Return rates from intertidal foraging from Blombos Cave to Pinnacle Point: Understanding early human economies

Journal of Human Evolution

Volumn 92, Issue , 2016, Pages 101-115

  De Vynck, Jan C ^a   Anderson, Robert ^b,c   Atwater, Chloe ^d   Cowling, Richard M ^a   Fisher, Erich C ^d   Marean, Curtis W ^a,d   Walker, Robert S ^e   Hill, Kim ^d  

^a NELSON MANDELA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (South Africa)

^b Forestry and Fisheries ^*  (South Africa)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN   (South Africa)

^d ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^e UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI   (United States)

Author keywords

Human evolution; Intertidal foraging; Shellfish; South Africa

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGY; ECONOMIC HISTORY; EXPLOITATION; FORAGING BEHAVIOR; HUMAN EVOLUTION; HUNTER-GATHERER; NUTRIENT CYCLING; STONE AGE;

BLOMBOS CAVE; PINNACLE POINT; SOUTH AFRICA; WESTERN CAPE;

HOMO SAPIENS; MAMMALIA;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; AGED; APPETITE; ARCHEOLOGY; CHILD; ENERGY METABOLISM; FEMALE; HUMAN; LIFESTYLE; MALE; MIDDLE AGED; PRESCHOOL CHILD; SHELLFISH; SOUTH AFRICA; TSUNAMI; YOUNG ADULT;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; AGED; APPETITIVE BEHAVIOR; ARCHAEOLOGY; CHILD; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; ENERGY METABOLISM; FEMALE; HUMANS; LIFE STYLE; MALE; MIDDLE AGED; SHELLFISH; SOUTH AFRICA; TIDAL WAVES; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 84958960799     PISSN: 00472484     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.01.008     Document Type: Article

References (95)

1. Bigalke E.H. The exploitation of shellfish by coastal tribesmen of the Transkei. Ann. Cape. Prov. Mus. Nat. Hist. 1973, 9:159-175.
2. Bird D.W. Behavioral ecology and the archaeological consequences of central place foraging among the Meriam. Arch. P. Am. Ant. Asso. 1997, 7:291-306.
3. Bird D.W., Bliege Bird R.L. Contemporary shellfish gathering strategies among the Meriam of the Torres Strait Islands, Australia: testing predictions of a central place foraging model. J. Archaeol. Sci. 1997, 24:39-63.
4. Bird D.W., Bliege Bird R.L. The ethnoarchaeology of juvenile foragers: shellfishing strategies among Meriam children. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. 2000, 19:461-476.
5. Bird D.W., Richardson J.L., Veth P.M., Barham A.J. Explaining shellfish variability in middens on the Meriam Islands, Torres Strait, Australia. J. Archaeol. Sci. 2002, 29:457-469.
6. Bird D.W., Bird R.B., Richardson J.L. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. Cultural Heritage Series 2004, 3:183-197.
7. Bowles S. Did warfare among ancestral hunter-gatherers affect the evolution of human social behaviors?. Science 2009, 324:1293-1298.
8. Branch G.M., Branch M. The Living Shores of Southern Africa 1992, Struik Publishers, Cape Town.
9. Branch G.M., Menge B.A. Rocky intertidal communities. Marine Community Ecology 2001, 221-251. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland. M.D. Bertness, S.D. Gaines, M.E. Hay (Eds.).
10. Broadhurst C.L., Wang Y., Crawford M.A., Cunnane S.C., Parkington J.E., Schmidt W.F. Brain-specific lipids from marine, lacustrine, or terrestrial food resources: potential impact on early African Homo sapiens. Comp. Biochem. Phys. B 2002, 131:653-673.
11. Brown J.L. The evolution of diversity in avian territorial systems. Wilson Bull. 1964, 76:160-169.
12. Bustamante R.H., Branch G.M., Eekhout S., Robertson B., Zoutendyk P., Schleyer M., Dye A., Hanekom N., Keats D., Jurd M., McQuaid C. Gradients of intertidal primary productivity around the coast of South Africa and their relationships with consumer biomass. Oecologia 1995, 102:189-201.
13. Cashdan E.A. Territoriality among human foragers: ecological models and an application to four Bushmen groups. Curr. Anthropol. 1983, 24:47-66.
14. Cawthra H.C. The marine geology of Mossel Bay, South Africa 2014, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cape Town.
15. Cawthra H.C., Compton J.S., Fisher E.C., Marean C.W. Drowned shorelines and submerged terrestrial landscape features off the South African south coast. Geology and Archaeology: Submerged landscapes of the continental shelf 2015, Special Publication of the Geological Society of London. 10.1144/SP411.11. J. Harff, G. Bailey, F. Lüth (Eds.).
16. Chandler G., Merry G. The South Africa Geoid 2010: SAGEOID10 2010, 29-33. PositionIT.
17. Clark J.L., Kandel A.W. The evolutionary implications of variation in human hunting strategies and diet breadth during the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa. Curr. Anthropol. 2013, 54:S269-S287.
18. Codding B.F., O'Connell J.F., Bird D.W. Shellfishing and the colonization of Sahul: A multivariate model evaluating the dynamic effects of prey utility, transport considerations and life-history on foraging patterns and midden composition. J. Isl. Coast. Archaeol. 2014, 9:238-252.
19. Colonese A.C., Mannino M.A., Bar-Yosef Mayer D.E., Fa D.A., Finlayson J.C., Lubell D., Stiner M.C. Marine mollusc exploitation in Mediterranean prehistory: an overview. Quatern. Int. 2011, 239:86-103.
20. Compton J.S. Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations and human evolution on the southern coastal plain of South Africa. Quaternary Sci. Rev. 2011, 30:506-527.
21. De Boer W.F., Blijdenstein A.F., Longamane F. Prey choice and habitat use of people exploiting intertidal resources. Environ. Conserv. 2002, 29:238-252.
22. Dye A.H. Experimental studies of succession and stability in rocky intertidal communities subject to artisanal shellfish gathering. Neth. J. Sea Res. 1992, 30:209-217.
23. Dyson-Hudson R., Smith E.A. Human territoriality: an ecological reassessment. Am. Anthropol. 1978, 80:21-41.
24. Erlandson J.M. The role of shellfish in prehistoric economies: a protein perspective. Am. Antiquity 1988, 53:102-109.
25. Erlandson J.M. The archaeology of aquatic adaptations: Paradigms for a new millennium. J. Archaeol. Res. 2001, 9:287-350.
26. Fa D.A. Effects of tidal amplitude on intertidal resource availability and dispersal pressure in prehistoric human coastal populations: the Mediterranean-Atlantic transition. Quaternary Sci. Rev. 2008, 27:2194-2209.
27. Fisher E.C., Bar-Matthews M., Jerardino A., Marean C.W. Middle and Late Pleistocene paleoscape modeling along the southern coast of South Africa. Quaternary Sci. Rev. 2010, 29:1382-1398.
28. Grant J.W.A. Whether or not to defend? The influence of resource distribution. Mar. Freshw. Behav. Phy. 1993, 23:137-153.
29. Hawkes K., O'Connell J.F., Jones N.B., Oftedal O.T., Blumenschine R.J. Hunting income patterns among the Hadza: big game, common goods, foraging goals and the evolution of the human diet [and discussion]. Phil.Trans. R. Soc. B 1991, 334:243-251.
30. Hawkes K., O'Connell J.F., Jones N.G.B. More lessons from the Hadza about men's work. Hum. Nature 2014, 25:596-619.
31. Henn B.M., Gignoux C.R., Jobin M., Granka J.M., Macpherson J.M., Kidd J.M., Rodriquez-Botigué L., Ramachandran S., Hon L., Brisbin A., Lin A.A., Underhill P.A., Comas D., Kidd K.K., Norman P.J., Parham P., Bustamante C.D., Mountain J.L., Feldman M.W. Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2011, 108:5154-5162.
32. Henrich J. Demography and cultural evolution: how adaptive cultural processes can produce maladaptive losses: the Tasmanian case. Am. Antiquity 2004, 197-214.
33. Henshilwood C.S., Nilssen P., Parkington J. Mussel drying and food storage in the late Holocene, SW Cape, South Africa. J. Field Archaeol. 1994, 21:103-109.
34. Henshilwood C.S., Sealy J.C., Yates R.J., Cruz-Uribe K., Goldberg P., Grine F.E., Klein R.G., Poggenpoel C., van Niekerk K., Watts I. Blombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary report on the 1992-1999 excavations of the Middle Stone Age levels. J. Archaeol. Sci. 2001, 28:421-448.
35. Hill K. Hunting and human evolution. J. Hum. Evol. 1982, 11:521-544.
36. Hill K. Macronutrient modifications of optimal foraging theory: an approach using indifference curves applied to some modern foragers. Hum. Ecol. 1988, 16:157-197.
37. Hill K., Hurtado A.M. Cooperative breeding in South American hunter-gatherers. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 2009, 276:3863-3870.
38. Hill K., Kaplan H., Hawkes K., Hurtado A.M. Foraging decisions among Ache hunter-gatherers: new data and implications for optimal foraging models. Ethol. Sociobiol. 1987, 8:1-36.
39. Hockey P.A., Bosman A.L. Man as an intertidal predator in Transkei: disturbance, community convergence and management of a natural food resource. Oikos 1986, 46:3-14.
40. Hockey P.A.R., Bosman A.L., Siegfried W.R. Patterns and correlates of shellfish exploitation by coastal people in Transkei: An enigma of protein production. J. Appl. Ecol. 1988, 353-363.
41. Hurtado A.M., Hill K.R. Seasonality in a foraging society: variation in diet, work effort, fertility, and sexual division of labor among the Hiwi of Venezuela. J. Anthropol. Res. 1990, 293-346.
42. Jerardino A. Large shell middens in Lamberts Bay, South Africa: a case of hunter-gatherer resource intensification. J. Archaeol. Sci. 2010, 37:2291-2302.
43. Jerardino A. Prehistoric exploitation of marine resources in Southern Africa with particular reference to shellfish gathering: opportunities and continuities. Pyrenae 2010, 41:7-52.
44. Jerardino A., Marean C.W. Shellfish gathering, marine paleoecology and modern human behavior: perspectives from cave PP13B, Pinnacle Point, South Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 2010, 59:412-424.
45. Jones N.B., Marlowe F.W. Selection for delayed maturity. Hum. Nat. 2002, 13:199-238.
46. Jones R. Hunters in the Australian coastal savanna. Human Ecology in Savanna Environments 1980, 107-146. Academic Press, London. D.R. Harris (Ed.).
47. Jones T.L., Richman J.R. On mussels: Mytilus californianus as a prehistoric resource. N. Am. Archaeol. 1995, 16:33-58.
48. Kim H.L., Ratan A., Perry G.H., Montenegro A., Miller W., Schuster S.C. Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history. Nat. Commun. 2014, 5. 10.1038/ncomms6692.
49. Kennedy M.A. An investigation of hunter-gatherer shellfish foraging practices: archaeological and geochemical evidence from Bodega Bay, California 2004, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Davis.
50. Klein R.G., Steele T.E. Archaeological shellfish size and later human evolution in Africa. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2013, 110:10910-10915.
51. Kyle R., Pearson B., Fielding P.J., Robertson W.D., Birnie S.L. Subsistence shellfish harvesting in the Maputaland Marine Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Rocky shore organisms. Biol. Conserv. 1997, 82:183-192.
52. Kyle R., Robertson W.D., Birnie S.L. Subsistence shellfish harvesting in the Maputaland Marine Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Sand beach organisms. Biol. Conserv. 1997, 82:173-182.
53. Kyriacou K., Parkington J.E., Marais A.D., Braun D.R. Nutrition, modernity and the archaeological record: Coastal resources and nutrition among Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers on the western Cape coast of South Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 2014, 77:64-73.
54. Lambert G., Steinke T.D. Effects of destroying juxtaposed mussel-dominated and coralline algal communities at Umdoni Park, Natal coast, South Africa. S. Afr. J. Marine Sci. 1986, 4:203-217.
55. Langejans G.H.J., van Niekerk K.L., Dusseldorp G.L., Thackeray J.F. Middle Stone Age shellfish exploitation: Potential indications for mass collecting and resource intensification at Blombos Cave and Klasies River, South Africa. Quatern. Int. 2012, 270:80-94.
56. Lasiak T.A. Contemporary shellfish-gathering practices of indigenous coastal people in Transkei: some implications for interpretation of the archaeological record. S. Afr. J. Sci. 1992, 88:19-28.
57. Lasiak T., Dye A. The ecology of the brown mussel Perna perna in Transkei, Southern Africa: Implications for the management of a traditional food resource. Biol. Conserv. 1989, 47:245-257.
58. Lasiak T.A., Field J.G. Community-level attributes of exploited and non-exploited rocky infratidal macrofaunal assemblages in Transkei. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 1995, 185:33-53.
59. Lasiak T. The putative impact of exploitation on rocky infratidal macrofaunal assemblages: a multiple-area comparison. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. UK 1999, 79:23-34.
60. Little M.G., Schneider R.R., Kroon D., Price B., Bickert T., Wefer G. Rapid palaeoceanographic changes in the Benguela Upwelling System for the last 160,000 years as indicated by abundances of planktonic foraminifera. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 1997, 130:135-161.
61. Marean C.W. Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (Western Cape Province, South Africa) in context: The Cape Floral kingdom, shellfish, and modern human origins. J. Hum. Evol. 2010, 59:425-443.
62. Marean C.W. Coastal South Africa and the co-evolution of the modern human lineage and coastal adaptations. Trekking the Shore: Changing Coastlines and the Antiquity of Coastal Settlement 2011, 421-440. Springer Science & Business Media, New York. N.F. Bicho, J.A. Haws, L.G. Davis (Eds.).
63. Marean C.W. The origins and significance of coastal resource use in Africa and Western Eurasia. J. Hum. Evol. 2014, 77:17-40.
64. Marean C.W., Bar-Matthews M., Bernatchez J., Fisher E., Goldberg P., Herries A.I.R., Jacobs Z., Jerardino A., Karkanas P., Minichillo T., Nilssen P.J., Thompson E., Watts I., Williams H.M. Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 2007, 449:905-908.
65. Marean C.W., Cawthra H.C., Cowling R.M., Esler K.J., de Vynck J. Stone Age people in a changing South African Greater Cape Floristic Region. Fynbos: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation of a Megadiverse Region 2014, 164-199. Oxford University Press, Oxford. N. Allsopp, J.F. Colville, T. Verboom (Eds.).
66. Mather A.A., Garland G.G., Stretch D.D. Southern African sea levels: corrections, influences and trends. Afr. J. Mar. Sci. 2009, 31:145-156.
67. McGrath J.R., Cleghorn N., Gennari B., Henderson S., Kyriacou K., Nelson-Viljoen C., Nilssen P., Richardson L., Shelton C., Wilkins J., Marean C.W. The Pinnacle Point shell midden complex: A high resolution Mid- to Late Holocene record of Later Stone Age coastal foraging along the southern Cape coast of South Africa. S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. 2015, 70:209.
68. Meehan B. A matter of choice? Some thoughts on shell gathering strategies in northern Australia. Animals and Archaeology 1983, 2:3-17.
69. Metcalfe D., Barlow K.R. A model for exploring the optimal trade-off between field processing and transport. Am. Anthropol. 1992, 94:340-356.
70. Meehan B. Shell Bed to Shell Midden 1982, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra.
71. Navy, South African South African tide tables 2015, South African Navy, Tokai, South Africa.
72. Oestmo S., Schoville B.J., Wilkins J., Marean C.W. A Middle Stone Age Paleoscape near the Pinnacle Point caves, Vleesbaai, South Africa. Quatern. Int. 2014, 350:147-168.
73. Parkington J. Shorelines, Strandlopers and Shell Middens 2006, Krakadouw Trust, Cape Town.
74. Peeters F.J., Acheson R., Brummer G.J.A., De Ruijter W.P., Schneider R.R., Ganssen G.M., Ufkes E., Kroon D. Vigorous exchange between the Indian and Atlantic oceans at the end of the past five glacial periods. Nature 2004, 430:661-665.
75. Penn D.C., Povinelli D.J. Causal cognition in human and nonhuman animals: A comparative, critical review. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2007, 58:97-118.
76. Penn D.C., Holyoak K.J., Povinelli D.J. Darwin's mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. Behav. Brain Sci. 2008, 31:109-130.
77. Powell A., Shennan S., Thomas M.G. Late Pleistocene demography and the appearance of modern human behavior. Science 2009, 324:1298-1301.
78. Robinson J. Calculating maximum sustainable harvest and percentage offtakes. Hunting for Sustainability in Tropical Forests 2000, 521-524. Columbia University Press, New York. J. Robinson, E. Bennett (Eds.).
79. Siegfried W.R., Hockey P.A., Crowe A.A. Exploitation and conservation of brown mussel stocks by coastal people of Transkei. Environ. Conserv. 1985, 12:303-307.
80. Singels E. Underground storage organs of plants as a food source for Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the Southern Cape 2013, MSc. Thesis, Stellenbosch University.
81. Speth J.D., Spielmann K.A. Energy source, protein metabolism, and hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. 1983, 2:1-31.
82. Steele T.E., Klein R.G. Intertidal shellfish use during the Middle and Later Stone Age of South Africa. Archaeofauna 2008, 17:63-76.
83. Thackeray J.F. Molluscan fauna from Klasies River, South Africa. S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. 1988, 43:27-32.
84. Native American Landscapes of St. Catherines Island, Georgia 2008, American Museum of Natural History, New York. D.H. Thomas (Ed.).
85. Thomas F.R. An evaluation of central-place foraging among mollusk gatherers in Western Kiribati, Micronesia: Linking behavioral ecology with ethnoarchaeology. World Archaeol. 2002, 34:182-208.
86. Thomas F.R. The behavioral ecology of shellfish gathering in western Kiribati, Micronesia 1: Prey choice. Hum. Ecol. 2007, 35:179-194.
87. Tishkoff S.A., Reed F.A., Friedlaender F.R., Ehret C., Ranciaro A., Froment A., Hirbo J.B., Awomoyi A.A., Bodo J., Doumbo O., Ibrahim M., Juma A.T., Kotze M.J., Lema G., Moore J.H., Mortensen H., Nyambo T.B., Omar S.A., Powell K., Pretorius G.S., Smith M.W., Thera M.A., Wambebe C., Weber J.L., Williams S.M. The genetic structure and history of Africans and African Americans. Science 2009, 324:1035-1044.
88. Tomalin B.J., Kyle R. Subsistence and recreational mussel (Perna perna) collecting in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: fishing mortality and precautionary management. S. Afr. J. Zool. 1998, 33:12-22.
89. Voigt E. Klasies River Mouth Cave: An exercise in shell analysis. Bull. Transvaal Mus. 1973, 14:14-15.
90. Whitaker A.R. Incipient aquaculture in prehistoric California?: Long-term productivity and sustainability vs. immediate returns for the harvest of marine invertebrates. J. Archaeol. Sci. 2008, 35:1114-1123.
91. Whitaker A.R., Byrd B.F. Social circumscription, territoriality, and the late Holocene intensification of small-bodied shellfish along the California coast. J. Isl. Coast. Archaeol. 2014, 9:150-168.
92. Winter A., Martin K. Late Quaternary history of the Agulhas current. Paleoceanography 1990, 5:479-486.
93. Wisuki Still Bay, Western Cape, South Africa 2015, Retrieved March 19, 2015, from. http://wisuki.com/statistics/5384/still-bay.
94. Wood B.M., Marlowe F.W. Toward a reality-based understanding of Hadza men's work. Hum. Nat. 2014, 25:620-630.
95. World Weather Online Still Bay West Monthly Climate Average, South Africa 2015, Retrieved March 19, 2015, from. http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Still-Bay-West-weather-averages/Western-Cape/ZA.aspx.