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Identifying Raw Material Transportation and Reduction Strategies from the Lithic Scatters at Elandsdrift Farm (Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site), South Africa

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Abstract

The Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site in South Africa is renowned for its karstic cave systems, which have yielded extensive fossil and stone tool assemblages dating to the Plio-Pleistocene period. The archaeological record from these caves has provided significant evidence for the evolution of lithic technology in southern Africa. Open-air sites have also been documented in this region, although they rarely receive scientific attention due to their lack of spatial and stratigraphic contexts. However, archaeological research has demonstrated that lithic production strategies were organized through landscape-scale constraints including the availability of raw materials and the energetic costs of their transport. As such, the study of open-air Stone Age sites in the Cradle of Humankind can potentially offer insight into the relationships between raw material procurement and reduction processes in this region. Here, we present a case study from the open-air locality of Elandsdrift Farm, which preserves a palimpsest of Earlier and Middle Stone Age lithic materials. While the chronological and spatial contexts of this locality present significant interpretative challenges, the Elandsdrift Farm lithic materials are not without scientific value. A landscape archaeological approach is employed to explore the influence of raw material transport on tool-making. Trends in core reduction intensity and flaking efficiency suggest that landform ruggedness and distances traveled to procure raw materials significantly influenced lithic production strategies throughout the Early to Middle Pleistocene. Despite the contextual challenges presented by open-air localities, landscape archaeological methods can inform the economic aspects of lithic scatters in this region, which cannot be easily inferred from archaeological assemblages in cave contexts.

Résumé

Le “Cradle of Humankind” en Afrique du Sud est. renommé pour ses systèmes de cavernes karstiques, qui ont rapporté de vastes assemblages de fossiles et d’outils en pierre datant de la période Plio-Pléistocène. Ces cavernes ont fourni des preuves importantes de l’évolution de la technologie en Afrique australe. Bien que des outils lithiques aient aussi été trouvés dans des sites en plein air, les archéologues ne les ont pris en compte dans l’étude de la technologie et des processus de production d’outils en pierre. Cependant, la recherche archéologique a montré que les stratégies de production lithique étaient organisées par des contraintes liées au paysage incluant la disponibilité des matières premières et les coûts énergétiques de leur transport. En tant que tel., l’étude des sites en plein air dans le Berceau de l’Humanité peut potentiellement offrir un aperçu des relations économiques entre l’approvisionnement en matières premières et les processus de réduction dans cette région. Pour tester cette hypothèse, nous présentons une étude de cas de la localité en plein air de la Elandsdrift Farm, qui conserve un palimpseste de matériaux lithiques du Paléolithique inferieur et moyen. Tandis que les contextes chronologiques et spatiaux de cette localité présentent des défis d’interprétation importants, les matériaux lithiques de la Elandsdrift Farm ne manquent pas de valeur scientifique. Cet article utilize l’approche de l’archéologie du paysage pour explorer l’influence du transport de matières premières sur la fabrication d’outils. Les tendances de l’intensité de la réduction principale et l’efficacité de l’ecaillage suggèrent que l’irrégularité du terrain et les distances pour l’approvisionnement en matières premières ont significativement influencé les stratégies de production lithique au cours du Pléistocène moyen à supérieur. Malgré les défis contextuels présentés par les localités en plein air, les méthodes d’archéologie du paysage peuvent informer sur les aspects économiques des concentrations d’artifacts en pierre dans cette région, un sujet qui ne peut pas être facilement déduit à partir d’assemblages archéologiques provenant de contextes de cavernes.

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Acknowledgements

D.T. would like to thank Allin, Michelle, Talitha, and Gabor Tasker for their support. We are grateful to the landowners of Elandsdrift Farm, Nikki and Carlos Faria, who permitted us to work with the archaeological materials. D.T.’s research was sponsored by the DST/NRF. D.J.S. has received grants from the NRF, CoE, PAST, IFAS, the French Embassy, and the Leakey Foundation. Our sincere thanks to Prof. Kathleen Kuman for her support and comments on this manuscript and to the two anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa

    Matthew V. Caruana

  2. Archaeology Department, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, WITS, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa

    Daniel Tasker & Dominic J. Stratford

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  1. Matthew V. Caruana
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Caruana, M.V., Tasker, D. & Stratford, D.J. Identifying Raw Material Transportation and Reduction Strategies from the Lithic Scatters at Elandsdrift Farm (Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site), South Africa. Afr Archaeol Rev 36, 271–289 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09331-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09331-3

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