recovered through excavation as part of larger assemblages dominated by disc and discoidal reduction (Thompson et al 2012;Wright et al 2014), and by the correspondence between the known time range of the MSA and our established ages for landscape formation in the area. Because few organic materials are preserved in the alluvial fan system that comprises the Chitimwe Beds, the primary means of landscape dating has been optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL).…”

“…The end of the MSA is also variably dated across Africa, and depends on if it is defined by the presence of key cultural elements (Ambrose 1998), or by the disappearance of radial and Levallois technology. If it is defined by the latter, then some of the latest indications are in South Africa at around 20 ka (Clark 1999;Mitchell 1994;Opperman 1996) and in Karonga at around 22 ka (Wright et al 2014). Given these observations the majority of the core data presented in this paper likely date coarsely to between ca.…”

“…Preliminary results indicate that alluvial fan formation began prior to ~100 ka, and unweathered forms of MSA artefacts post-date this (Thompson et al 2013b). Deposition continued until ~5 ka, but these upper sands significantly post-date the facies containing in situ MSA artefacts, which have been dated to between ~20 -60 ka at two sites (Wright et al 2014). Although most MSA deposits around Karonga town appear to date to the latter half of the Late Pleistocene, a handaxe from a buried deposit in the Sadala South area (between the North Rukuru and Ruasho catchments) supports observation that Earlier Stone Age materials are rare, deeply buried, and restricted to areas south of Karonga town.…”

“…Although Later Stone Age (LSA) and Earlier Stone Age (ESA) materials have been reported, early work recognised 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 that the majority of finds in the region had techno-typological affinities to the MSA (Clark 1966;. Today, through the Malawi Earlier-Middle Stone Age Project (MEMSAP) this has been confirmed and the Chitimwe Beds remain the primary source of information about the MSA of Malawi (Thompson et al 2012;Thompson et al 2013a;Wright et al 2014).…”

Using GIS to Integrate Old and New Archaeological Data from Stone Age Deposits in Karonga, Malawi

“…However, when considered together, the revised maps show only a sparse concentration of bones and artefacts near the palaeochannel reconstructed by Kaufulu and little sediment remaining near the original elephant location. The spatial data therefore suggest that the interpretation of the elephant site as being accumulated by hominins on the banks of a palaeochannel should be revisited, and perhaps reconsidered in light of current geologic data [55].…”