title: The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort at Sibudu and Blombos: Understanding Middle Stone Age Technologies.
abstract: The classification of archaeological assemblages in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa in terms of diversity and temporal continuity has significant implications with respect to recent cultural evolutionary models which propose either gradual accumulation or discontinuous, episodic processes for the emergence and diffusion of cultural traits. We present the results of a systematic technological and typological analysis of the Still Bay assemblages from Sibudu and Blombos. A similar approach is used in the analysis of the Howiesons Poort (HP) assemblages from Sibudu seen in comparison with broadly contemporaneous assemblages from Rose Cottage and Klasies River Cave 1A. Using our own and published data from other sites we report on the diversity between stone artifact assemblages and discuss to what extent they can be grouped into homogeneous lithic sets. The gradual evolution of debitage techniques within the Howiesons Poort sequence with a progressive abandonment of the HP technological style argues against the saltational model for its disappearance while the technological differences between the Sibudu and Blombos Still Bay artifacts considerably weaken an interpretation of similarities between the assemblages and their grouping into the same cultural unit. Limited sampling of a fragmented record may explain why simple models of cultural evolution do not seem to apply to a complex reality.
authors.affiliation: ArScAn, AnTET, Université Paris Ouest, CNRS, 92023 Nanterre, France.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Soriano
authors.affiliation: University of Colorado Museum, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0265, United States of America; School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; CNRS-PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, 33615 Pessac, France.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Villa
authors.affiliation: CNRS-PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, 33615 Pessac, France; Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Delagnes
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica and Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Ilaria
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Degano
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Laboratoire Archéologie et Peuplement de l'Afrique, Anthropology Unit, Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Luca
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pollarolo
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica and Chimica Industriale, Università di Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Jeannette J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Lucejko
authors.affiliation: Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa; Institute for Archaeology, History, Culture and Religious Studies, University of Bergen, 5007 Bergen, Norway.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Henshilwood
authors.affiliation: Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa.
authors.forename: Lyn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wadley
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001106:Archaeology; D059552:Caves; D003468:Cultural Evolution; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D013019:South Africa; D013672:Technology; D013997:Time Factors; D053001:Tool Use Behavior