Sticks, stones and bones reveal emergence of a hunter-gatherer culture

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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/342701/title/Sticks%2C_stones_and_bones_reveal_emergence_of_a_hunter-gatherer_culture


ANTIQUE JEWELRYCrafted more than 40,000 years ago, ostrich shell beads from South Africa’s Border Cave bear evidence of being made using the same methods as present-day San jewelry makers. The largest beads are nearly a centimeter in diameter.Courtesy of Lucinda Blackwel

People living in a South African cave 44,000 years ago crafted the same kinds of blades, beads and tools as hunter-gatherers of the region today. The artifacts push the history of modern human behavior in southern Africa back more than 20,000 years, archaeologists report online July 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forging a link between the cultures of ancient and present-day humans.

“We’re not just looking at people who were modern. We’re looking at people who were modern in a way that we know,” says study coauthor Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bourdeaux in Talence, France.

Many of the artifacts from South Africa’s Border Cave represent tools and technologies identical to those used by the San hunter-gatherers of southern Africa today.

Using radiocarbon dating, researchers pinpointed the ages of wooden digging sticks, ostrich shell beads, bone awls and stone flakes that may have been part of a sophisticated hunter-gatherer tool kit cum jewelry box.