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An international team of archaeologists have found evidence of complex symbolic and technological behaviors at Ga-Mohana Hill in the North Cape, South Africa, dating back 105,000 years – the same age when these behaviors occurred on the coast. The find calls into question the idea that the origins of our species were linked to coastal environments.
Non-useful items collected at Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter and Southern Africa. Abbreviations: A11 – Apollo 11, CoH – Cave of Hearths, HRS – Hollow Rock Shelter, KRM – Main Klasies River Site, PP – Pinnacle Point Sites, VR3 – Varsche Rivier 3, WC – Wonderwerk Cave. Scale bar – 5 cm. Image Credit: Wilkins et al., doi: 10.1038 / s41586-021-03419-0.
The archaeological records of Africa provide the first evidence of the emergence of the complex behaviors that characterize homo sapiens.
The coastal setting of many Late Pleistocene sites and the abundant crustacean remains recovered from them have led to a dominant narrative in which modern human origins in southern Africa are linked to the coast and marine resources.
However, Late Pleistocene sites with good conservation and robust chronologies are rare in the interior of southern Africa, and the coastal hypothesis has therefore remained untested, until now.
“Archaeological evidence for the first homo sapiens has been widely discovered at coastal sites in South Africa, supporting the idea that our origins were linked to coastal environments, ”said Dr Jayne Wilkins, archaeologist at the Australian Center for Human Evolutionary Research at Griffith University .
“There have been very few well-preserved and datable archaeological sites in the interior of southern Africa that can tell us about homo sapiens“Origins far from the coast.”
“A rock shelter on Ga-Mohana hill that rises above a vast savannah in the Kalahari is one such site.”
Ga-Mohana Hill is located in the southern Kalahari Basin, 12 km northwest of Kuruman in South Africa and over 600 km from the nearest modern coast.
The name Kalahari is derived from the word Tswana Kgala, which means “great thirst”. However, ancient evidence for the abundance of water in the landscape is evident in the striking tuff formations.
“We are showing a record of water in the rocks which not only matches the archaeological record, but also provides evidence of a crucial resource for the people of Ga-Mohana,” said Jessica von der Meden, holder of a doctorate. candidate at the Institute for Research on Human Evolution and Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Cape Town.
“It’s a story of water in what we now know as a dry landscape, and of adaptable people who have used the landscape not only to survive but also to thrive,” said Dr Robyn Pickering, director of the Human Evolution Research Institute (HERI). at the University of Cape Town.
Dr Wilkins and his colleagues excavated three areas of Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter, the larger of the two main shelters and several small overhangs that are found in the Gamohaan Dolomite Formation.
They unearthed 22 white calcite crystals and fragments of ostrich eggshell, believed to be used as water containers, from deposits dated to 105,000 years ago.
“Our analysis indicates that the crystals were not introduced into the deposits through natural processes, but were deliberately collected objects, possibly related to spiritual beliefs and rituals,” said Dr. Wilkins.
“The crystals indicate a spiritual or cultural use of the shelter 105,000 years ago. This is remarkable given that the site continues to be used for ritualistic activities today, ”added Dr Sechaba Maape, archaeologist at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Ga-Mohana North Rockshelter’s timeline was determined by the team using luminescence dating.
“This technique measures the natural light signals that accumulate over time in the grains of sedimentary quartz and feldspar,” said Dr Michael Meyer, researcher in the Department of Geology at the University of Innsbruck.
“You can think of each grain as a miniaturized clock, from which we can read this signal of natural light or luminescence, giving us the age of the archaeological sediment layers.”
Researchers were delighted to discover that the assemblage of human-collected crystals and ostrich eggshell fragments at Ga-Mohana Hill was significantly older than that reported in indoor environments elsewhere.
“On coastal sites, the first evidence for these types of behavior dates back to around the same time, 105,000 years ago,” said Dr Wilkins.
“This suggests that the early humans of the Kalahari were no less innovative than those on the coast.”
The research is described in an article in the journal Nature.
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J. Wilkins et al. Innovative homo sapiens behaviors 105,000 years ago in a wetter Kalahari. Nature, published online March 31, 2021; doi: 10.1038 / s41586-021-03419-0
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