Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T15:49:03.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 18 - Cultural Evolution: From Tools to Art and Genes

from Part IV - Evolutionary Transitions: From Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2021

Norman Owen-Smith
Norman Owen-Smith
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Get access

Summary

This chapter describes adaptive advances in cultural artefacts in the form of stone or bone tools and rock art and relates them to genetic linkages among local populations. The earliest Odowan cores and flakes gave way to bifacial Acheulian points and cleavers and later to finely crafted artefacts inaugurating the Middle Stone Age, associated with the emergence of modern humans. During the late Pleistocene further cultural advances were exhibited by inhabitants of coastal caves in the south-western Cape when the interior was largely uninhabited. The use of spear and arrow points fostered the movement out of Africa and may have contributed to extinctions among large grazers. Genomic evidence reinforces movements by language groups spreading herding and farming through Africa. Khoe-San and Hadza people retained the hunter-gatherer lifestyle into modern times. Rock art depicts the ritual significance of large mammals in their culture. African people lived alongside abundant wild herbivores until Europeans brought guns.

Keywords

OldowanAcheulianMiddle Stone Agerock arthunter-gatherersbows and arrowsherdingpopulation bottlenecksKhoe-SanHadza
Type
Chapter
Information
Only in Africa
The Ecology of Human Evolution
 , pp. 301 - 328
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Suggested Further Reading

Barham, L; Mitchell, P. (2008) The First Africans. African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to the Most Recent Foragers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Plummer, T. (2004) Flaked stones and old bones. Biological and cultural evolution at the dawn of technology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 47:118–164.Google Scholar

References

Rightmire, GP. (2004) Brain size and encephalization in early to mid‐Pleistocene Homo. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists 124:109–123.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braun, DR, et al. (2019) Earliest known Oldowan artifacts at >2.58 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia, highlight early technological diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 116:11712–11717.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Semaw, S, et al. (1997) 2.5-million-year-old stone tools from Gona, Ethiopia. Nature 385:333–336.Google Scholar
Villmoare, B, et al. (2015) Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia. Science 347:1352–1355.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuman, K. (2014) Oldowan industrial complex. In Smith, C (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, pp. 5560–5569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chazan, M, et al. (2012) The Oldowan horizon in Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa): archaeological, geological, paleontological and paleoclimatic evidence. Journal of Human Evolution 63:859–866.Google Scholar
Kuman, K, et al. (2018) The Oldowan industry from Swartkrans cave, South Africa, and its relevance for the African Oldowan. Journal of Human Evolution 123:52–69.Google Scholar
Sahnouni, M, et al. (2018) 1.9-million- and 2.4-million-year-old artifacts and stone tool-cutmarked bones from Ain Boucherit, Algeria. Science 362:1297–1301.Google Scholar
Harmand, S, et al. (2015) 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 521:310–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dominguez-Rodrigo, M; Alcalá, L. (2019) Pliocene archaeology at Lomekwi 3? New evidence fuels more skepticism. Journal of African Archaeology 17:173–176.Google Scholar
Archer, W, et al. (2020) What is ‘in situ’? A reply to Harmand et al. (2015). Journal of Human Evolution 142:102740.Google Scholar
Panger, MA, et al. (2002) Older than the Oldowan? Rethinking the emergence of hominin tool use. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 11:235–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boesch, C; Boesch-Achermann, H. (2000) The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest: Behavioural Ecology and Evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stammers, RC, et al. (2018) The first bone tools from Kromdraai and stone tools from Drimolen, and the place of bone tools in the South African Earlier Stone Age. Quaternary International 495:87–101.Google Scholar
Plummer, T. (2004) Flaked stones and old bones: biological and cultural evolution at the dawn of technology. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125:118–164.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chazan, M, et al. (2008) Radiometric dating of the Earlier Stone Age sequence in excavation I at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa: preliminary results. Journal of Human Evolution 55:1–11.Google Scholar
Kuman, K. (2014) The Acheulean industrial complex. In Smith, C (ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, pp. 7–18.Google Scholar
De la Torre, I. (2016) The origins of the Acheulean: past and present perspectives on a major transition in human evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371:20150245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uribelarrea, D, et al. (2019) A geoarchaeological reassessment of the co-occurrence of the oldest Acheulean and Oldowan in a fluvial ecotone from lower middle Bed II (1.7 ma) at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania). Quaternary International 526:39–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dominguez-Rodrigo, M; Pickering, TR. (2017) The meat of the matter: an evolutionary perspective on human carnivory. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 52:4–32.Google Scholar
Organista, E, et al. (2019) Taphonomic analysis of the level 3b fauna at BK, Olduvai Gorge. Quaternary International 526:116–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, GM, et al. (2019) Subsistence strategies throughout the African Middle Pleistocene: faunal evidence for behavioral change and continuity across the Earlier to Middle Stone Age transition. Journal of Human Evolution 127:1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tryon, CA; McBrearty, S. (2002) Tephrostratigraphy and the Acheulian to Middle Stone Age transition in the Kapthurin formation, Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 42:211–235.Google Scholar
Potts, R, et al. (2020) Increased ecological resource variability during a critical transition in hominin evolution. Science Advances 6:eabc8975.Google Scholar
Basell, LS. (2008) Middle Stone Age (MSA) site distributions in eastern Africa and their relationship to Quaternary environmental change, refugia and the evolution of Homo sapiens. Quaternary Science Reviews 27:2484–2498.Google Scholar
Blinkhorn, J; Grove, M. (2018) The structure of the Middle Stone Age of eastern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 195:1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scerri, EML. (2017) The North African Middle Stone Age and its place in recent human evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 26:119–135.Google Scholar
Lahr, MM;Foley, RA. (2016) Human evolution in late Quaternary eastern Africa. In Jones, SC; Stewart, BA (eds) Africa from MIS 6-2. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 215–231.Google Scholar
Kusimba, SB. (1999) Hunter–gatherer land use patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18:165–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuman, K, et al. (2020) The Fauresmith of South Africa: a new assemblage from Canteen Kopje and significance of the technology in human and cultural evolution. Journal of Human Evolution 148:102884.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilkins, J, et al. (2012) Evidence for early hafted hunting technology. Science 338:942–946.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robbins, LH, et al. (2016) The Kalahari during MIS 6-2 (190–12 ka): archaeology, paleoenvironment, and population dynamics. In Jones, SC; Stewart, BA (eds) Africa from MIS 6-2. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 175–193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barham, L; Mitchell, P. (1992) The First Africans: African Archaeology from the Earliest Toolmakers to Most Recent Foragers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Marean, CW, et al. (2007) Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449:905–908.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wurz, S. (2016) Development of the archaeological record during the middle stone age. In Knight, J; Grab, SW (eds) Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa: Physical and Human Dimensions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 371–384.Google Scholar
Marean, CW. (2015) An evolutionary anthropological perspective on modern human origins. Annual Review of Anthropology 44:533–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marean, CW. (2016) The transition to foraging for dense and predictable resources and its impact on the evolution of modern humans. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 371:20150239.Google Scholar
Reynard, JP; Henshilwood, CS. (2019) Environment versus behaviour: zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses of fauna from the Still Bay layers at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Quaternary International 500:159–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynard, JP; Wurz, S. (2020) The palaeoecology of Klasies River, South Africa: an analysis of the large mammal remains from the 1984–1995 excavations of Cave 1 and 1A. Quaternary Science Reviews 237:106301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larbey, C, et al. (2019) Cooked starchy food in hearths ca. 120 kya and 65 kya (MIS 5e and MIS 4) from Klasies River Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 131:210–227.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
d’Errico, F, et al. (2017) Identifying early modern human ecological niche expansions and associated cultural dynamics in the South African Middle Stone Age. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114:7869–7876.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Backwell, L, et al. (2008) Middle stone age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35:1566–1580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombard, M. (2011) Quartz-tipped arrows older than 60 ka: further use-trace evidence from Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:1918–1930.Google Scholar
Bradfield, J, et al. (2020) Further evidence for bow hunting and its implications more than 60 000 years ago: results of a use-trace analysis of the bone point from Klasies River Main site, South Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 236:106295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grün, R; Beaumont, P. (2001) Border Cave revisited: a revised ESR chronology. Journal of Human Evolution 40:467–482.Google Scholar
Bousman, CB; Brink, JS. (2018) The emergence, spread, and termination of the Early Later Stone Age event in South Africa and southern Namibia. Quaternary International 495:116–135.Google Scholar
d’Errico, F, et al. (2012) Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109:13214–13219.Google Scholar
Klein, RG. (1979) Stone Age exploitation of animals in southern Africa: Middle Stone Age people living in southern Africa more than 30,000 years ago exploited local animals less effectively than the Later Stone Age people who succeeded them. American Scientist 67:151–160.Google Scholar
Mitchell, PJ. (2016) Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers and herders. In Knight, J; Grab, SW (eds) Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 385–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bae, CJ, et al. (2017) On the origin of modern humans: Asian perspectives. Science 358:eaai9067.Google Scholar
Henn, BM, et al. (2011) Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108:5154–5162.Google Scholar
Klein, RG. (2019) Population structure and the evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 28:179–188.Google Scholar
O’Driscoll, CA; Thompson, JC. (2018) The origins and early elaboration of projectile technology. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 27:30–45.Google Scholar
Shea, JJ; Sisk, ML. (2010) Complex projectile technology and Homo sapiens dispersal into western Eurasia. PaleoAnthropology 2010:100–122.Google Scholar
Rito, T, et al. (2019) A dispersal of Homo sapiens from southern to eastern Africa immediately preceded the out-of-Africa migration. Scientific Reports 9:1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garcea, EAA. (2012) Successes and failures of human dispersals from North Africa. Quaternary International 270:119–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langley, MC, et al. (2016) Poison arrows and bone utensils in late Pleistocene eastern Africa: evidence from Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar. Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 51:155–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shipton, C, et al. (2018) 78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest. Nature Communications 9:1–8.Google Scholar
Faith, JT, et al. (2018) Plio–Pleistocene decline of African megaherbivores: No evidence for ancient hominin impacts. Science 362:938–941.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Owen-Smith, N. (1999) The interaction of humans, megaherbivores, and habitats in the late Pleistocene extinction event. In MacPhee, RDE (ed.) Extinctions in Near Time. Kluwer, New York, pp. 57–69.Google Scholar
Delegorgue, A. (1990) Adulphe Delegorgue’s Travels in Southern Africa. University of Natal Press, Durban.Google Scholar
Selous, FC. (1881) A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa. R. Bentley & Son, London.Google Scholar
Tryon, CA. (2019) The Middle/Later Stone Age transition and cultural dynamics of late Pleistocene East Africa. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 28:267–282.Google Scholar
Leakey, M. (1983) Africa’s Vanishing Art. The Rock Paintings of Tanzania. Doubleday, New York.Google Scholar
Scally, A; Durbin, R. (2012) Revising the human mutation rate: implications for understanding human evolution. Nature Reviews Genetics 13:745–753.Google Scholar
Fu, Q, et al. (2013) A revised timescale for human evolution based on ancient mitochondrial genomes. Current Biology 23:553–559.Google Scholar
Fan, S, et al. (2019) African evolutionary history inferred from whole genome sequence data of 44 indigenous African populations. Genome Biology 20:1–14.Google Scholar
Yost, CL, et al. (2018) Subdecadal phytolith and charcoal records from Lake Malawi, East Africa imply minimal effects on human evolution from the ∼74 ka Toba supereruption. Journal of Human Evolution 116:75–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, MC; Tishkoff, SA. (2010) The evolution of human genetic and phenotypic variation in Africa. Current Biology 20:R166–R173.Google Scholar
Schlebusch, CM, et al. (2017) Southern African ancient genomes estimate modern human divergence to 350,000 to 260,000 years ago. Science 358:652–655.Google Scholar
Chan, EKF, et al. (2019) Human origins in a southern African palaeo-wetland and first migrations. Nature 575:185–189.Google Scholar
Blome, MW, et al. (2012) The environmental context for the origins of modern human diversity: a synthesis of regional variability in African climate 150,000–30,000 years ago. Journal of Human Evolution 62:563–592.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rito, T, et al. (2013) The first modern human dispersals across Africa. PLoS One 8:e80031.Google Scholar
Lee, R. (2003) The Dobe Ju/’hoansi. 3rd ed. Wadsworth Thomson, Belmont.Google Scholar
Marlowe, FW; Berbesque, JC. (2009) Tubers as fallback foods and their impact on Hadza hunter‐gatherers. American Journal of Physical Anthropology: The Official Publication of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists 140:751–758.Google Scholar
Marlowe, F. (2010) The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Antón, SC; Josh Snodgrass, J. (2012) Origins and evolution of genus Homo: new perspectives. Current Anthropology 53:S479–S496.Google Scholar
Smith, B. (2006) The rock art of sub-Saharan Africa. In Blundell, G (ed.) Origins. The Story of the Emergence of Humans and Humanity in Africa. Double Storey Books, Cape Town, pp. 93–101.Google Scholar
Henshilwood, CS, et al. (2018) An abstract drawing from the 73,000-year-old levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Nature 562:115–118.Google Scholar
Stewart, BA, et al. (2016) Follow the Senqu: Maloti–Drakensberg paleoenvironments and implications for early human dispersals into mountain systems. In Jones, SC; Stewart, BA (eds) Africa from MIS 6-2. Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 247–271.Google Scholar
Oliveira, S, et al. (2018) Matriclans shape populations: insights from the Angolan Namib Desert into the maternal genetic history of southern Africa. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 165:518–535.Google Scholar
Eastwood, EB; Eastwood, C. (2006) Capturing the Spoor: An Exploration of Southern African Rock Art. New Africa Books, Claremont.Google Scholar
Faith, JT, et al. (2015) Paleoenvironmental context of the Middle Stone Age record from Karungu, Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya, and its implications for human and faunal dispersals in East Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 83:28–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brass, M. (2018) Early North African cattle domestication and its ecological setting: a reassessment. Journal of World Prehistory 31:81–115.Google Scholar
Mitchell, P. (2006) Rediscovering Africa. In Blundell, G (ed.) Origins. The Story of the Emergence of Humans and Humanity in Africa. Double Storey Books, CapeTown, pp. 116–165.Google Scholar
Marshall, F; Hildebrand, E. (2002) Cattle before crops: the beginnings of food production in Africa. Journal of World Prehistory 16:99–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chritz, KL, et al. (2019) Climate, ecology, and the spread of herding in eastern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 204:119–132.Google Scholar
Prendergast, ME, et al. (2019) Ancient DNA reveals a multistep spread of the first herders into sub-Saharan Africa. Science 365:eaaw6275.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gifford-Gonzalez, D. (2000) Animal disease challenges to the emergence of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa. African Archaeological Review 17:95–139.Google Scholar
Li, S, et al. (2014) Genetic variation reveals large-scale population expansion and migration during the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281:20141448.Google ScholarPubMed
Sadr, K. (2015) Livestock first reached southern Africa in two separate events. PLoS One 10:e0134215.Google Scholar
Lander, F; Russell, T. (2018) The archaeological evidence for the appearance of pastoralism and farming in southern Africa. PLoS One 13:e0198941.Google Scholar
Breton, G, et al. (2014) Lactase persistence alleles reveal partial East African ancestry of southern African Khoe pastoralists. Current Biology 24:852–858.Google Scholar
Robinson, JR; Rowan, J. (2017) Holocene paleoenvironmental change in southeastern Africa (Makwe Rockshelter, Zambia): implications for the spread of pastoralism. Quaternary Science Reviews 156:57–68.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×