Heritage Cases

Aims, scope and context of the research The advent of the Later Stone Age (LSA) is one of the least understood developments in sub-Saharan African prehistory. Rather than a single event or revolution, it appears to have been a process of tremendous spatiotemporal variability that unfolded across some 20-40,000 years. Recent re-investigations of key transitional strata at Border Cave, South Africa, suggest that the LSA began there ~44 ka, ≥15,000 years earlier than any other site on the sub-continent. Conversely, at the opposite end of the period of interest to us, the miniaturised stone technologies prevalent across much of southern Africa for most of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 (25-12 ka) were replaced at, or shortly after its end, by wholly different assemblages emphasizing non-microlithic components, a change captured by the shift from Robberg to Oakhurst technocomplexes. This project seeks to undertake an extensive dating project of important LSA assemblages using state-of-the-art AMS radiocarbon dating methods. We will date samples from four sites, including Rose Cottage Cave, Cave James, Jubilee Shelter, stored at the University of Witwatersrand and Mekhoutboom, stored at the Albany Museum in the Eastern Cape (subject to a separate permit application to ECPHRA). All of these sites have inadequate numbers of radiocarbon dates, and were dated decades ago, using now out-dated methods. Newer radiocarbon methods can produce more precise and accurate dates, improving the chronologies at these sites. Ultimately, improved chronologies at these sites and others that have already been re-dated (Loftus et al 2015; 2016) will allow for a better understanding of the Later Stone Age sequence of technological succession across the region. Methods The analyses require only a small number of charcoal fragments of c. 1-2 g from several layers dating to between c. 10 000 and 16 000 years at the three sites. While we wish to obtain four dates from the site, the collection of additional fragments is prudent as not all samples are suitable for radiocarbon dating. The selection of charcoal samples will be undertaken by Justin Pargeter (Stony Brook University), who has extensive experience working with museum collections, and can evaluate the suitability of samples for radiocarbon dating. The chemical pretreatment methods will destroy the sample for further analysis, but the small sample size requirements ensures that we can select samples that are not suitable for other types of analysis. All analytical work will be carried out at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit of the University of Oxford by Dr Emma Loftus.