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Blombos Cave: The Middle Stone Age Levels

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

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Introduction

Blombos Cave, an archaeological site situated on the southern Cape coastline, South Africa, contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits dated at between c. 130 and 72 ka (ka = 1000 years ago), possibly the most important period in the early development of modern human behavior. Since 1992 each excavation season at the site has yielded important new information on the behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens. This includes, at c. 75 ka, among the earliest known evidence for the manufacture of personal ornaments on shell beads, formal bone tool production, engraving of abstract designs on ochre and bone, the deliberate heating of silcrete, a lithic raw material, and the subsequent manufacture of bifacial stone points on this material using pressure flaking. In the 100 ka levels, a complex toolkit was uncovered that provides the oldest known evidence for the use of containers and for the production of an ochre-rich pigment or paint. These findings from Blombos Cave and subsequent...

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References

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Further Reading

  • Henshilwood, C.S., and J. Sealy. 1997. Bone artefacts from the middle stone age at Blombos cave, southern cape, South Africa. Current Anthropology 38 (5): 890.

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  • Jacobs, Z., E.H. Hayes, R.G. Roberts, R.F. Galbraith, and C.S. Henshilwood. 2013. An improved OSL chronology for the still bay layers at Blombos cave, South Africa: Further tests of single-grain dating procedures and a re-evaluation of the timing of the still bay industry across southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (1): 579–594.

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  • Soressi, M. 2005. Aux origines de la «modernité» comportementale en Afrique du sud il ya 75 000 ans. Annales de la Fondation Fyssen 20: 124–131.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Christopher Stuart Henshilwood & Karen Loise van Niekerk

  2. Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Christopher Stuart Henshilwood

Authors
  1. Christopher Stuart Henshilwood
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  2. Karen Loise van Niekerk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher Stuart Henshilwood .

Section Editor information

  1. Service of Prehistory, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Marcel Otte

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© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

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Henshilwood, C.S., van Niekerk, K.L. (2018). Blombos Cave: The Middle Stone Age Levels. In: Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1892-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51726-1_1892-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51726-1

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