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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.

SUBMITTER: Shipton C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5943315 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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

Shipton Ceri C Roberts Patrick P Archer Will W Armitage Simon J SJ Bita Caesar C Blinkhorn James J Courtney-Mustaphi Colin C Crowther Alison A Curtis Richard R Errico Francesco d' F Douka Katerina K Faulkner Patrick P Groucutt Huw S HS Helm Richard R Herries Andy I R AIR Jembe Severinus S Kourampas Nikos N Lee-Thorp Julia J Marchant Rob R Mercader Julio J Marti Africa Pitarch AP Prendergast Mary E ME Rowson Ben B Tengeza Amini A Tibesasa Ruth R White Tom S TS Petraglia Michael D MD Boivin Nicole N

Nature communications 20180509 1

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, nov ...[more]

PMID: 29743572

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Dataset Information

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

Publications

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

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