The lithic assemblage of the Acheulean site of Namib IV (Central Namib, Namibia)

Despite a rich archaeological record, the old prehistory of Namibia, particularly from the Earlier Stone Age, is poorly documented, due to the surface context of the findings, exposed by erosional processes. In this context, human behaviors and responses to environment changes in this region during the Middle Pleistocene remain unclear. In the late 1970's, Myra Shackley surveyed the Central Namib dune desert and discovered lithic artefacts associated to fragmented fossilized bones of antelopes, elephants, zebras and buffalos at Namib IV. She interpreted this locality as an Acheulean butchery site on the shores of a paleolake. The radiometric dating suggested an age of similar to 347ka whereas biochronology broadly pointed the human occupation to the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (1-0.5 Ma). Thanks to these ages, Namib IV is currently the earliest dated evidence of human presence in the current Namib coastal desert. Contextualized by the existing chronological and paleoenvironmental data, we analyzed the unstudied lithic material recovered at Namib IV. To do so, we applied a qualitative morpho-structural approach to the stone tools and tried to reconstruct the productional schemes (chaines ope ' ratoires). Our results argue for an important economy of the raw material, a spatial fragmentation of stone tool production and an important technical homogeneity of the lithic assemblage despite few possible intrusive elements. In the light of these analyses, we finally discussed the advanced site function of Namib IV as butchery site. (C) 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Despite a rich archaeological record, the early prehistory of Namibia remains poorly documented, particularly in terms of human behaviors and responses to environmental changes during the Middle Pleistocene. Namib IV is currently the earliest evidence of human presence in the coastal desert, showing important economy and technical homogeneity in stone tool production.