WINDS OF CHANGE: PALAEOENVIRONMENTS, MATERIAL CULTURE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR IN THE LATE PLEISTOCENE (-77 ka-48 ka ago) IN THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

摘要

Cultural traditions are capable of sensitive adaptations to cological change and local environment. This may have been the case especially at the start of the Still Bay period in the Western Cape at —77 ka ago and in a subsequent phase, the Howieson's Poort, after —65-50 ka ago. This paper examines the role that climatic and ecological change may have had in spurring changes in modern human behaviour during the Late Pleistocene in the Western Cape. It was relatively warm in the Cape after about —80 ka ago and moisture levels were higher than during the Late Holocene. The nearby coastlines provided a rich source of marine food as did the terrestrial plains, and ecological circumstances were probably conducive to population growth. Is it coincidental that the —77-72 ka old Still Bay phase of the Middle Stone Age (MSA), known for material culture that signifies modern cognitive behaviour, fits within, and may have been driven by, a period of rapid climatic deterioration in the Western Cape? Ultimately, climatic change may also have been a prominent factor in the demise of this innovative phase of the MSA. Several millennia could separate the Howieson's Poort and the Still Bay but further precision of age estimates is required to substantiate this claim. An age estimate of --65 ka ago for the start of the Howieson's Poort is reasonable and this coincides with a very cold period during the Last Glacial. The cultural complexity of the Howieson's Poort, considered 'precocious' by some, may also have been driven by intensification of adverse climatic conditions. A return, after —50 ka ago, to a lithic technology characteristic of the much earlier MSA II (-90-80 ka ago) marks the demise of the Howieson's Poort and it is followed by a reduction in the number of archaeological sites and a probable rapid decrease in the human population of the Western Cape. Human behaviour is clearly modified by environmental change, both in the present and in the past, and there are many examples that illustrate this link in recent times. Extending this intimate relationship to beyond 50 ka ago is more tenuous and the evidence is mostly fragmentary. This research approach has been hampered mainly by a lack of refinement concerning precise dating of climatic events in the Late Pleistocene in Africa and of the palaeoecological variations that occurred on a millenial scale or greater. Over the past decade and beyond, concentrated efforts by archaeologists, climatologists, geographers and environmental scientists have been contributing to a fine-tuning of the climatic variations in southern Africa after the end of the previous interglacial. Together with recent improvements in archaeologically-related dating techniques it has provided the potential for archaeologists to relate their site data, in some cases even individually-dated depositional levels, to particular climatic conditions during past stadials or interstadials in the Late Pleistocene. In this paper I examine whether there is a discernible relationship between climatic conditions and human behaviour during two extraordinary periods of the southern African MSA, the Still Bay and the Howieson's Poort.