The Stone Age Archaeology of West Africa

Book section

In the early 21st century, understanding of the Stone Age past of West Africa has increasingly transcended its colonial legacy to become central to research on human origins. Part of this process has included shedding the methodologies and nomenclatures of narrative approaches to focus on more quantified, scientific descriptions of artefact variability and context. Together with a growing number of chronometric age estimates and environmental information, understanding of the West African Stone Age is contributing evolutionary and demographic insights relevant to the entire continent. Undated Acheulean artefacts are abundant across the region, attesting to the presence of archaic Homo. The emerging chronometric record of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) indicates that core and flake technologies have been present in West Africa since at least the Middle Pleistocene (~780-126 thousand years ago or ka), and that they persisted until the Terminal Pleistocene/Holocene boundary (~12ka) – the youngest examples of such technology anywhere in Africa. The presence of MSA populations in forests remains an open question, however technological differences may correlate with various ecological zones. Later Stone Age (LSA) populations evidence significant technological diversification, including both microlithic and macrolithic traditions. The limited biological evidence also demonstrates that at least some of these populations manifested a unique mixture of modern and archaic morphological features, drawing West Africa into debates about possible late admixture events between late surviving archaic populations and Homo sapiens. As in other regions of Africa, it is possible that population movements throughout the Stone Age were influenced by ecological bridges and barriers. West Africa evidences a number of refugia and ecological bottlenecks which may have played such a role in human prehistory in the region. By the end of the Stone Age, West African groups became increasingly sedentary, engaging in the construction of durable monuments and intensifying wild food exploitation.

Authors: Scerri, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Host title: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History
• Publication date: 2017-10-26
• DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.137
• Keywords: Stone Age; SBTMR; African archaeology; West Africa; Human evolution