Heritage Cases

Guilhem Mauran is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa). He is an archaeometrist specialized in inorganic and organic materials analyses. His research focuses on cultural material and the cognitive and cultural evolution of humas populations. He is currently investigating the hafting adhesive residues found on backed tools of 62 000 to 77 000 years old found at Sibudu Cave. His analyses will provide key insight into the know-how, skills, behaviours and cognition of past populations. African Middle Stone Age archaeological assemblages argue for significant changes in behaviours of human populations. Technological, typological and residual analyses of lithic tools have shown that the hunting techniques went through significant changes that testify the development of complex cognitive capacities. Previous analyses of the hafting residues have identified the presence of organic compounds but could not lead to their identification. The present research aims at investigating the diversity of Howiesons Poort hafting adhesives recipes, with a specific focus on the organic compounds present in these compounds. Combining optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy (IR) and gas-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) we will investigate 19 adhesives residues from macroscopic up to molecular levels. Most approaches are non-destructive and will allow us to screen the composition of the residues found on the backed tools. As the 20 selected Howiesons Poort tools present some residue traces, we will carry out the micro-destructive GC-MS analyses on these residues This last analysis will require sampling the residue. The sampling procedure will only affect the residues and not the tool on which they lie. The expected results will also contribute to the debate on the technological, cultural, behavioural and cognitive capacity changes that occurred within African anatomically modern human societies.