78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest

dc.contributor.authorShipton, Ceri
dc.contributor.authorRoberts, Patrick
dc.contributor.authorArcher, Will
dc.contributor.authorArmitage, Simon J.
dc.contributor.authorBita, Caesar
dc.contributor.authorBlinkhorn, James
dc.contributor.authorCourtney-Mustaphi, Colin
dc.contributor.authorCrowther, Alison
dc.contributor.authorCurtis, Richard
dc.contributor.authorD'Errico, Francesco
dc.contributor.authorDouka, Katerina
dc.contributor.authorFaulkner, Patrick
dc.contributor.authorGroucutt, Huw S.
dc.contributor.authorHelm, Richard
dc.contributor.authorHerries, Andy I. R
dc.contributor.authorJembe, Severinus
dc.contributor.authorPrendergast, Mary E.
dc.contributor.authorRowson, Ben
dc.contributor.authorTengeza, Amini
dc.contributor.authorTibesasa, Ruth
dc.contributor.authorWhite, Tom S.
dc.contributor.authorPetraglia, Michael D.
dc.contributor.authorBoivin, Nicole
dc.date.accessioned2018-09-07T10:37:24Z
dc.date.available2018-09-07T10:37:24Z
dc.date.issued2018-05-09
dc.description.abstractThe Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a nonunilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.en_ZA
dc.description.departmentAnthropology and Archaeologyen_ZA
dc.description.librarianam2018en_ZA
dc.description.sponsorshipFunding was provided by the SEALINKS project under a European Research Council (ERC) grant (no. 206148) awarded to N.B. Permission to conduct the research was granted by the Office of the President of the Republic of Kenya through affiliation with the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). We are grateful for the support of the NMK and the British Institute in Eastern Africa. P.R. was funded by NERC and the Boise Fund (University of Oxford). S.J.A. and F.D. acknowledge support from the Research Council of Norway, through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme, SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE) (no. 262618). FD and AP were funded by the ERC grant, TRACSYMBOLS (no. 249587), and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10- LABX-52), LaScArBx Cluster of Excellence. A.P.M. holds a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral fellowship (2014 BP-A 00122) from the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, Government of Catalonia. A.C. and H.S.G. were funded by the British Academy. Additional support has been provided by the McDonald Institute for Archeological Research (University of Cambridge) and the Max Planck Society. For assistance in the field and with artifact analyses, we wish to thank Jackson Mupe, Yahya Lenga, Emmanuel Mupe, Mohammed Lenga, Louise Green, John Mpangarusyia, Tim McEnright, James Munene, Doreen Mutoro, Joyce Wathira, and Emma Le Vraux. Annette Guenzel and Michelle O’Reilly are thanked for assistance with image production.en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.nature.com/naturecommunicationsen_ZA
dc.identifier.citationShipton, C., Roberts, P., Archer, W. et al. 2018, '78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest', Nature Communications, vol. 9, art. no. 1832, pp. 1-8.en_ZA
dc.identifier.issn2041-1723 (online)
dc.identifier.other10.1038/s41467-018-04057-3
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/66482
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.publisherNature Publishing Groupen_ZA
dc.rightsOpen Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.en_ZA
dc.subjectMiddle to Later Stone Age transitionen_ZA
dc.subjectArcheological recorden_ZA
dc.subjectPanga ya Saidien_ZA
dc.subjectCoastal foresten_ZA
dc.subjectKenyaen_ZA
dc.subjectEast African tropical foresten_ZA
dc.subjectLate Pleistoceneen_ZA
dc.title78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical foresten_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA

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