Geoarchaeology of a Middle Stone Age paleo-landscape in the central interior of South Africa: paleoenvironments and foraging practices during the transition to behaviora
Final Report Abstract
The occurrence of Pleistocene archaeological and paleontological localities within exposed alluvial terraces in the Free State province of South Africa has been known for nearly two centuries. Recent research has shown that these sites hold considerable potential for producing paleoenvironmental proxies and deep stratigraphic sequences that allow absolute dating by trapped-charge methods. In particular, the Modder River basin in the central Free State has been the focus of extensive survey programs followed by targeted excavations of specific erosional gullies known locally as dongas, where Middle and Later Stone Age artifacts and fossils are abundant. These natural exposures offered an exceptional opportunity to investigate human settlement patterns and interactions with changing environments at three sites, called Erfkroon, Lovedale, and Damvlei. Contrary to cave sites along the coast, which to date have provided most of our knowledge of human behavioral evolution during the Middle Stone Age, open-air sites in the central interior of South Africa offer a better view of other important suites of human activities, such as foraging behaviors typical of hunter-gatherer groups that took place in the open landscape. In this project we aimed at investigating open-air occurrences using a micro-geoarchaeoological approach to better understand site formation processes, reconstruct past environments, and determine the age of human occupations. Despite the enormous limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to investigate in detail Lovedale and Damvlei, and propose a reconstruction of the Modder River paleoenvironments around these sites. Our research at Lovedale addressed the lack of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4 (71,000-57,000 years ago) sites in the central interior of South Africa. Our results help contextualize human occupation and hunting strategies associated with a pre-Howiesons Poort technology that occurred in a wetland environment during a short-lived warm, dry period dated to ~70 ka. The lithic assemblage, including all stages of the lithic reduction process and dominated by distinctive projectile points that we call “Lovedale”, is consistent with a hunting preparation station on an exposed surface along the river. These results show that humans settled the grasslands of the central interior at the onset of MIS 4 and confirm the importance of wetlands in human subsistence strategies, especially in times of climatic stress. In addition, research at Lovedale produced a significant methodological advancement in the selection of tooth samples for electron spin resonance dating, based on infrared spectroscopy. At Damvlei we documented two Holocene lithic technocomplexes, which include evidence of long-distance transport of raw material or finished artifacts, whereas fossils and sediments are dated at least to the terminal Pleistocene. The study of sediments and fossils highlighted the importance of analyses at the microscale in assessing the integrity of materials for absolute dating and in determining the occurrence of heat-altered components related to fire in open-air contexts.
Publications
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Human occupation of the semi-arid grasslands of South Africa during MIS 4: New archaeological and paleoecological evidence from Lovedale, Free State. Quaternary Science Reviews, 283, 107455.
Wroth, Kristen; Tribolo, Chantal; Bousman, C. Britt; Horwitz, Liora Kolska; Rossouw, Lloyd; Miller, Christopher E. & Toffolo, Michael B.
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Investigating the effect of diagenesis on ESR dating of Middle Stone Age tooth samples from the open-air site of Lovedale, Free State, South Africa. Quaternary Geochronology, 69, 101269.
Richard, Maïlys; Pons-Branchu, Edwige; Carmieli, Raanan; Kaplan-Ashiri, Ifat; Alvaro, Gallo Ana; Ricci, Giulia; Caneve, Luisa; Wroth, Kristen; Dapoigny, Arnaud; Tribolo, Chantal; Boaretto, Elisabetta & Toffolo, Michael B.
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New ESR dates from Lovedale, Free State, South Africa: Implications for the study of Tooth Diagenesis. South African Archaeological Bulletin 78, 95-103.
Richard, M., Kaplan-Ashiri, I., Alonso, M.-J., Pons-Branchu, E., Dapoigny, A., Rossouw, L. & Toffolo, M.B.
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Palaeoenvironments and chronology of the Damvlei Later Stone Age site, Free State, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin 78, 57-74.
Toffolo, M. B., Tribolo, C., Bousman, C. B., Kolska Horwitz, L., Richard, M., Boaretto, E., Rossouw, L. & Miller, C. E.
