Dating, archaeology and human fossils from the Middle Stone Age levels of Die Kelders, South Africa

Abstract

Die Kelders Cave 1, on the southwestern coast of South Africa, preserves a rich Later Stone Age (LSA) occupation and a thick series of Middle Stone Age (MSA) layers below. Limited excavation of the MSA layers has yielded numerous lithic artifacts and faunal remains, and nine human teeth. Sedimentologial and faunal evidence suggests that the MSA levels accumulated under comparatively cool, mesic conditions, probably at the beginning of the Last Glaciation (isotope stage 4). The MSA artifact assemblage consists overwhelmingly of quartzite débitage. Elongate flakes are fairly common; systematic retouch is extremely rare. The high frequency of silcrete artifacts in some of the lower units may signal the Howiesons Poort variant of the MSA, although diagnostic backed and truncated pieces are absent. The animal bones come from rodents, insectivores and other small creatures that were probably introduced mainly by owls, as well as from larger mammals and seabirds that were probably introduced mainly by humans. This latter component resembles the Klasies River Mouth MSA fauna in the abundance of eland relative to wild pigs, the dominance of penguins over flying birds, and the absence of fish. At both Die Kelders and Klasies River Mouth these features tentatively suggest that MSA hunter-foragers exploited animal resources less effectively than their LSA successors. Although the Die Kelders MSA human teeth tend to be somewhat larger, they are morphologically similar to modern African homologues, and they exhibit several features that tend to distinguish modern Africans among other populations. These teeth may be added to the small fossil sample that attests to the morphological modernity of the MSA inhabitants of southern Africa.