Journal article icon

Journal article

78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later stone age innovation in an East African tropical forest.

Abstract:
The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a non-unilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions


Access Document


Publisher copy:
10.1038/s41467-018-04057-3

Authors


More by this author
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-4224-9467
More by this author
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0002-4403-7548
More by this author
Role:
Author
ORCID:
0000-0003-1480-9188


Publisher:
Nature
Journal:
Nature Communications More from this journal
Volume:
9
Article number:
1832
Publication date:
2018-05-09
Acceptance date:
2018-03-29
DOI:
ISSN:
2041-1723
Pmid:
29743572


Language:
English
Pubs id:
pubs:848192
UUID:
uuid:97b52c83-5375-4fd7-a511-5cd00a9298cf
Local pid:
pubs:848192
Source identifiers:
848192
Deposit date:
2019-07-05

Terms of use



Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP