@misc{10481/78214,
year = {2022},
month = {10},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/78214},
abstract = {Lithic assemblages immediately following the Howiesons Poort, often loosely referred to as the ‘post-
Howiesons Poort’ or MSA III, have attracted relatively little attention when compared to other wellknown
phases of the South African Middle Stone Age (MSA) sequence. Current evidence from sites
occurring in widely-differing environments suggests that these assemblages are marked by temporal and
technological variability, with few features in common other than the presence of unifacial points. Here
we present a technological and geometric morphometric analysis of ‘points’ from the new excavations of
Members 2 BS, 2WA and the top of 3 BS members at Border Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, one of the key sites for
studying modern human cultural evolution. Our complementary methodologies demonstrate that, at this
site, hominins adopted a knapping strategy that primarily produced non-standardised unretouched
points. Triangular morphologies were manufactured using a variety of reduction strategies, of which the
discoidal and Levallois recurrent centripetal methods produced distinctive morphologies. We find
technological and morphological variability increases throughout the post-Howiesons Poort sequence,
with clear differences between and within chrono-stratigraphic groups. Finally, we assess the suitability
of the ‘Sibudan’ cultural-technological typology proposed for post-Howiesons Poort assemblages at
Sibhudu, another KwaZulu-Natal site, and find similarities in the morphological axes characterising the
samples, despite differences in the shaping strategies adopted. Overall, our work contributes to the
growing body of research that is helping to address historical research biases that have slanted our
understanding of cultural evolution during the MSA of southern Africa towards the Still Bay and
Howiesons Poort technocomplexes.},
organization = {UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)},
organization = {Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC)	NGS-54810R-19},
organization = {Wenner Gren Foundation	CEOOP2020-1},
organization = {Poroulis grant through Cambridge University},
organization = {Spanish FEDER/Ministry of Science and Innovation	262618},
organization = {National Geographic Explorer grant	ANR-10-LABX-52},
organization = {DSI- NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences grant	191022_001},
organization = {Research Council of Norway through its Centres of Excellence funding scheme},
organization = {LaScArBx research programme},
organization = {Grand Programme de Recherche 'Human Past' of the Initiative d'Excellence (IdEx) of the Bordeaux University},
organization = {Leakey Foundation (Movement, interaction, and structure: modelling population networks and cultural diversity in the African Middle Stone Age)},
organization = {Lithic Studies Society (Jacobi Bursary Awardee, 2020)},
organization = {SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE)},
organization = {Talents Programme		
AH/R012792/1	
Gr. 10157	
PID2019-1049449 GB-I00},
publisher = {Elsevier},
keywords = {Middle stone age},
keywords = {Lithic technology},
keywords = {Outline-based geometric morphometrics},
keywords = {Chaîne opératoire},
keywords = {Stone tools},
title = {Technological and geometric morphometric analysis of ‘post- Howiesons Poort points’ from Border Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa},
doi = {10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107813},
author = {Timbrell, Lucy and De la Peña Alonso, Paloma},
}