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Southern and East African Middle Stone Age: Geography and Culture

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

State of Knowledge and Current Debate

Introduction

The term “Middle Stone Age” was introduced by South African pioneer archaeologists Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in 1929 to describe stone tool assemblages technologically distinct from those of the Early and Later Stone Age periods. Originally it referred to assemblages in which convergent flaking on prepared cores was used to produce unretouched pointed flakes with faceted platforms. It is now known that the Middle Stone Age encompasses a much wider range of technological and typological variability. The original definition of Middle Stone Age referred specifically to prepared platforms, but a wide variety of platform types, including plain, punctiform, dihedral, and laminar platforms, occur. According to Goodwin and van Riet Lowe, prepared core methodology is typical of the Middle Stone Age. Prepared cores are designed to produce preformed blanks for use with little or no further shaping by retouch. This encompasses as Levallois...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Human Evolution, University of Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, WITS, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa

    Sarah Wurz

  2. Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Sarah Wurz

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  1. Sarah Wurz
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Correspondence to Sarah Wurz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith

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Wurz, S. (2014). Southern and East African Middle Stone Age: Geography and Culture. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1887

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