The Marine Isotope Stage 5 (∼105 ka) lithic assemblage from Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter and insights into social transmission across the Kalahari Basin and its environs

Abstract

The social transmission of cultural information is widely acknowledged as a key factor in the survival of our species. This paper explores lithic technological systems to assess the presence and extent of cultural information transmission between early human groups in the Kalahari Basin and its environs during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 (∼130–74 ka). This period is crucial for understanding the development and expansion of complex behaviors in Africa. Dated to ∼105 ka, the dark brown silt and roofspall lithic assemblage at Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter in the southern Kalahari provides evidence of early human behavior from South Africa's interior. Technological analyses reveal that lithic reduction at Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter focused on producing flakes, convergent pieces, and blades, primarily using the recurrent Levallois method. Comparisons with contemporaneous MIS 5 assemblages in the Kalahari and surrounding regions, such as Erfkroon, Florisbad, and White Paintings Rockshelter, reveal significant technological similarities. These include the use of local raw materials, recurrent Levallois methods, hard hammer percussion technique, core maintenance through débordants, manufacturing of blanks with comparable shapes and sizes, mostly with faceted platforms, and a low frequency of formal tools. These similarities suggest a shared technological tradition and potential cultural exchange among the groups at these sites. This connectivity may reflect their shared adaptation to the predominantly arid and semi-arid conditions of the Kalahari Basin and its environs, which may have necessitated the formation of social ties to access scarce and potentially unpredictable resources, in contrast to the fragmentation observed in some other regions during interglacial periods.