The cultures of the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age

1982 ◽  
pp. 248-341 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Desmond Clark
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Stone Age

scholarly journals Four-Field Co-evolutionary Model for Human Cognition: Variation in the Middle Stone Age/Middle Palaeolithic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlize Lombard ◽  
Anders Högberg
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectories ◽  
Two Populations

AbstractHere we explore variation and similarities in the two best-represented population groups who lived during the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic—the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Building on approaches such as gene-culture co-evolution, we propose a four-field model to discuss relationships between human cognitive evolution, biology, technology, society, and ecology. We focus on the pre-50-ka phase, because we reason that later admixing between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in Eurasia may make it difficult to separate them in terms of cognition, or any of the other fields discussed in this paper. Using our model enabled us to highlight similarities in cognition between the two populations in terms of symbolic behaviour and social learning and to identify differences in aspects of technical and social cognition. Dissimilarities in brain-selective gene variants and brain morphology strongly suggest differences in some evolutionary trajectories that would have affected cognition. We therefore suggest that rather than insisting that Neanderthals were cognitively ‘the same’ as Homo sapiens, it may be useful to focus future studies on Neanderthal-specific cognition that may have been well-developed within their specific context at the time.

scholarly journals Introduction to ‘Theoretical Pathways’: Thinking About Human Endeavour During the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Anders Högberg ◽  
Marlize Lombard
Keyword(s):  
Time Perspective ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Wide Range

AbstractIn this brief introduction, we present and contextualise ‘theoretical pathways’ elaborated in this special issue, in terms of understanding humanity from a deep-time perspective. The participating authors discuss a wide range of approaches related to thinking about human endeavour during the Middle Stone Age and Middle Palaeolithic ranging from the constraints of technological niches and Material Engagement Theory to aspects of palaeo-neurology, agent-based models of self-domestication and co-evolutionary model building. Together, the contributions demonstrate that current theoretical approaches that aim to explain deep-time human endeavour require multi-disciplinary approaches, and that for some researchers, the trend is to move away from the symbolic standard or models of sudden mutation. By doing so, each contribution, in its own way, enhances our understanding of ‘being’ or ‘becoming’ human during the time slice between 300,000 and 30,000 years ago. The work represented here makes it increasingly clear that a singular or particular aspect did not ‘give birth’ to Homo sapiens in Africa during the Middle Stone Age and/or in Eurasia during the Middle Palaeolithic. Instead, humanity in all its complexity was probably shaped by a broad range of factors and processes that took place over an extended period.

New Evidence for the Expansion of an Upper Pleistocene Population out of East Africa, from the Site of Station One, Northern Sudan

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey I. Rose
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Range Expansion ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
East African ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Chipped Stone

Evidence for a hunter-gatherer range-expansion is indicated by the site of Station One in the northern Sudan, a surface scatter of chipped stone debris systematically collected almost 40 years ago, though not studied until present. Based on technological and typological correlates in East Africa, the predominant use of quartz pebbles for raw material, and the production of small bifacial tools, the site can be classified as Middle Stone Age. While often appearing in East African assemblages, quartz was rarely used in Nubia, where ferrocrete sandstone and Nile pebble were predominantly used by all other Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age populations. Additionally, façonnage reduction is characteristic of lithic technology in East Africa in the late Middle Stone Age, while Middle Palaeolithic industries in the Nile Valley display only core reduction. It is proposed this assemblage represents a range-expansion of Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers from East Africa during an Upper Pleistocene pluvial.

scholarly journals First results of a Middle Stone Age survey in the Kerma region, northern Sudan

Antiquity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (376) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuno Bicho ◽  
Jonathan Haws ◽  
Matthieu Honegger
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
First Results

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