Exploitation of large bovids and seals at Middle and Later Stone Age sites in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract The faunal remains from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) layers at Klasies River Mouth (KRM) suggest that South African MSA people hunted and gathered less effectively than their Later Stone Age (LSA) successors. The newly enlarged faunal sample from the MSA layers of Die Kelders Cave 1 (DK1) supports the same basic conclusion. In particular, unlike LSA people living in comparable circumstances, the MSA inhabitants of both DK1 and KRM took many fewer buffaloes than eland, even though buffaloes were probably more common near the sites. The reason for the difference may be that MSA people lacked projectile weapons, and were thus forced to rely on relatively docile species like eland. Eland may have been particularly favored because they are very amenable to driving, and the abundance of prime-age adult individuals at both DK1 and KRM may reflect the relative ease with which eland could be driven over nearby cliffs. Also in contrast to LSA people, the MSA occupants of DK1, and especially KRM, took more subadult and adult seals compared with 9–11 month olds. In this respect, MSA people resembled the brown hyenas who accumulated seal bones in a fossil den at Boegoeberg 1 (BOG1). The relative lack of young seal bones at BOG1 probably reflects the hyenas' coastal presence throughout the year, including times when young seal wash-ups are unusual. By extension, the relative rarity of young seals in MSA ( vs. LSA) sites may mean that MSA people failed to focus their coastal visits on the season of peak young seal availability. Together with artefactual and other faunal contrasts between the MSA and LSA, the differences in large bovid and seal exploitation help explain why MSA people did not spread from Africa, even though they were anatomically more modern than their Eurasian contemporaries.