TracSymbols Project

Surveys for archaeological sites in the De Hoop Nature Reserve, southern Cape, South Africa resulted in the discovery of a cave complex comprising two locations, Klipdrift Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. Excavations commenced in 2010 with Later Stone Age deposits initially being recovered at the former site and Middle Stone Age deposits at the latter. The lithic component at Klipdrift Shelter is consistent with the Howiesons Poort, a technological complex recorded at a number of archaeological sites in southern
Africa. The age for these deposits at Klipdrift Shelter, obtained by single grain optically stimulated luminescence, spans the period 65.5
4.8 ka to 59.4
4.6 ka. Controlled and accurate excavations of the discrete layers have resulted in the recovery of a hominin molar, marine shells, terrestrial fauna, floral remains, organic materials, hearths, lithics, ochre, and ostrich eggshell. More than 95 pieces of the latter, distributed across the layers, are engraved with diverse, abstract patterns. The preliminary results from
Klipdrift Shelter presented in this report provide new insights into the Howiesons Poort in this subregion and contribute further to ongoing knowledge about the complex behaviours of early Homo sapiens in southern Africa. Excavations at the Klipdrift Complex will continue in the future.

Zooarchaeological studies are generally based on analyses of faunal remains identified to family, genus or species.
Middle Stone Age faunal assemblages, however, are usually highly fragmented with the majority of remains unidentified.
We measured the cortical thickness of a sample of unidentified long bone fragments from the Middle Stone Age
layers at Blombos Cave to investigate whether the unidentified specimens mimic the identified assemblage in terms of
animal sizes represented.For reference samples, cortical thicknesses of goat (Capra hircus) bones from Gobabeb in
Namibia were measured, in addition to the long bones from a sample of identified fauna from the M3 phase at
Blombos Cave.Based on these comparative samples, cortical thickness measurements were used to group unidentified
long bones from the M1 and upper and lower M2 phases into small, medium and large size classes. Our results
suggest that medium-sized animals were more prevalent in the Blombos assemblage than indicated by the identified
specimens.The size discrepancy between the identified and unidentified specimens may be the result of analytical or
taphonomic processes, or human behaviour. The results also confirm previous analyses that larger animals were
more common in the M1 than the upper and lower M2 at Blombos Cave.

The Howiesons Poort techno-complex of southern Africa was a particularly significant phase in the development of complex cognition in Homo sapiens and new sites are crucial to our understanding of this period. Here, we present the results of a taphonomic and zooarchaeological analysis of Klipdrift Shelter
to investigate subsistence strategies during the Late Pleistocene. In particular, we focus on the taphonomic history of the assemblage. Our analysis shows that the Klipdrift Shelter faunal assemblage is extensively fragmented; probably as a result of anthropogenic processing and post-depositional alteration. As a result, little significant information can be extrapolated from the analysis of skeletal-part abundance per layer. Human involvement in the accumulation of ungulate, small mammal, carnivore and tortoise remains is apparent in all layers. We show evidence of disarticulation, marrow extraction,
skinning, filleting and carnivore consumption and document the processing of low-ranked game and elements. We also discuss the possibility of remote-capture technology at Klipdrift during the Howiesons Poort.

The Howiesons Poort, characterised by sophisticated lithic technologies and evidence of innovative behaviours, was a significant cultural phase in southern Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 4. It also coincided with substantial palaeoenvironmental and possible demographic changes in the southern Cape of South Africa, especially with regard to the shifting palaeo-coastline off the Agulhas Bank. The newly-excavated Klipdrift Shelter in the southern Cape presents a rare opportunity to compare faunal, lithic and palaeoenvironmental evidence from a single Howiesons Poort site along the present-day southern coast of South Africa. Here, we use faunal data from Klipdrift Shelter to explore the relationship between occupational intensity, subsistence behaviour and environment in the southern Cape during the Howiesons Poort period. Our results suggest a shift from a mixed terrain/ browse-dominated environment during the earlier Howiesons Poort to open grasslands in the mid–later Howiesons Poort. This environmental shift corresponds to potential changes in occupational intensity or frequency throughout the sequence with evidence of increased occupations associated with grassier environments. Aspects of the cultural sequence, for example raw material procurement strategies, may be associated with shifting environmental conditions. The faunal evidence suggests links between occupation, environment and prey selection at Klipdrift. This raises interesting questions about the interplay between population density and the environment of the southern Cape, and its influence on subsistence behaviour during Marine Isotope Stage 4.

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, and in particular its Still Bay and Howie-sons Poort lithic traditions, represents a period of dramatic subsistence, cultural, and technological innovation by our species, Homo sapiens. Climate change has frequently been postulated as a primary driver of the appearance of these innovative behaviours, with researchers invoking either climate instability as a reason for the development of buffering mechanisms, or environmentally stable refugia as providing a stable setting for experimentation. Testing these alternative models has proved intractable, however, as existing regional palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records remain spatially, stratigraphically, and chronologically disconnected from the archaeological record. Here we report high-resolution records of environmental shifts based on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments, faunal remains, and shellfish assemblages excavated from two key MSA archaeological sequences, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. We compare these records with archaeological material remains in the same strata. The results from both sites, spanning the periods 98–73 ka and 72–59 ka, respectively, show significant changes in vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity of the sites during periods of human occupation. While these changes clearly influenced human subsistence strategies, we find that the remarkable cultural and technological innovations seen in the sites cannot be linked directly to climate shifts. Our results demonstrate the PLOS ONE | Data Availability Statement: Due to permit restrictions, photographs of the OES specimens sampled are available from the authors, following a review process by the Curator of the Iziko Museum, Wendy Black. All faunal and shellfish samples listed by quadrant and layer, respectively, are available in the Supporting Information S2 File. Further information can be obtained from JR, SB and KLvN.

The Howiesons Poort, characterised by sophisticated lithic technologies and evidence of innovative behaviours, was a significant cultural phase in southern Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 4. It also coincided with substantial palaeoenvironmental and possible demographic changes in the southern Cape of South Africa, especially with regard to the shifting palaeo-coastline off the Agulhas Bank. The newly-excavated Klipdrift Shelter in the southern Cape presents a rare opportunity to compare faunal, lithic and palaeoenvironmental evidence from a single Howiesons Poort site along the present-day southern coast of South Africa. Here, we use faunal data from Klipdrift Shelter to explore the relationship between occupational intensity, subsistence behaviour and environment in the southern Cape during the Howiesons Poort period. Our results suggest a shift from a mixed terrain/ browse-dominated environment during the earlier Howiesons Poort to open grasslands in the mid–later Howiesons Poort. This environmental shift corresponds to potential changes in occupational intensity or frequency throughout the sequence with evidence of increased occupations associated with grassier environments. Aspects of the cultural sequence, for example raw material procurement strategies, may be associated with shifting environmental conditions. The faunal evidence suggests links between occupation, environment and prey selection at Klipdrift. This raises interesting questions about the interplay between population density and the environment of the southern Cape, and its influence on subsistence behaviour during Marine Isotope Stage 4.

The Howiesons Poort techno-complex of southern Africa was a particularly significant phase in the development of complex cognition in Homo sapiens and new sites are crucial to our understanding of this period. Here, we present the results of a taphonomic and zooarchaeological analysis of Klipdrift Shelter to investigate subsistence strategies during the Late Pleistocene. In particular, we focus on the tapho-nomic history of the assemblage. Our analysis shows that the Klipdrift Shelter faunal assemblage is extensively fragmented; probably as a result of anthropogenic processing and post-depositional alteration. As a result, little significant information can be extrapolated from the analysis of skeletal-part abundance per layer. Human involvement in the accumulation of ungulate, small mammal, carnivore and tortoise remains is apparent in all layers. We show evidence of disarticulation, marrow extraction, skinning, filleting and carnivore consumption and document the processing of low-ranked game and elements. We also discuss the possibility of remote-capture technology at Klipdrift during the Howiesons Poort.

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, and in particular its Still Bay and Howie-sons Poort lithic traditions, represents a period of dramatic subsistence, cultural, and technological innovation by our species, Homo sapiens. Climate change has frequently been postulated as a primary driver of the appearance of these innovative behaviours, with researchers invoking either climate instability as a reason for the development of buffering mechanisms, or environmentally stable refugia as providing a stable setting for experimentation. Testing these alternative models has proved intractable, however, as existing regional palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records remain spatially, stratigraphically, and chronologically disconnected from the archaeological record. Here we report high-resolution records of environmental shifts based on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments, faunal remains, and shellfish assemblages excavated from two key MSA archaeological sequences, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. We compare these records with archaeological material remains in the same strata. The results from both sites, spanning the periods 98–73 ka and 72–59 ka, respectively, show significant changes in vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity of the sites during periods of human occupation. While these changes clearly influenced human subsistence strategies, we find that the remarkable cultural and technological innovations seen in the sites cannot be linked directly to climate shifts. Our results demonstrate the PLOS ONE | Data Availability Statement: Due to permit restrictions, photographs of the OES specimens sampled are available from the authors, following a review process by the Curator of the Iziko Museum, Wendy Black. All faunal and shellfish samples listed by quadrant and layer, respectively, are available in the Supporting Information S2 File. Further information can be obtained from JR, SB and KLvN.

The Still Bay (SB) and Howiesons Poort (HP) were two significant techno-complexes in the Middle Stone Age and key periods in the expression of behavioral complexity. In this study, we compare the recently excavated fauna from the SB layers at Blombos Cave (BBC) with that from the HP levels at Klipdrift Shelter (KDS) in the southern Cape of South Africa. We consider our findings in the framework of recent models for early human subsistence behavior. In particular, we link our study with models involving resource intensification to examine whether foraging strategies in the HP were more or less intensive than those in the SB. Based on our criteria used to assess intensificationdthe exploitation of low-ranked prey, the processing of low-utility elements, transport decisions, and occupational intensitydintensive subsistence strategies are more evident at KDS than BBC. Our results suggest that low-ranked elements were processed more heavily and diet breath was broader at KDS than at BBC. However, foraging ranges may have been more extensive at BBC than at KDS. Taphonomic data also suggests that the SB at BBC was a low-intensity, sporadically occupied period in contrast to the high-intensity occupations during the HP at KDS. We argue that this may be related to differences in mobility and residential patterns between these techno-complexes.

In this paper the new excavations at Klasies River main site are introduced and the first results presented and linked with previous work, establishing a baseline for future reporting. Data from the earliest phase of the SAS member, comprising the basal SASU and SASL sub-members from caves 1 and 1A are discussed. A new U-Th date of 126.0 ± 1.5 ka on flowstone associated with fallen tufa material within the base of the SASU sub-member provides a maximum age for this part of the sequence. The lowermost SASU sub-member formed most likely around 100 000 years ago during a period associated with increased precipitation whereas the age of the underlying SASL sub-member is uncertain. The SASU sub-member contains in situ deposits that include hearths, in contrast to the underlying SASL sub-member that was subject to post depositional disturbance. Despite the different site formation processes the lithic industry of both sub-members is similar although quartz utilization is somewhat more prominent in the SASL sub-member. The main reduction strategy involves a parallel uni-directional convergent method to produce quartzite blade and point blanks with rare retouch. Relatively more browsing fauna and riparian species, indicating more closed environments, occur in the SASU layers. The older SASL sub-member, not previously described as an independent unit, contains relatively more grazers suggesting drier and more open habitats. It is vital to link evidence from coastal sites such as Klasies River to data from the interior to promote insight into modern human origins from a wider landscape perspective. The work of James Brink, to whom this paper is dedicated, is invaluable in developing this connection.

Given the large number of hominin and archaeological remains the site has yielded, Klasies River has contributed significantly to our understanding of how humans developed and behaved during the Middle Stone Age. Its extensive occupational sequence and the abundance of faunal remains recovered from the deposits also make it an important site in exploring palaeoenvironmental change during the Late Pleistocene. The mammalian fauna from the over 70 000 year long sequence at Klasies River possibly extending from MIS 6 to 3 are useful in positioning the evolution of complex human behaviour within an environmental context. Here, we use the large mammal fauna excavated in the 1980s and 1990s from Klasies River Cave 1 and 1A to test links between ungulate diversity and palaeoclimatic change in the southeastern Cape of South Africa. Fauna from extended Pleistocene sequences in the southeastern Cape are relatively rare and collections such as these are important proxies for assessing environmental change in this particular region. Our analysis indicates that the proportion of ungulate grazers, browsers and mixed-feeders shifts in accordance with glacial/interglacial fluctuations. We find significant correlations between grazer proportions and ungulate diversity through the sequence which may be linked to the effect of marine regressions on the landscape or shifting moisture availability. We compare the Klasies River data set with a selection of Middle Stone Age sites in the southern Cape. Our analysis suggests that primary productivity is greater along the eastern southern Cape than the western region. This study has broad implications for understanding the relationship between expanding grasslands and ungulate richness during the Late Pleistocene.