Haua Fteah Research Articles

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2013: the seventh season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

AbstractThe paper reports the preliminary results from the short season of fieldwork that the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project was able to undertake with a small Anglo-Libyan team in September 2013. The work concentrated on continuing the excavation of Trench M down the southern side of the Middle Trench and of Trench D on the southern side of the Deep Sounding below it, the eventual objective being to link these so as to provide a high quality dataset of sedimentary and cultural data from the top to the bottom of the Pleistocene occupation deposit (some 12 m). The ~1 m of sediments investigated in Trench M in the 2013 fieldwork includes carbonate crusts possibly formed in oscillating sub-humid to arid climatic pulses, perhaps likely during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4, around 60,000–70,000 years ago. One of these crusts formed the base on which a hearth-like structure had been built. In Trench D evidence for human occupation appears to decline moving up the profile, coinciding with sedimentary evidence of more frequent disruptive climatic events possibly associated with latter stages of MIS 5.

The role of cryptotephra in refining the chronology of Late Pleistocene human evolution and cultural change in North Africa

Sites in North Africa hold key information for dating the presence of Homo sapiens and the distribution of Middle Stone Age (MSA), Middle Palaeolithic (MP) and Later Stone Age (LSA) cultural activity in the Late Pleistocene. Here we present new and review recently published tephrochronological evidence for five cave sites in North Africa with long MSA/MP and LSA cultural sequences. Four tephra horizons have been identified at the Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica, Libya). They include cryptotephra evidence for the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption dating to ∼39 ka that allows correlation with other Palaeolithic sequences in the eastern Mediterranean and as far north as Russia. Cryptotephra have also been recorded from the Moroccan sites of Taforalt, Rhafas and Dar es-Soltane 1. At Taforalt the geochemical composition suggests a provenance in the Azores, while examples from Sodmein (Egypt) appear to derive from central Anatolia and another unknown source. In these latter examples chemical compositional data from relevant proximal volcanic centres is currently lacking so the identification of tephra in layers of known age and cultural association provides the first reliable age determinations for distal volcanic events and their geographical extent. The future potential for tephrochronological research in North Africa is also discussed.

Recycling in the Haua Fteah sequence of North Africa

A study of lithic artefacts at Haua Fteah, North Africa, documents the recycling of scrapers and burins during the period 70–15,000 BP. Rates of recycling are high during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic but far lower during the post-LGM Epi-palaeolithic industry. These data indicate that factors other than cognitive capacity and ‘modern behaviour’ can be responsible for creating industries structured around reworking/recycling or around formalised and distinctive implement forms. In the case of Haua Fteah the proposed explanation is a shift to lithic production focussed on craft specialists in the Epi-palaeolithic, with an accompanying shift to strong normative views about socially acceptable tool forms, and probably increased functional specificity in tool use.

The chronostratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave (Cyrenaica, northeast Libya)

The 1950s excavations by Charles McBurney in the Haua Fteah, a large karstic cave on the coast of northeast Libya, revealed a deep sequence of human occupation. Most subsequent research on North African prehistory refers to his discoveries and interpretations, but the chronology of its archaeological and geological sequences has been based on very early age determinations. This paper reports on the initial results of a comprehensive multi-method dating program undertaken as part of new work at the site, involving radiocarbon dating of charcoal, land snails and marine shell, cryptotephra investigations, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments, and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating of tooth enamel. The dating samples were collected from the newly exposed and cleaned faces of the upper 7.5 m of the ∼14.0 m-deep McBurney trench, which contain six of the seven major cultural phases that he identified. Despite problems of sediment transport and reworking, using a Bayesian statistical model the new dating program establishes a robust framework for the five major lithostratigraphic units identified in the stratigraphic succession, and for the major cultural units. The age of two anatomically modern human mandibles found by McBurney in Layer XXXIII near the base of his Levalloiso-Mousterian phase can now be estimated to between 73 and 65 ka (thousands of years ago) at the 95.4% confidence level, within Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4. McBurney's Layer XXV, associated with Upper Palaeolithic Dabban blade industries, has a clear stratigraphic relationship with Campanian Ignimbrite tephra. Microlithic Oranian technologies developed following the climax of the Last Glacial Maximum and the more microlithic Capsian in the Younger Dryas. Neolithic pottery and perhaps domestic livestock were used in the cave from the mid Holocene but there is no certain evidence for plant cultivation until the Graeco-Roman period.

Late glacial explosive activity on Mount Etna: Implications for proximal–distal tephra correlations and the synchronisation of Mediterranean archives

Plinian and Ignimbrite deposits represent explosive activity (ca. 17–19calka) within the predominantly effusive and mildly explosive (Strombolian) volcanic history of Mount Etna (Italy). Proximal glasses from the Biancavilla Ignimbrites and Unit D Plinian fall deposits are characterised. Fall deposits recorded at Acireale (D1b and D2b) and Giarre (D1a and D2a) are geochemically distinct confirming they relate to different eruptions. The Acireale Plinian fall (D1b and D2b) deposits compositionally overlap with the Biancavilla Ignimbrite deposits. These explosive eruptions from Etna are considered responsible for widespread ash dispersals throughout the central Mediterranean region, producing the marker tephra layers (Y-1/Et-1) recorded in marine and lacustrine sedimentary archives. Stratigraphically these distal tephras occur at or close to the onset of the last deglaciation (Termination 1) within their respective palaeoenvironmental records, therefore making them potentially crucial tephrostratigraphic markers. This study investigates distal tephra deposits thought to be from Etna recorded in the Ionian Sea (Y-1), Lago Grande di Monticchio (LGdM, Italy; tephras TM-11 and TM-12-1), Lago di Mezzano (Italy) and the Haua Fteah cave (Libya). The glass chemistry of Y-1 tephras recorded in the Ionian Sea and at Haua Fteah is consistent with the Biancavilla Ignimbrites (16,965–17,670calyrs BP) and the upper Acireale Plinian fall (D2b). The LGdM record indicates that explosive activity on Etna associated with Unit D spans a minimum of 1540±80 varve years. TM-12-1 (19,200–19,804calyrs BP) in LGdM appears to represent the oldest distal counterpart of Etna Unit D explosive activity and is associated with the lower Acireale (D1b) Plinian eruption. The proximally undefined TM-11 (17,640–18,324calyrs BP) and distal correlatives are geochemically distinct from the Ionian Sea Y-1 tephra. Such significant compositional differences seen between distal tephra layers are not observed within individual proximal units and are likely to indicate that the distal tephras relate to separate eruptive phases. Until proximal relationships can be established, the TM-11 type Y-1 equivalents should be termed TM-11. Great care should be exercised when using these distal ash layers to synchronise sedimentary records during a crucial period of environmental change.

Phillip Vallentine Tobias (1925–2012)

Phillip Vallentine Tobias (1925–2012)

Methods and results in the reconstruction of music history in Africa and a case study of instrumental polyphony

The reconstruction of the prehistory of African musical instruments and musical structures has barely begun, despite the importance of music in African culture in the present. This paper reviews the sources of information for the prehistory and history of music in Sub-Saharan Africa with examples from direct finds, iconography and textual sources. Due to the richness of its material, and the fact only some of it is relevant to other parts of the continent, evidence from Egypt is generally not presented in detail. Regarding the Stone Age, if the claimed flute fragment from Haua Fteah (Libya) is accepted, it would be of considerable significance for claims about early cognitive capacities. If diverse sources of evidence can be combined with the rich ethnographic record, then it is possible to reconstruct large-scale patterns, both of the spread of instruments and the distribution of musical practices. A methodological example of how such data integration would work is given: a proposal for the reconstruction of polyphonic wind ensembles, a musical form characteristic of Sub-Saharan Africa from Senegambia to Mozambique. This has the particular interest of being identifiable in Saharan rock art. The evidence suggests that archaeologists may not be identifying musical instrument fragments in their excavations and the combination of ethnography and other sources allows us to explore a much broader range of culture history than is usually recognised.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the sixth season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

AbstractThe paper reports on the sixth season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP) undertaken in September 2012. As in the spring 2012 season, work focussed on the Haua Fteah cave and on studies of materials excavated in previous seasons, with no fieldwork undertaken elsewhere in the Gebel Akhdar. An important discovery, in a sounding excavated below the base of McBurney's 1955 Deep Sounding (Trench S), is of a rockfall or roof collapse conceivably dating to the cold climatic regime of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (globally dated to c. 190–130 ka) but more likely the result of a seismic event within MIS 5 (globally dated to c. 130–80 ka). The sediments and associated molluscan fauna in Trench S and in Trench D, a trench being cut down the side of the Deep Sounding, indicate that this part of the cave was at least seasonally waterlogged during the accumulation, probably during MIS 5, of the ~6.5 m of sediment cut through by the Deep Sounding. Evidence for human frequentation of the cave in this period is more or less visible depending on how close the trench area was to standing water as it fluctuated through time. Trench M, the trench being cut down the side of McBurney's Middle Trench, has now reached the depth of the latest Middle Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic (Levalloiso-Mousterian) industries. The preliminary indications from its excavation are that the transition from the Levalloiso-Mousterian to the blade-based Upper Palaeolithic or Late Stone Age Dabban industry was complex and perhaps protracted, at a time when the climate was oscillating between warm-stage stable environmental conditions and colder and more arid environments. The estimated age of the sediments, c. 50–40 ka, places these oscillations within the earlier part of MIS 3 (globally dated to 60–24 ka), when global climates experienced rapid fluctuations as part of an overall trend to increasing aridity and cold.

Occupation, Changing Environments and Rockshelter Site Formation Processes in Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Libya: A Micromorphological Perspective from the Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica

Occupation, Changing Environments and Rockshelter Site Formation Processes in Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Libya: A Micromorphological Perspective from the Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica

Dating the Palaeolithic occupation of the Haua Fteah cave, Libya, using cryptotephrochronology

Dating the Palaeolithic occupation of the Haua Fteah cave, Libya, using cryptotephrochronology

The Middle Palaeolithic of Cyrenaica: Is there an Aterian at the Haua Fteah and does it matter?

The work of Charles McBurney in the 1950s described the Middle Palaeolithic of Cyrenaica, Libya based upon fieldwork at several localities including the Haua Fteah. The deep stratigraphy of that site has been used as a measure of the Middle Palaeolithic for the area and is being re-examined by the Cyrenaica Prehistory Project. Middle Palaeolithic industries there include the Pre-Aurignacian and Levalloiso–Mousterian and the latter, at least, is associated with modern humans in the form of two mandibles. McBurney and subsequent workers have been ambivalent about the presence of Aterian assemblages at the site and given the association of modern human remains with Levalloiso–Mousterian material is this significant?The nature of industrial succession at the Haua Fteah is discussed following analysis of the McBurney archive and further fieldwork at the site and in its landscape. There is no clear pre-Modern human presence yet demonstrated and so all the Middle Palaeolithic material at the Haua Fteah could be the product of modern humans. If this is so, why do the industries vary and does the reason for this variation explain the absence of the Aterian?The Aterian is present in the surrounding landscape. The Aterian has a clear association with modern humans in the Maghreb and is increasingly seen as an indicator of modern human presence. The sequence at the Haua Fteah can assist in formulating appropriate hypotheses for the processes of modern human dispersals across North Africa and beyond.

The Aterian and its place in the North African Middle Stone Age

The Aterian is a frequently cited manifestation of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of North Africa, yet its character and meaning have remained largely opaque, as attention has focused almost exclusively on the typology of ‘tanged’, or ‘pedunculated’, lithics. Observations of technological similarities between the Aterian and other regional technocomplexes suggest that the Aterian should be considered within the wider context of the North African MSA and not as an isolated phenomenon. This paper critically reviews the meaning and history of research of the Aterian. This highlights a number of serious issues with definitions and interpretations of this technocomplex, ranging from a lack of definitional consensus to problems with the common view of the Aterian as a ‘desert adaptation’. Following this review, the paper presents the results of a quantitative study of six North African MSA assemblages (Aterian, Nubian Complex and ‘MSA’). Correspondence and Principal Components Analyses are applied, which suggest that the patterns of similarity and difference demonstrated do not simplistically correlate with traditional divisions between named industries. These similarity patterns are instead structured geographically and it is suggested that they reflect a population differentiation that cannot be explained by isolation and distance alone. Particular results include the apparent uniqueness of Haua Fteah compared to all the other assemblages and the observation that the Aterian in northeast Africa is more similar to the Nubian in that region than to the Aterian in the Maghreb. The study demonstrates the existence of population structure in the North African MSA, which has important implications for the evolutionary dynamics of modern human dispersals.

Phillip Vallentine Tobias (1925–2012)

Phillip Vallentine Tobias (1925–2012)

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave

AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.

Resource pressure and environmental change on the North African littoral: Epipalaeolithic to Roman gastropods from Cyrenaica, Libya

This paper discusses the marine and terrestrial shell on Epipalaeolithic to Classical-period sites in the Cyrenaican coastlands, northeast Libya, with particular reference to the Haua Fteah, with parallel studies at a late-Roman farmstead and two small caves. Together they provide evidence for coastal and terrestrial environments and for the continued nutritional importance of gastropods to humans during the Holocene. Land snail evidence is consistent with regional vegetation in coastal Cyrenaica becoming increasingly open through the Holocene, as a result of some combination of climate change and human impact. Marine species suggest that the coastline near the Haua had been rocky throughout the Holocene. At Hagfet al-Gama, changing faunas provide evidence for sand encroachment onto a previously rocky shoreline in Hellenistic times. A biometric study of Osilinus turbinatus shows that in the archaeological sites these shells are systematically smaller than modern specimens, providing evidence for long-term dietary stress in the human populations around the Haua Fteah, with particularly severe stress in parts of the Epipalaeolithic. A biometric study of Patella spp. provided evidence for size-selection, but also seems to show evidence for resource pressure. It is unlikely that variations in resource pressure seen in the mollusc biometrics are the result of climatic stress or natural ecological factors and explanations must be sought in society-environment dynamics.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2011: Late-Holocene environments and human activity from a cave fill in Cyrenaica, Libya

AbstractLittle is known about late Holocene environmental change in Cyrenaica. The late Holocene sequence in the Haua Fteah, the key regional site, is highly discontinuous and characterised by stable-burning deposits. The geoarchaeology of the late-Holocene cave fill of a small cave, CP1565, located close to the Haua Fteah, is described. The well-stratified sequence, dating from the fourth century AD to the present day, provides a glimpse of life at the bottom of the settlement hierarchy and of changing environments over the last 1600 years, with degraded vegetation and aridity in the ‘Little Ice Age’.

Site formation processes in caves: The Holocene sediments of the Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, Libya

Caves have yielded some of the most globally important archaeological sequences, but often their interpretation has suffered from assumptions about cave sedimentary processes. Caves contain distinctive sedimentary environments: this has major implications for the understanding of contained archaeological materials. This paper describes and analyses the Holocene sediments in the Haua Fteah, a sequence regarded as essentially continuous by the original excavator. 50 years after it was first excavated, the Haua's Epipalaeolithic to post-Classical chronological range and rich finds make it still the key Holocene archaeological site in North Africa. The reassessment shows, however, that the sequence is strongly discontinuous and this has major implications for the reinterpretation of the site, as the highly-resolved archaeological record is thus likely to reflect a series of brief occupations, rather than continuous human activity. As with many caves, the sedimentary record in the Haua Fteah is an extremely sensitive indicator of environments and processes in the wider landscape. Secure understanding of sedimentary process, from analysis of the highly individual records found in caves, is essential for full understanding of their contained archaeology.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2010: the fourth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2009 fieldwork

AbstractThe paper reports on the fourth (2010) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results of analyses of artefacts and organic materials collected in the 2009 season. Ground-based LiDar has provided both an accurate 3D scan of the Haua Fteah cave and information on the cave's morphometry or origins. The excavations in the cave focussed on Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ layers below the base of the Middle Trench beside the McBurney Deep Sounding (Trench D) and on Final Palaeolithic ‘Oranian’ layers beside the upper part of the Middle Trench (Trench M). Although McBurney referred to the upper part of the Deep Sounding as more or less sterile, the 2010 excavations found evidence for small-scale but regular human presence in the form of stone artefacts and debitage, though given the sedimentary context the latter are unlikely to represent in situ knapping. The excavations of Trench M extended from the basal Capsian layers investigated in 2009 through Oranian layers to the transition with the Dabban Upper Palaeolithic. Some 17,000 lithic pieces have been studied from the Capsian and Oranian layers excavated in Trench M, in an area measuring less than 2 m by 1 m by 1.1 m deep, along with numerous animal bones, molluscs, and macrobotanical remains, as well as occasional shell beads. Preliminary studies of the lithics, bones, molluscs, and plant remains are revealing the changing character of late Pleistocene (Oranian) and early Holocene (Capsian) occupation in the Haua Fteah. Alongside the work in the Haua Fteah, the project continued its assessment of the Quaternary and archaeological sequences of the Cyrenaican coastland and completed a transect survey of surface lithic materials and their landform contexts from the pre-desert across the Gebel Akhdar to the coast, with a new focus on the al-Marj basin. Significant differences are emerging in patterns of Middle Palaeolithic and later hominin occupation and palaeodemography.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2009: the third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2008 fieldwork

AbstractThe paper reports on the third (2009) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results from the analysis of materials collected in the previous (2007 and 2008) fieldwork. Sediments in a 14 m-deep core drilled beside the McBurney trench provide an invaluable overview of the overall stratigraphic sequence, including at depths reached by the 1950s Deep Sounding but not yet investigated by the present project. Sampling of newly-exposed faces of the original excavation trench for dating (14C, ESR, OSL, U-series) and palaeoenvirommental indicators continued. Excavation was begun of sediments assigned to the early Holocene Libyco-Capsian (McBurney's Layer X), and of Pre-Aurignacian layers beside the top of the Deep Sounding. The Libyco-Capsian layers are particularly prolific in lithic debris, shells, and animal bones; preliminary analysis of the lithics suggests a development from Typical to Upper Capsian within the layers excavated in 2009. Geoarchaeological survey along the littoral to the west and east of the Haua Fteah identified complex sequences spanning most of the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Geoarchaeological survey south of the Haua Fteah characterized the major landforms of the Gebel Akhdar mountain and of the pre-desert and desert-edge zones further south, with Late Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic) material being found especially on the southern side of the Gebel Akhdar, and Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic) material in the pre-desert and desert regions. The first suite of14C dates (from charcoal samples taken in 2007) indicates the use of the Haua Fteah by Oranian hunter-gatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum and in the succeeding millennia, but not in the Younger Dryas cold/dry phase (c. 11,000–10,000 cal. BC), with Libyco-Capsian occupation resuming soon after the beginning of the Holocenec. 9000 cal. BC, suggesting that the cave, and perhaps the Gebel Akhdar in general, have a complex history as refugia for human settlement during the Pleistocene.

DIGITAL CEMENTUM LUMINANCE ANALYSIS AND THE HAUA FTEAH HOMININS: HOW SEASONALITY AND SEASON OF USE CHANGED THROUGH TIME*

The importance of environmental seasonality and the seasonal cycling of resources to human populations make studies of human responses to seasonality useful to test hypotheses about short‐ and long‐term changes in human behaviour. This paper utilizes digital dental cementum luminance analysis in order to better understand patterns of the seasons of death of Ammotragus lervia at Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, and to test whether long‐term climatic changes can be detected in dental cement. The overall pattern of the season of death of A. lervia at Haua Fteah is that of year‐round utilization, with a slight increase over time in A. lervia use during the growth period/summer time. The use of digital cementum luminance analysis (DCLA) to detect changes in the seasonal differences between temperatures indicates a trend for increased seasonality in temperature over the past 40 000 years at Haua Fteah. Furthermore, DCLA patterns in the more recent assemblages indicate a shift to a warmer climate from Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 to MIS 1.