The Kalahari during MIS 6-2 (190–12 ka): Archaeology, paleoenvironment, and population dynamics

Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology

Volumn , Issue 9789401775199, 2016, Pages 175-193

  Robbins, Lawrence H ^a   Brook, George A ^b   Murphy, Michael L ^c   Ivester, Andrew H ^d   Campbell, Alec C ^e  

^a MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA   (United States)

^c Kalamazoo Valley Community College   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF WEST GEORGIA   (United States)

^e NONE   (Botswana)

Author keywords

Antarctic Warming Events (A); Early Later Stone Age; Heinrich (H) Events; Kudiakam Pan; Middle Stone Age; Paleolake Makgadikgadi; White Paintings Shelter

Indexed keywords

EID: 84986334732     PISSN: 18779077     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book Series    
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-017-7520-5_10     Document Type: Chapter

References (75)

1. Backwell, L., d’Errico, F., & Wadley, L. (2008). Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science, 35, 1566–1580.
2. Behar, D. M., Villems, R., Soodyall, H., Blue-Smith, J., Pereira, L., Metspalu, E., et al. (2008). The dawn of human matrilineal diversity. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 82, 1–11.
3. Berna, F., Goldberg, P., Kolska Horwitz, L., Brink, J., Holt, S., Bamford, M., et al. (2012). Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa. PNAS, 109, E1215–E1220.
4. Blunier, T., & Brook, E. J. (2001). Timing of millennial-scale climate change in Antarctica and Greenland during the Last Glacial Period. Science, 291, 109–112.
5. Brook, G. A. (2010). The paleoenvironment of Tsodilo. In A. C. Campbell, L. H. Robbins, & M. Taylor (Eds.), Tsodilo Hills, copper bracelet of the Kalahari (pp. 30–43). East Lansing & Gaborone: Michigan State University Press & The Botswana Society.
6. Brook, G. A., Cowart, J. B., & Brandt, S. A. (1998). Comparison of Quaternary environmental change in eastern and southern Africa using cave speleothem, tufa and rock shelter sediment data. In A. S. Alsharhan, K. W. Glennie, G. L. Whittle, & C. G. S. C. Kendall (Eds.), Quaternary deserts and climatic change (pp. 239–249). Rotterdam: Balkema.
7. Brook, G. A., Robbins, L. H., & Campbell, A. C. (2003). Forty thousand years of environmental change in the Kalahari as evidenced by sediments in the Depression Rock Shelter, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana. Nyame Akuma, 59, 2–10.
8. Brook, G. A., Srivastava, P., Brook, F. Z., Robbins, L. H., Campbell, A. C., & Murphy, M. L. (2008). OSL chronology for sediments and MSA artefacts at the Toteng Quarry, Kalahari Desert, Botswana. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 63, 151–158.
9. Brook, G. A., Railsback, L. B., Campbell, A. C., Robbins, L. H., Murphy, M. L., & Hodgins, G., et al. (2010). Radiocarbon ages for coatings on cupules ground in quartzite bedrock at Rhino Cave in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, and their paleoclimatic significance. Geoarchaeology, 26, 1–22.
10. Brooks, A. S. (1984). San land-use patterns, past and present: Implications for southern African prehistory. In M. Hall, G. Avery, D. M. Avery, M. L. Wilson, & A. J. B. Humphreys (Eds.), Frontiers: Southern African archaeology today (BAR International Series No. 207) (pp. 40–52). Oxford: Archaeopress.
11. Brooks, A. S., Hare, P. E., Kokis, J. E., Miller, G. H., Ernst, R. D., & Wendorf, F. (1990). Dating archaeological sites by protein diagenesis in ostrich eggshell. Science, 248, 60–64.
12. Burrough, S. L. (2016). Late Quaternary environmental change and human occupation of the southern African interior. In S. C. Jones & B. A. Stewart (Eds.), Africa from MIS 6-2: Population dynamics and paleoenvironments (pp. 161–174). Dordrecht: Springer.
13. Burrough, S. L., & Thomas, D. S. G. (2008). Late Quaternary lake-level fluctuations in the Mababe Depression: Middle Kalahari palaeolakes and the role of Zambezi inflows. Quaternary Research, 69, 388–403.
14. Burrough, S. L., Thomas, D. S. G., Shaw, P. A., & Bailey, R. M. (2007). Multiple Quaternary highstands at Lake Ngami, Kalahari, northern Botswana. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 253, 280–299.
15. Burrough, S. L., Thomas, D. S. G., & Bailey, R. M. (2009). Mega-lake in the Kalahari: A Late Pleistocene record of the Palaeolake Makgadikgadi system. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28, 1392– 1411.
16. Campbell, A. C., Robbins, L. H., & Taylor, M. (2010a). Tsodilo Hills, copper bracelet of the Kalahari. East Lansing & Gaborone: Michigan State University Press & The Botswana Society.
17. Campbell, A. C., Robbins, L. H., & Murphy, M. L. (2010b). Cupules and grooves. In A. C. Campbell, L. H. Robbins, & M. Taylor (Eds.), Tsodilo Hills, copper bracelet of the Kalahari (pp. 64–71). East Lansing & Gaborone: Michigan State University Press & The Botswana Society.
18. Cann, R. L., Stoneking, M., & Wilson, A. (1987). Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature, 325, 31–36.
19. Carr, A. S., Chase, B. M., & Mackay, A. (2016). Mid to Late Quaternary landscape and environmental dynamics in the Middle Stone Age of southern South Africa. In S. C. Jones & B. A. Stewart (Eds.), Africa from MIS 6-2: Population dynamics and paleoenvironments (pp. 23–47). Dordrecht: Springer.
20. Clottes, J., & Lewis-Williams, D. (1998). The shamans of prehistory, trance and magic in the painted caves. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
21. Cooke, C. K. (1979). The Stone Age in Botswana: A preliminary survey. Arnoldia, 8, 1–32.
22. Coulson, S., Staurset, S., & Walker, N. (2011). Ritualized behavior in the Middle Stone Age: Evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana. Paleoanthropology, 2011, 18–61.
23. Deacon, H. J. (1976). Where hunters gathered: A study of Holocene Stone Age peoples in the eastern Cape (South African Archaeological Society Monograph Series No. 1). Cape Town: South African Archaeological Society.
24. Deacon, H. J., & Deacon, J. (1999). Human beginnings in South Africa. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
25. Donahue, R. E., Murphy, M. L., & Robbins, L. H. (2002–2004). Lithic microwear analysis of Middle Stone Age artifacts from White Paintings Rock Shelter, Botswana. Journal of Field Archaeology, 29(1–2), 155–163.
26. Gordon, C., Cooper, C., Senior, C. A., Banks, H., Gregory, J. M., Johns, T. C., et al. (2000). The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments. Climate Dynamics, 16, 147–168.
27. Grine, F. E. (2016). The Late Quaternary hominins of Africa: The skeletal evidence from MIS 6-2. In S. C. Jones & B. A. Stewart (Eds.), Africa from MIS 6-2: Population dynamics and paleoenvironments (pp. 323–381). Dordrecht: Springer.
28. Henn, B. M., Gignoux, C. R., Jobin, M., Granka, J. M., Macpherson, J. M., Kidd, J. M., et al. (2011). Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. PNAS, 108, 5154–5162.
29. Henshilwood, C., d’Errico, F, Vanhaeren, M., van Niekerk, K., & Jacobs, Z. (2004). Middle Stone Age beads from South Africa. Science, 304, 404.
30. Henshilwood, C., d’Errico, F., van Niekerk, K. L., Coquinot, Y., Jacobs, Z., Lauritzen, S.-Z., et al. (2011). A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science, 334, 219–222.
31. Ivester, A. H., Brook, G. A., Robbins, L. H., Campbell, A. C., Murphy, M. L., & Marais, E. (2010). A sedimentary record of environmental change at Tsodilo Hills White Paintings Rock Shelter, Northwest Kalahari Desert, Botswana. In J. Runge (Ed.), Palaeoecology of Africa (pp. 53–78). Boca Raton: Balkema (CRC Press).
32. Jacobs, Z., & Roberts, R. G. (2009). Catalysts for Stone Age innovations: What might have triggered two short-lived bursts of technological and behavioral innovation in southern Africa during the Middle Stone Age? Communicative and Integrative Biology, 2, 191–193.
33. Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R. G., Galbraith, R. G., Deacon, H. J., Grün, R., Mackay, A., et al. (2008). Ages for the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa: Implications for human behavior and dispersal. Science, 322, 733–735.
34. Joyce, E. A., Lunt, D. L., Bills, R., Turner, G. G., Katongo, C., Duftner, N., et al. (2005). An extant cichlid fish radiation emerged in an extinct Pleistocene lake. Nature, 435, 90–95.
35. Lee, R. B. (1979). The !Kung San. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36. Marean, C. W. (2010). When the sea saved humanity. Scientific American, 303(2), 54–61.
37. Marean, C. W., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J., Fisher, E., Goldberg, P., Herries, A. I. R., et al. (2007). Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature, 449, 905–908.
38. Martinson, D. G., Pisias, N. G., Hays, J. D., Imbrie, J., Moore, T. C., & Shackleton, N. J. (1987). Age dating and the orbital theory of the ice ages: Development of a high resolution 0 to 300,000-year chronostratigraphy. Quaternary Research, 27, 1–29.
39. Maslin, M. A., & Christensen, B. (2007). Tectonics, orbital forcing, global climate change, and human evolution in Africa: Introduction to the African paleoclimate special volume. Journal of Human Evolution, 53, 443–464.
40. Mellars, P. (2006). Why did modern human populations disperse from Africa c. 60,000 years ago? A new model. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 9381–9386.
41. Murphy, M. L. (1999). Changing human behavior: The contribution of the White Paintings Rock Shelter to an understanding of changing lithic reduction, raw material exchange and hunter-gatherer mobility in the interior regions of southern Africa during the Middle and Early Late Stone Age. Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University.
42. Petit, J. R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N. I., Barnola, J. M., Basile, I., et al. (1999). Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature, 399, 429–436.
43. Petit, J. R., Jouzel, J., Raynaud, D., Barkov, N. I., Barnola, J. M., Basile, I., et al. (2001). Vostok ice core data for 420,000 years, IGBP pages/world data center for paleoclimatology data contribution series #2001-076. Boulder CO, USA: NOAA/NGDC Paleoclimatology Program.
44. Robbins, L. H. (1987). Stone Age archaeology in the Northern Kalahari, Botswana: Savuti and Kudiakam Pan. Current Anthropology, 28, 567–569.
45. Robbins, L. H. (1988). The Middle Stone Age of Kudiakam Pan. Botswana Notes and Records, 20, 47.
46. Robbins, L. H. (1999). Direct dating of worked ostrich eggshell in the Kalahari. Nyame Akuma, Bulletin of African Archaeology, 52, 11–16.
47. Robbins, L. H., & Murphy, M. L. (1998). The Early and Middle Stone Age. In P. Lande, A. Reid, & A. Segobye (Eds.), Ditswa mmung: The archaeology of Botswana (pp. 50–64). Gaborone: Pula Press & the Botswana Society.
48. Robbins, L. H., & Murphy, M. L. (2011). An overview of the Later and Middle Stone Age at Tsodilo Hills. Botswana Notes and Records, 43, 130–139.
49. Robbins, L. H., Murphy, M. L., Campbell, A. C., & Brook, G. A. (1996a). Excavations at the Tsodilo Hills Rhino Cave. Botswana Notes and Records, 28, 23–45.
50. Robbins, L. H., Murphy, M. L., Stevens, N. J., Brook, G. A., Ivester, A. H., Haberyan, K. A., et al. (1996b). Paleoenvironment and archaeology of Drotsky’s Cave: Western Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Journal of Archaeological Science, 23, 7–22.
51. Robbins, L. H., Murphy, M. L., Brook, G. A., Ivester, A. H., Campbell, A. C., Klein, R. G., et al. (2000). Archaeology, palaeoenvironment, and chronology of the Tsodilo Hills White Paintings Rock Shelter, northwest Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Journal of Archaeological Science, 27, 1085–1113.
52. Robbins, L. H., Campbell, A. C., Brook, G. A., & Murphy, M. L. (2007). World’s oldest ritual Site? The “Python Cave” at Tsodilo Hills World Heritage site, Botswana. Nyame Akuma, 67, 2–6.
53. Robbins, L. H., Campbell, A. C., Murphy, M. L., Brook, G. A., Mabuse, A. A., Hitchcock, R. K., et al. (2009). Mogapelwa: Archaeology, paleoenvironment and oral traditions at Lake Ngami, Botswana. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 64, 13–32.
54. Robbins, L. H., Murphy, M., & Campbell, A. (2010). Windows into the past: Excavating Stone Age shelters. In A. Campbell, L. Robbins, & M. Taylor (Eds.), Tsodilo Hills, copper bracelet of the Kalahari (pp. 50–63). East Lansing & Gaborone: Michigan State University Press & The Botswana Society.
55. Robbins, L. H., Campbell, A. C., Brook, G. A., Murphy, M. L., & Hitchcock, R. K. (2012). The antiquity of the in the Kalahari Desert: Bone point from White Paintings Rock Shelter, Botswana. Journal of African Archaeology, 10, 7–20.
56. Schuster, S. C., Miller, W., Ratan, A., Thomsho, R., Giardine, B., Kasson, L. R., et al. (2010). Complete Khoisan and Bantu genomes from southern Africa. Nature, 463, 943–947.
57. Scholz, C. A., Johnson, T. C., Cohen, A. S., King, J. W., Peck, J. A., Overpeck, J. T., et al. (2007). East African megadroughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago and bearing on early-modern human origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104, 16416–16421.
58. Sicre, M. A., Labeyrie, L., Ezat, U., Duprat, J., Turon, J. L., Schmidt, S., et al. (2005). Mid-latitude southern Indian Ocean response to Northern Hemisphere Heinrich events. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 240, 724–731.
59. Silberbauer, G. B. (1981). Hunter and habitat in the central Kalahari Desert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
60. Soares, P., Rito, T., Pereira, L., & Richards, M. B. (2016). A genetic perspective on African prehistory. In S. C. Jones & B. A. Stewart (Eds.), Africa from MIS 6-2: Population dynamics and paleoenvironments (pp. 383–405). Dordrecht: Springer.
61. Stager, J. C., Ryves, D. B., Chase, B. M., & Pausata, F. S. R. (2011). Catastrophic drought in the Afro-Asian monsoon region during Heinrich event 1. Science, 331, 1299–1302.
62. Staurset, S., & Coulson, S. (2014). Sub-surface movement of stone artefacts at White Paintings Shelter, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana: Implications for the Middle Stone Age Chronology of central southern Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 75, 153–165.
63. Texier, P.-J., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J.-P., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., et al. (2010). A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. PNAS, 107, 6180–6185.
64. Thomas, D. S. G., & Burrough, S. L. (2012). Interpreting geoproxies of late Quaternary climate change in African drylands: Implications for understanding environmental change and early human behaviour. Quaternary International, 253, 5–17.
65. Thomas, D. S. G., & Shaw, P. A. (1991). The Kalahari environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
66. Thomas, D. S. G., Brook, G., Shaw, P., Bateman, M., Haberyan, K., Appleton, C., et al. (2003). Late Pleistocene wetting and drying in the NW Kalahari: An integrated study from the Tsodilo Hills, Botswana. Quaternary International, 104, 53–67.
67. Thomas, D. S. G., Bailey, R., Shaw, P. A., Durcan, J. A., & Singarayer, J. S. (2009). Late Quaternary highstands at Lake Chilwa, Malawi: Frequency, timing and possible forcing mechanisms in the last 44 ka. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28, 526–539.
68. Thomas, D. S. G., Burrough, S. L., & Parker, A. G. (2012). Extreme events as drivers of early human behaviour in Africa? The case for variability, not catastrophic drought. Journal of Quaternary Science, 27, 7–12.
69. Tishkoff, S. A., Gonder, M. K., Henn, B. M., Mortensen, H., Knight, A., Gignoux, C., et al. (2007). History of click-speaking populations of Africa inferred from mtDNA and Y chromosome genetic variation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 24, 2180–2195.
70. Trauth, M. H., Larrasoaňa, J. C., & Mudelsee, M. (2009). Trends, rhythms and events in Plio-Pleistocene African climate. Quaternary Science Reviews, 28, 399–411.
71. Wiessner, P. W. (1977). Hxaro: A regional system of reciprocity for reducing risk among the Kung San. Vol. I. Ph.D. Dissertation, University Microfilms International, University of Michigan.
72. Wiessner, P. W. (1983). Style and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity, 48, 253–276.
73. Wilmsen, E. N. (1989). Land filled with flies: A political economy of the Kalahari. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
74. Yellen, J. E. (1977). Archaeological approaches to the present. New York: Academic Press.
75. Yellen, J. E., Brooks, A. S., Stuckenrath, R., & Welbourne, R. (1987). A terminal Pleistocene assemblage from Drotsky’s Cave, western Ngamiland, Botswana. Botswana Notes and Records, 19, 1–6.