Small tool production in the Howiesons Poort: a view from Montagu Cave, South Africa

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn southern Africa, the Howiesons Poort is one of the earliest technocomplexes in which small blades and bladelets were systematically produced and retouched into formal tools. While the presence of small lithic artefacts in an assemblage is well-documented, little is known about production pathways. This paper reports on the analysis of the lithic assemblage from Horizon 6/7 of Charles Keller’s excavations of Montagu Cave, South Africa, to evaluate how raw material and decision-making affects the size of stone tools in Howiesons Poort assemblages. It addresses the following questions: how were small blades produced? Was it a deliberate choice or a constraint imposed by raw material availability? Results show branching modes of production for large and small blanks beginning with raw material acquisition. The independent production of small blanks is reinforced by the presence of cores on flakes in the assemblage. However, a relatively standardised core reduction process was used consistently, regardless of core size. The main technological and typological features observed in Horizon 6/7 are in line with other known Howiesons Poort assemblages. Considered as a whole, these observations highlight the consistency of Howiesons Poort blade technology and the deliberate production of small blanks and tools.RÉSUMÉEn Afrique méridionale, le Howiesons Poort est l’un des premiers complexes technologiques dans lequel de petites lames et lamelles furent systématiquement produites et retouchées pour en faire des outils formels. Bien que la présence de petits objets lithiques dans un assemblage soit bien documentée, on sait peu de choses sur les voies de production. Cet article présente les résultats de l’analyse de l’assemblage lithique de l’Horizon 6/7 des fouilles de Charles Keller dans la grotte de Montagu, en Afrique du Sud, afin d’évaluer comment les matières premières et la prise de décisions affectèrent la grandeur des outils en pierre dans les assemblages Howiesons Poort. L’étude répond à deux questions: comment les petites lames étaient-elles produites? Et leur fabrication était-elle un choix délibéré ou une contrainte imposée par la disponibilité des matières premières? Les résultats démontrent des modes de production diversifiés pour les grandes et petites ébauches, en commençant par l’acquisition des matières premières. La production indépendante de petites ébauches est renforcée par la présence de nucléus sur éclats dans l’assemblage. Cependant, un processus de réduction des nucléus relativement standardisés a été systématiquement utilisé, quelle que soit leur taille. Les principales caractéristiques technologiques et typologiques observées dans l’Horizon 6/7 sont conformes à celles d’autres assemblages Howiesons Poort connus. Considérées dans leur ensemble, ces observations mettent en évidence la cohérence dans la technologie des lames Howiesons Poort, et la production délibérée d’ébauches et d’outils de petite taille.KEYWORDS: Howiesons PoortMiddle Stone Agelithic technologymicrolithicSouth Africa AcknowledgementsWe should like to thank Tim White and Josh Carlson for assistance with materials at the University of California Berkeley Human Evolution Research Center, as well as Leslie White for assistance with materials at the Phoebe A. Hurst Museum of Anthropology. Thank you to Alex Mackay for comments on the draft. We should also like to thank Mark Grote for assistance with statistics and Zoya Thomas for assistance with data collection. SW was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (fellow ID 2017251536), the University of California, Davis, Anthropology Department, and the Center for Experimental Archaeology at Davis (CEAD).Additional informationNotes on contributorsSara E. WatsonSara Watson is a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Field Museum of Natural History. She uses lithic analysis to understand technological innovations during the southern African Middle and Later Stone Ages. Her dissertation research focuses on the development of small tool technologies during the late Pleistocene.Tamara DogandžićTamara Dogandžić is a Palaeolithic archaeologist at the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution (part of the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie) in Neuwied, Germany. Her research focuses on understanding human behaviour through the study of stone artefacts, particularly from Middle Palaeolithic assemblages, and controlled experiments in flake formation. She has directed or participated in Palaeolithic excavation projects in Serbia, Croatia, France and Kenya.Peiqi ZhangPeiqi Zhang is a PhD candidate at the Department of Anthropology of the University of California, Davis. She is interested in the stone technologies of the early Upper Palaeolithic in East Asia and human behavioural adaptations to the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau.Teresa E. SteeleTeresa E. Steele is Professor in Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. She has researched a wide variety of Pleistocene vertebrate and mollusc remains from western Europe, Morocco and South Africa. She is particularly interested in the origins of our cultural abilities and the relationship between changes in technology, subsistence and demography, which focuses her research on the Middle Stone Age of Africa and why some of these human populations spread out of Africa about 50,000 years ago.Nicolas ZwynsNicolas Zwyns is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. He studies the material culture of Pleistocene hominins to address issues related to their subsistence strategies, cultural geography and population dynamics.