Journal
JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLUTION
Volume 59, Issue 3-4, Pages 412-424Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.003
Keywords
Middle Stone Age; Mossel Bay; Shell midden; Mollusks
Categories
Funding
- South African Heritage Resources Agency
- National Science Foundation (USA) [BCS-9912465, BCS-0130713, BCS-0524087]
- Huxleys
- Hyde Family Foundation
- Institute for Human Origins
- Arizona State University
- ICREA Funding Source: Custom
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Systematic collection of shellfish has been increasingly recognized as an important component of human adaptation to aquatic environments and as part of the archaeological evidence found in association with the appearance of early Homo sapiens. Over the last forty years, South Africa has played a prominent role in recording the earliest evidence of shellfish in and substantial expansion of the early human diets as shown by several Middle Stone Age (MSA) coastal sites along the west and south coasts. In this paper, we report on the abundance of marine invertebrate species from PP13B cave and interpret these abundances in terms of paleoenvironmental changes, the likely shellfish procurement behaviors involved in both rocky and sandy shore contexts, and the significance of the collection of marine shells for purposes other than food collection. Possible cognitive implications of shellfish gathering as a reflection of modern behavior are also suggested. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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