Coastal adaptation at Klasies River main site during MIS 5c-d (93,000–110,000 years ago) from a southern Cape perspective

Brenne, Mareike J.; Ryano, Kokeli P.; Wurz, Sarah

dc.creator	Brenne, Mareike J.
dc.creator	Ryano, Kokeli P.
dc.creator	Wurz, Sarah
dc.date	2020-11-24T13:01:26Z
dc.date	2020-11-24T13:01:26Z
dc.date	2020
dc.date.accessioned	2022-10-20T12:01:03Z
dc.date.available	2022-10-20T12:01:03Z
dc.identifier	Brenner, M. J., Ryano, K. P., & Wurz, S. (2020). Coastal adaptation at Klasies River main site during MIS 5c-d (93,000–110,000 years ago) from a southern Cape perspective. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 1-28.
dc.identifier	DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2020.1774444
dc.identifier	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/2543
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/2543
dc.description	Abstract. Full text article available at https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2020.1774444
dc.description	Coastal adaptation in the southern Cape can be seen around 100,000 years ago in sites such as Klasies River, Blombos Cave, and Pinnacle Point, representing the occupation of a new niche by early Homo sapiens in this region. However, there is relatively little information available on the details involved in fully entering this niche from a regional perspective. At Klasies River main site (KRM), evidence for coastal adaptation occurs in early MIS 5. Here we explore the variability in shellfish exploitation and how it links to lithic technology, in deposits dating to ca. 93,000–110,000 years ago. We compare this to broadly contemporaneous assemblages from Pinnacle Point 13B and Blombos Cave. The lithics in all the layers from KRM investigated here have been produced according to a unidirectional reduction system, but the lowermost assemblages contain more small debitage and bladelets, and no tools. These 110 ka layers are associated with a lower shellfish density and more diverse range of shellfish species and a higher lithic density. This points to a lesser dependency on shellfish coinciding with higher mobility in the lower layers. For the younger MIS 5c layers higher volumes of shellfish and the dominance of certain species is evident. The lithics show that all the stages of the reduction system are present and tools are produced and used on-site. This indicates a residential (provisioning of place) occupational strategy. Compared to other sites on the southern Cape coast, KRM shows exceptionally high densities in lithic artifacts while the shellfish densities are comparable to the Blombos M3 phase. The results of the analysis of the shellfish and lithic densities, technological patterns, and shellfish species exploited at Klasies River, Blombos Cave and Pinnacle Point, demonstrate a more diverse onset and expression of coastal adaptation during early MIS 5 than apparent from current literature.
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Tylor & Francis
dc.subject	Coastal adaptation
dc.subject	Southern Cape
dc.subject	Middle stone age
dc.subject	Klasies river
dc.subject	Blombos Cave
dc.subject	Homo sapien
dc.subject	Pinnacle point
dc.subject	MIS 5
dc.title	Coastal adaptation at Klasies River main site during MIS 5c-d (93,000–110,000 years ago) from a southern Cape perspective
dc.type	Article