Journal
JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
Volume 57, Issue 1, Pages 63-74Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.03.005
Keywords
Southern Africa; Central Africa; Niassa Rift; Mozambique; Ngalue Cave; Electron Spin Resonance; U-series dating; Late Pleistocene; Middle Stone Age; Lithic analysis; Discoidal technology
Categories
Funding
- Hilario Madiquida, Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo
- Mozambican Ministry of Education and Culture [03-2003, 01-2007]
- Canada Research Chairs program
- CFI [201550]
- The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [410-2007-0697, 148244]
- American Embassy in Maputo (Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation)
- National Geographic Society [8177-07]
- NSF [ILI 9151111]
- Williams College
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Direct evidence for a systematic occupation of the African tropics during the early late Pleistocene is lacking. Here, we report a record of human occupation between 105-42 ka, based on results from a radiometrically-dated cave section from the Mozambican segment of the Niassa (Malawi/Nyasa) Rift called Ngalue. The sedimentary sequence from bottom to top has five units. We concentrate on the so-called Middle Beds, which contain a Middle Stone Age industry characterized by the use of the discoidal reduction technique. A significant typological feature is the presence of formal types such as points, scrapers, awls, and microliths. Special objects consist of grinders/core-axes covered by ochre. Ngalue is one of the few directly-dated Pleistocene sites located along the biogeographical corridor for modern human dispersals that links east, central, and southern Africa, and, with further study, may shed new light on hominin cave habitats during the late Pleistocene. (c) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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