An abstract drawing from the 73,000-year-old levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Depictive and abstract representations produced by drawing-known from Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia after 40,000 years ago-are a prime indicator of modern cognition and behaviour1. Here we report a cross-hatched pattern drawn with an ochre crayon on a ground silcrete flake recovered from approximately 73,000-year-old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Our microscopic and chemical analyses of the pattern confirm that red ochre pigment was intentionally applied to the flake with an ochre crayon. The object comes from a level associated with stone tools of the Still Bay techno-complex that has previously yielded shell beads, cross-hatched engravings on ochre pieces and a variety of innovative technologies2-5. This notable discovery pre-dates the earliest previously known abstract and figurative drawings by at least 30,000 years. This drawing demonstrates the ability of early Homo sapiens in southern Africa to produce graphic designs on various media using different techniques.

New Blombos Cave evidence supports a multistep evolutionary scenario for the culturalization of the human body.

The emergence of technologies to culturally modify the appearance of the human body is a debated issue, with earliest evidence consisting of perforated marine shells dated between 140 and 60 ka at archaeological sites from Africa and western Asia. In this study, we submit unpublished marine and estuarine gastropods from Blombos Cave Middle Stone Age layers to taxonomic, taphonomic, technological, and use-wear analyses. We show that unperforated and naturally perforated eye-catching shells belonging to the species Semicassis zeylanica, Conus tinianus, and another Conus species, possibly Conus algoensis, were brought to the cave between 100 and 73 ka. At ca. 70 ka, a previously unrecorded marine gastropod, belonging to the species Tritia ovulata, was perforated by pecking and was worn as an ornamental object, isolated or in association with numerous intentionally perforated shells of the species Nassarius kraussianus. Fluctuations in sea level and consequent variations in the site-to-shoreline distances and landscape modifications during the Middle Stone Age have affected the availability of marine shells involved in symbolic practices. During the M3 and M2 Lower phases, with a sea level 50 m lower, the site was approximately 3.5 km away from the coast. In the later M2 Upper and M1 phases, with a sea level at -60 m, the distance increased to about 5.7 km. By the end of the M1 phase, when the site was abandoned, Blombos Cave was situated 18-30 km from the shoreline. We use the new Blombos evidence and a review of the latest findings from Africa and Eurasia to propose a testable ten-step evolutionary scenario for the culturalization of the human body with roots in the deep past.

Later Stone Age human hair from Vaalkrans Shelter, Cape Floristic Region of South Africa, reveals genetic affinity to Khoe groups.

Previous studies show that the indigenous people of the southern Cape of South Africa were dramatically impacted by the arrival of European colonists starting ~400 years ago and their descendants are today mixed with Europeans and Asians. To gain insight on the occupants of the Vaalkrans Shelter located at the southernmost tip of Africa, we investigated the genetic make-up of an individual who lived there about 200 years ago. We further contextualize the genetic ancestry of this individual among prehistoric and current groups. From a hair sample excavated at the shelter, which was indirectly dated to about 200 years old, we sequenced the genome (1.01 times coverage) of a Later Stone Age individual. We analyzed the Vaalkrans genome together with genetic data from 10 ancient (pre-colonial) individuals from southern Africa spanning the last 2000 years. We show that the individual from Vaalkrans was a man who traced ~80% of his ancestry to local southern San hunter-gatherers and ~20% to a mixed East African-Eurasian source. This genetic make-up is similar to modern-day Khoekhoe individuals from the Northern Cape Province (South Africa) and Namibia, but in the southern Cape, the Vaalkrans man's descendants have likely been assimilated into mixed-ancestry "Coloured" groups. The Vaalkrans man's genome reveals that Khoekhoe pastoralist groups/individuals lived in the southern Cape as late as 200 years ago, without mixing with non-African colonists or Bantu-speaking farmers. Our findings are also consistent with the model of a Holocene pastoralist migration, originating in Eastern Africa, shaping the genomic landscape of historic and current southern African populations.

Identifying early modern human ecological niche expansions and associated cultural dynamics in the South African Middle Stone Age.

The archaeological record shows that typically human cultural traits emerged at different times, in different parts of the world, and among different hominin taxa. This pattern suggests that their emergence is the outcome of complex and nonlinear evolutionary trajectories, influenced by environmental, demographic, and social factors, that need to be understood and traced at regional scales. The application of predictive algorithms using archaeological and paleoenvironmental data allows one to estimate the ecological niches occupied by past human populations and identify niche changes through time, thus providing the possibility of investigating relationships between cultural innovations and possible niche shifts. By using such methods to examine two key southern Africa archaeological cultures, the Still Bay [76-71 thousand years before present (ka)] and the Howiesons Poort (HP; 66-59 ka), we identify a niche shift characterized by a significant expansion in the breadth of the HP ecological niche. This expansion is coincident with aridification occurring across Marine Isotope Stage 4 (ca. 72-60 ka) and especially pronounced at 60 ka. We argue that this niche shift was made possible by the development of a flexible technological system, reliant on composite tools and cultural transmission strategies based more on "product copying" rather than "process copying." These results counter the one niche/one human taxon equation. They indicate that what makes our cultures, and probably the cultures of other members of our lineage, unique is their flexibility and ability to produce innovations that allow a population to shift its ecological niche.

Thinking strings: additional evidence for personal ornament use in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Here we report on newly identified beads recovered from four Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave and, in particular, on a cluster of 24 perforated Nassarius kraussianus shells that probably originate from a single beadwork. Contextual information, morphometric, technological and use-wear analysis of the 68 published beads and those recently found, coupled with experimental reproduction of wear patterns, allow us to reconstruct the most probable way in which the N. kraussianus shells were strung. The results reveal unexpected regularities but also variability through the various levels that we interpret as resulting from changes in beadwork manufacture and design over time. The Blombos Cave beads may document one of the first examples of changes in social norms affecting the production and design of symbolic material culture.

Climate, Environment and Early Human Innovation: Stable Isotope and Faunal Proxy Evidence from Archaeological Sites (98-59ka) in the Southern Cape, South Africa.

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, and in particular its Still Bay and Howiesons Poort lithic traditions, represents a period of dramatic subsistence, cultural, and technological innovation by our species, Homo sapiens. Climate change has frequently been postulated as a primary driver of the appearance of these innovative behaviours, with researchers invoking either climate instability as a reason for the development of buffering mechanisms, or environmentally stable refugia as providing a stable setting for experimentation. Testing these alternative models has proved intractable, however, as existing regional palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental records remain spatially, stratigraphically, and chronologically disconnected from the archaeological record. Here we report high-resolution records of environmental shifts based on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments, faunal remains, and shellfish assemblages excavated from two key MSA archaeological sequences, Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter. We compare these records with archaeological material remains in the same strata. The results from both sites, spanning the periods 98-73 ka and 72-59 ka, respectively, show significant changes in vegetation, aridity, rainfall seasonality, and sea temperature in the vicinity of the sites during periods of human occupation. While these changes clearly influenced human subsistence strategies, we find that the remarkable cultural and technological innovations seen in the sites cannot be linked directly to climate shifts. Our results demonstrate the need for scale-appropriate, on-site testing of behavioural-environmental links, rather than broader, regional comparisons.

Early Evidence for the Extensive Heat Treatment of Silcrete in the Howiesons Poort at Klipdrift Shelter (Layer PBD, 65 ka), South Africa.

Heating stone to enhance its flaking qualities is among the multiple innovative adaptations introduced by early modern human groups in southern Africa, in particular during the Middle Stone Age Still Bay and Howiesons Poort traditions. Comparatively little is known about the role and impact of this technology on early modern human behaviors and cultural expressions, due, in part, to the lack of comprehensive studies of archaeological assemblages documenting the heat treatment of stone. We address this issue through an analysis of the procedure used for heating and a technological analysis of a lithic assemblage recovered from one Howiesons Poort assemblage at Klipdrift Shelter (southern Cape, South Africa). The resulting data show extensive silcrete heat treatment, which adds a new dimension to our understanding of fire-related behaviors during the Howiesons Poort, highlighting the important role played by a heat treatment stage in the production of silcrete blades. These results are made possible by our new analytical procedure that relies on the analysis of all silcrete artifacts. It provides direct evidence of a controlled use of fire which took place during an early stage of core exploitation, thereby impacting on all subsequent stages of the lithic chaîne opératoire, which, to date, has no known equivalent in the Middle Stone Age or Middle Paleolithic record outside of southern Africa.

Diachronic Change within the Still Bay at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

Characteristically shaped bifacial points are stone artefacts with which the Middle Stone Age Still Bay techno-complex in Southern Africa is identified. Traditional approaches such as chaîne opératoire and two-dimensional metrics in combination with attribute analyses have been used to analyse variability within Still Bay point assemblages. Here we develop a protocol to extract and analyse high resolution 3-dimensional geometric morphometric information about Still Bay point morphology. We also investigate ways in which the independent variables of time, raw-material and tool size may be driving patterns of shape variation in the Blombos Cave point assemblage. We demonstrate that at a single, stratified Still Bay site points undergo significant modal changes in tool morphology and standardization. Our results caution against (1) treatment of the Still Bay as a static technological entity and (2) drawing demographic inferences stemming from grouping Still Bay point collections within the same cultural label.

A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa.

The conceptual ability to source, combine, and store substances that enhance technology or social practices represents a benchmark in the evolution of complex human cognition. Excavations in 2008 at Blombos Cave, South Africa, revealed a processing workshop where a liquefied ochre-rich mixture was produced and stored in two Haliotis midae (abalone) shells 100,000 years ago. Ochre, bone, charcoal, grindstones, and hammerstones form a composite part of this production toolkit. The application of the mixture is unknown, but possibilities include decoration and skin protection.

Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave: evidence for symbolic behaviour in the Middle Stone Age.

Since 1991, excavations at Blombos Cave have yielded a well-preserved sample of faunal and cultural material in Middle Stone Age (MSA) levels. The uppermost MSA phase, M1, is dated to c. 75 ka by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and thermoluminescence, and the middle M2 phase to a provisional c. 78 ka. Artefacts unusual in a MSA context from these phases include bifacial points, bone tools, engraved ochre and engraved bone. In this paper, we describe forty-one marine tick shell beads recovered from these MSA phases and tick shell beads from Later Stone Age (LSA) levels at Blombos Cave and the Die Kelders site. Thirty-nine shell beads come from the upper M1 phase and two from M2. Morphometric, taphonomic and microscopic analysis of modern assemblages of living and dead tick shell demonstrate that the presence of perforated Nassarius kraussianus shells in the Blombos MSA levels cannot be due to natural processes or accidental transport by humans. The types of perforation seen on the MSA shells are absent on modern accumulations of dead shells and not attributable to post-depositional damage. Their location, size, and microscopic features are similar to those obtained experimentally by piercing the shell wall, through the aperture, with a sharp bone point. Use-wear, recorded on the perforation edge, the outer lip, and the parietal wall of the aperture indicates the shells having being strung and worn. MSA shell beads differ significantly in size, perforation type, wear pattern and shade compared to LSA beads and this eliminates the possibility of mixing across respective levels. Thirty-one beads were found in four groups of five to twelve beads, each group being recovered in a single square or in two adjacent sub-squares during a single excavation day. Within a group, shells display a similar shade, use-wear pattern and perforation size suggesting their provenance from the same beadwork item, lost or disposed during a single event. The likely symbolic significance of these finds suggests levels of cognitively modern behaviour not previously associated with MSA people.