Middle Stone Age

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Middle Stone Age ( short: MSA ; German: Middle Stone Age ) is the English term used in German for the period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Later Stone Age . The time period roughly corresponds to the European Middle Paleolithic and not the much more recent Middle Stone Age, which is only referred to as such in northern Alpine Europe .

Definition and time frame

The threefolding of the African Stone Age was first formulated in 1929 by AJH Goodwin and C. van Riet Löwe, in the narrower sense for South Africa. The term was later expanded to include East Africa and is now used in large parts of Africa. Compared to the Early Stone Age, the typical hand axes are missing. Microlithic tool forms that characterize the Later Stone Age, on the other hand , do not yet exist (except in the Pinnacle Point Caves 5 and 6). The authors point out the faceting of the face remnants and the production of pointed tees as a characteristic technological feature . The main forms of the MSA are modified tips.

They saw the sequence Glen Gray Industry , Pietersburg Variation , Still Bay Industry and Howieson's Poort Variation as a development series, which is now considered obsolete.

At the beginning of the Middle Stone Age there are different definitions: In the modern definition of the beginning of the Levallois technique , it begins about 300,000 years ago, in the traditional sense with the New Pleistocene 130,000 years ago. The transition from the Acheulean -Industrien the Early Stone Age to the MSA is especially in the Middle Awash- basin ( Middle Awash ) in Ethiopia and in the Olorgesailie -Formation in Kenya archaeologically tangible. The Middle Stone Age ended about 50,000 years ago with the transition to microlithic blade industries of the Later Stone Age .

Regional industries

Today there are various regional industries of the MSA in Africa, such as the Atérien in Morocco and Algeria, in the area of ​​the Atlas Mountains and the northern Sahara . It is characterized by bifacially retouched tips, some of which are stalked. Industry is associated with the anatomically modern human being .

Other regional manifestations are the Lupemban industry (Zaire), the Bambata industry (Zimbabwe) as well as the Pietersburg industry and Howieson's Poort industry (South Africa).

The late industry at Howieson's Poort already contains blunt-backed blades and therefore has parallels to the earliest Upper Paleolithic industries of the Levant , such as the Pre- Aurignacia and Amudia there .

References

literature

  • Ralf Vogelsang: Middle Stone Age sites in Southwest Namibia. Monographs on the archeology and environment of Africa, Volume 11, Heinrich Barth Institute, Cologne 1991.

Web links

Commons : Middle Stone Age  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Astley John Hilary Goodwin, Clarence van Riet Löwe: The Stone Age Cultures of South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum, Volume 27, 1929, pp. 1-289.
  2. ↑ J. Yellen, A. Brooks, D. Helgren, M. Tappen, S. Ambrose, R. Bonnefille, J. Feathers, G. Goodfriend, K. Ludwig, P. Renne, K. Stewart: The archeology of Aduma: Middle Stone Age sites in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia. PaleoAnthropology 3, 2005, pp. 25-100.
  3. ↑ On the technique of microlith production, which was later apparently forgotten again about 70,000 years ago in Pinnacle Point, cf. Kyle S. Brown, Curtis W. Marean, Andy RI Herries, et al. a .: Fire As an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans. Science 14, Aug 2009, pp. 859-862.
  4. ^ Alison S. Brooks: Recent perspectives on the Middle Stone Age of Africa. Paper presented at the African Genesis Symposium on Hominid Evolution in Africa, Johannesburg 2006.