Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T02:25:13.414Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Changing Patterns in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Prehistory of Southern Africa as Seen from the Nelson Bay Cave Stone Artifact Sequence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Janette Deacon
Janette Deacon*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The dating of the Stone Age sequence in southern Africa has been considerably revised over the last decade, and one of the anomalies which has resulted is that the Middle Stone Age, now dated to beyond 30,000 B.P., does not immediately precede the Later Stone Age sensu stricto. The excavation and analysis of occupation horizons dating between the most recent Middle Stone Age assemblages and the Holocene is therefore of particular interest. Nelson Bay Cave, situated on the southern coast of South Africa, contains deposits which partly fill the “gap” between the Middle and Later Stone Ages, and the occupation horizons dating between about 18,000 and 5000 years ago are described in this paper. Changes in the habitat in the vicinity of the site caused by sea-level and vegetation changes coincident with the amelioration of temperatures at the end of the Pleistocene are clearly marked in the faunal remains at the site. Largely correlated with the faunal changes (which includes the introduction of marine resources to the cave at about 12,000 B.P.) are changes in the stone artifact assemblages. Three industries are recognized in the sequence: the Robberg, characterized by microbladelets produced from bladelet cores and a few small scrapers and backed tools; the Albany, characterized by large scrapers and an absence of backed tools; and the Wilton, characterized by a variety of Formal Tools including relatively large numbers of small scrapers and backed tools. These changes in artifact-manufacturing traditions are interpreted as signaling adjustments to changing environmental conditions. An explanation for these adjustments is not sought in a simple cause-and-effect relationship between the environment and the cultural response; artifact changes are seen instead as the result of a twofold process, with the environment acting as an external stimulus to change, and the direction of the artifact change governed by the selection of a range of possibilities offered by the technology of the Later Stone Age sensu lato that was widespread in subequatorial Africa during the last 20,000 years.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , July 1978 , pp. 84 - 111
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beaumont, P.B., 1973. Border Cave: A Progress Report. South African Journal of Science. 69, 41-46.Google Scholar
Beaumont, P.B., Vogel, J.C., 1972. On a new radiocarbon chronology for Africa south of the Equator. African Studies. 31, 66-89.Google Scholar
Bishop, W.W., Clark, J.D., 1967. Background to Evolution in Africa. Chicago University Press, Chicago. Google Scholar
Bunge, M., 1963 Causality: The Place of the Causal Principle in Modern Science. Meridian Books, New York. Google Scholar
Butzer, K.W., 1973. Geology of Nelson Bay Cave, Robberg, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 28, 97-110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, J.D., 1959 The Prehistory of Southern Africa. Penguin, Harmondsworth. Google Scholar
Clark, J.D., 1974 Kalambo Falls. Vol. 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Google Scholar
Clarke, D.L., 1968 Analytical Archaeology. Methuen, London. Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., 1969. Melkhoutboom Cave, Alexandria district, Cape Province: A report on the 1967 investigation. Annals of the Cape Provincial Museums. 6, 13 141-169.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., 1972. A review of the post-Pleistocene in South Africa. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series. 1, 26-45.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., 1976 Where Hunters Gathered: A Study of Holocene Stone Age People in the Eastern Cape. South African Archaeological Society, Claremont. Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., Brooker, M., 1976. The Holocene and Upper Pleistocene sequence in the southern Cape. Annals of the South African Museum. 71, 203-214.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., Deacon, J., Brooker, M., 1976. Four painted stones from Boomplaas Cave, Oudtshoorn district. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 31, 141-145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, J., 1969. Re-excavation and description of the Wilton type-site, Albany district, eastern Cape. Unpublished M.A. thesis. University of Cape Town. Google Scholar
Deacon, J., 1972. Wilton: An assessment after 50 years. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 27, 10-45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deacon, J., 1974. Patterning in the radiocarbon dates for the Wilton/Smithfield complex in southern Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 29, 3-18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dingle, R.131., Rogers, J., 1972. Effects of sealevel changes on the Pleistocene palaeoecology of the Agulhas bank. Palaeoecology of Africa. 6, 55-58.Google Scholar
Fairhall, A.W., Young, A.W., 1973. Methodology of radiocarbon dating and radiocarbon dates from Nelson Bay Cave. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 28, 90-93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhall, A.W., Young, A.W., Erickson, J.L., 1976. University of Washington Dates IV. Radiocarbon. 18, 2 221-239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H., 1926. South African stone implements. South African Journal of Science. 23, 784-788.Google Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H., 1938. Archaeology of the Oakhurst Shelter, George. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 25, 229-324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H., Van Riet Lowe, C., 1929. The Stone Age Cultures of South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum. 27, 1-289.Google Scholar
Inskeep, R.R., 1965. University of Cape Town excavations at Plettenberg Bay. Scientific South Africa. 2, 575-577.Google Scholar
Inskeep, R.R., 1972. Nelson's Bay Cave, Robberg Peninsula, Plettenberg Bay. Palaeoecology of Africa. 6, 247-249.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1972a. Preliminary Report on the July through September 1970 excavations at Nelson Bay cave, Plettenberg Bay (Cape Province, South Africa). Palaeoecology of Africa. 6, 177-208.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1972b. The late Quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change. Quaternary Research. 2, 2 135-142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1974. Environment and subsistence of prehistoric man in the southern Cape Province, South Africa. World Archaeology. 5, 3 249-284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, R.G., 1976. The mammalian fauna of the Klasies River Mouth sites, southern Cape Province, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 31, 75-98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louw, J.T., 1960. Prehistory of the Matjes River shelter. Memoir National Museum, Bloemfontein. 1, 1-143.Google Scholar
Miller, S.F., 1969. The Nachikufan industries of the Later Stone Age in Zambia. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis. University of California, Berkeley. Google Scholar
Netting, R., 1971. The ecological approach in cultural study. Addison Wesley Modular Publications. 6, 1-30.Google Scholar
Opperman, H., 1976. 'n Ondersoek van 'n Holoseen argeologiese afsetting in die distrik Calitzdorp, Suidelike Kaap (Die Buffelskloofrotsskuiling). Unpublished M.A. thesis. University of Stellenbosch. Google Scholar
Phillipson, D.W., 1976. The prehistory of eastern Zambia. Memoir British Institute in Eastern Africa. 6, 1-229.Google Scholar
Rogers, A.W., 1905. A raised beach deposit near Klein Brak River. Annual Report Geological Commission of the Cape of Good Hope. 10, 293-296.Google Scholar
Rouse, I., 1977. Pattern and process in West Indian archaeology. World Archaeology. 9, 1 1-11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sackett, J.R., 1977. The meaning of style in archeology: A general model. American Antiquity. 42, 3 369-380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sampson, C.G., 1972. The Stone Age industries of the Orange River scheme and South Africa. Memoir National Museum, Bloemfontein. 6, 1-288.Google Scholar
Sampson, C.G., 1974 The Stone Age Archaeology of Southern Africa. Academic Press, New York. Google Scholar
Shackleton, N.J., 1975. The stratigraphic record of deep-sea cores and its implications for the assessment of glacials, interglacials, stadials and interstadials in the mid-Pleistocene. Butzer, K.W., Isaac, G.Ll., After the Australopithecines. Mouton, The Hague, 1-24.Google Scholar
Steward, J.H., 1955 Theory of Culture Change. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. Google Scholar
Van Zinderen Bakker, E.M., 1976. The evolution of late Quaternary palaeoclimates of southern Africa. Palaeoecology of Africa. 9, 160-202.Google Scholar
Vogel, J.C., Beaumont, P.B., 1972. Revised radiocarbon chronology for the Stone Age in South Africa. Nature (London). 237, 50-51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, W.E., 1972. Preliminary report on an archaeological research programme in South West Africa. Cimbebasia. 2, 1 1-45.Google Scholar
Wendt, W.E., 1976. Art mobilier from the Apollo 11 cave, South West Africa: Africa's oldest dated works of art. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 31, 5-11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wymer, J.J., Singer, R., 1972. Middle Stone Age settlements on the Tzitzikama coast, eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Ucko, P.J., Tringham, R., Dimbleby, G.W., Man, settlement and urbanism. Duckworth, London, 207-210.Google Scholar