Modern culture began in South Africa 44,000 years ago

Call it the end of the late late show. The Later Stone Age technology was thought to have made its first appearance in South Africa much later than it did in Europe. A new analysis of South African finds suggests modern culture emerged in both areas at the same time.

In Europe, the Upper Palaeolithic ? another term for the Later Stone Age ? is commonly dated to around 45,000 years ago. In South Africa the archaeological evidence suggests the Later Stone Age did not begin until much later ? around 22,000 years ago.

Perhaps no longer, though. Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder, and her colleagues, have delved deep into the layers of Border Cave in South Africa, and found that Middle Stone Age tool-making techniques were giving way to Later Stone Age technology by 44,000 years ago. For instance, stone spear points ? a hallmark of Middle Stone Age technology ? were replaced by bows and bone arrows.

A companion paper, headed by Francesco d'Errico of the University of Bordeaux, France, found organic evidence that pointed to a similar date, including ornamental ostrich eggshell beads, digging sticks, and beeswax wrapped in fibres ? the oldest recorded use of beeswax as an adhesive for attaching tools to handles. It's likely that these organic artefacts represent the beginning of the modern-day San hunter-gatherer society in South Africa.

The Border Cave evidence also shows a striking trend of internal evolution. Though Later Stone Age technologies could theoretically have spread rapidly to the north and south from a source in East Africa, Villa's evidence suggests otherwise. The South African finds suggest a gradual shift into the Later Stone Age, while retaining a few elements from earlier times in the form of notched bones, bone awls and marine shell beads. That points to the South African populations evolving many of their later tools independently.

"To prove internal evolution, you need a place like Border Cave that has a long sequence, many layers, is well dated, and all use the same materials to make artefacts," says Villa.

Journal references: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1202629109 and 10.1073/pnas.1204213109

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