Middle Pleistocene lithic raw material foraging strategies at Kathu Pan 1, Northern Cape, South Africa

Abstract

There is a general trend for increased selectivity and longer transport distances of lithic raw materials for flintknapping in the Middle Stone Age compared to the Earlier Stone Age. The Stratum 4a assemblage at Kathu Pan 1, Northern Cape, South Africa, which dates to ~500ka, presents a unique opportunity for assessing Pleistocene raw material foraging strategies at the onset of the Middle Stone Age. In this paper, I identify potential primary and secondary sources for the raw materials used for lithic reduction at Kathu Pan 1 (KP1), and quantify raw material variability at nearby secondary sources. Patterns of raw material selection are identified within the KP1 Stratum 4a assemblage and compared to a sample from the underlying Stratum 4b, an Acheulean assemblage, to test for a temporal pattern. Raw material use during the Stratum 4a occupation of Kathu Pan, which is focused on abundant locally available resources for flintknapping, is consistent with the general pattern for Earlier Stone Age foraging strategies, and differs from evidence at some more recent Middle Stone Age sites that show longer transport distances and increased selectivity for certain high-value materials. While many aspects of technology change at KP1 ~500ka, these technological shifts are not associated with a significant change in the kinds of raw material that were exploited. There are, however, differences in how the raw material was exploited. In Stratum 4a, there is evidence that hominins intentionally exploited the natural banding in banded ironstone formation in order to produce elongated products, and this evidence is lacking in the underlying Acheulean assemblage.