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Phytoliths Western and Southern Cape sites

CaseViews

CaseHeader

HeritageAuthority(s): 

Case Type: 

ProposalDescription: 

My research aims at recognizing human behavioural adaptations, from a botanical perspective, among hominin populations from South Africa during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, and its relationship with their surrounding environments under certain climatic conditions.

Expanded_Motivation: 

Specific questions related to hunter-gatherer plant-foraging strategies will be addressed in an attempt to provide information with regards to: 1. The strategies conducted to obtain plants for fuel, foods and other purposes; how these strategies changed over time and varied across hominin taxa; and how plant exploitation was integrated with other behavioural systems such as technology, social behaviour, and landscape use. 2. The relationship between hunter-gatherer plant gathering activities and their surrounding environments, in association to plant availability. In this regard, this project tries to answer the question of whether or not the collection of plants for fuel and food was driven by the surrounding habitats and therefore affected by changes in climates, or by other preferences beyond that of the environment. The proposed project will have an impact on the anthropology of South African early and modern humans. The applicant has framed this project to increase the evidence, with high-resolution and -quality data, of plant exploitation behaviours by South African hominin populations inhabiting different environments from MIS 11 to MIS2. This research will improve our understanding of the relationships between plant exploitation and environmental changes during the South African Middle and Late Pleistocene. I am particularly interested into aspects related to the gathering and use of plants by these ancient populations. To accomplish these objectives and aims two analytical methods will be phytoliths and leaf wax n-alkanes. The success in the application of these two techniques (phytoliths and leaf waxes) to study hunter-gatherer archaeological deposits has been demonstrated by the applicant, Dr. Esteban and collaborator Dr Schefuß and colleagues in a multi-proxy study conducted in Eastern South Africa (Esteban et al., 2020a). The archaeological sites to be studied are: Elandsfontein, Pinnacle Point 5-6 and Knysna Eastern Heads 1. Since the phytolith study from Pinnacle Point 5-6 has been already published (Albert and Marean, 2012; Esteban et al., 2018, 2020b), only the leaf waxes study needs to be completed from this site. The project will also break disciplinary barriers with an impact to the methodological approaches for interpreting plant remains in the archaeological record that may be applied to other periods and geographical regions.

ApplicationDate: 

Monday, February 15, 2021 - 17:07

CaseID: 

16083

OtherReferences: 

ReferenceList: 

Citation
Esteban, I., Bamford, M. K., House, A., Miller, C. S., Neumann, F. H., Schefuß, E., et al. (2020a). Coastal palaeoenvironments and hunter-gatherer plant-use at Waterfall Bluff rock shelter in Mpondoland (South Africa) from MIS 3 to the Early Holocene. Quaternary Science Reviews, 250, 106664. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106664. Esteban, I., Marean, C. W., Cowling, R. M., Fisher, E. C., Cabanes, D., & Albert, R. M. (2020b). Palaeoenvironments and plant availability during MIS 6 to MIS 3 on the edge of the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (south coast, South Africa) as indicated by phytolith analysis at Pinnacle Point. Quaternary Science Reviews, 235, 105667. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.QUASCIREV.2019.02.022 Esteban, I., Marean, C. W., Fisher, E. C., Karkanas, P., Cabanes, D., & Albert, R. M. (2018). Phytoliths as an indicator of early modern humans plant gathering strategies, fire fuel and site occupation intensity during the Middle Stone Age at Pinnacle Point 5-6 (south coast, South Africa). PLoS ONE, 13(6), e0198558. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0198558 Albert, R. M., & Marean, C. W. (2012). The Exploitation of Plant Resources by Early Homo sapiens: The Phytolith Record from Pinnacle Point 13B Cave, South Africa. Geoarchaeology, 27, 363–384. https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21413
 
 

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