Gregor Bader

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Manuel Will

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Nicholas John Conard

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Carol Lentfer

Alex Schoeman

University of the Witwatersrand

Brian Chase

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research

Lyn Wadley

University of the Witwatersrand

Gregor Donatus Bader

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

porraz guillaume

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research

Valentijn van den Brink

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Alex Mackay

University of Wollongong

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Papers by Gregor Bader

Holley Shelter, South Africa

Holley Shelter is an archaeological site in the Wartburg district of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa ... more Holley Shelter is an archaeological site in the Wartburg district of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (29.46° S, 30.53° E), Fig. 1a. It is situated about 25 km NE of Pietermaritzburg and 60 km inland from the Indian Ocean. This impressive sandstone rock shelter incises the eastern exposure of a large canyon, several meters below a wide, open plateau. From this plateau a small waterfall is plunging about 120 m down and releasing into a stream flowing toward the Umgeni River. Gordon Cramb (Fig. 1b) found and excavated the site in the 1950s and published his results in two papers in the South African Journal of Science (Cramb, 1952, 1961). At the time of excavation, the site was owned by Mr. J. Hunt Holley, and thus, the shelter was named after him. Cramb excavated the site within five short campaigns between 1951 and 1959. He noticed that the shelter was spatially divided into two "habitable" (Cramb, 1952) sections (Fig. 1c), a smaller one in the south and a bigger one in the north, almost directly under the waterfall. In his first publication (Cramb, 1952), he refers to the smaller section, where he started excavating without applying a grid system due to the "necessity to conserve the limited space" (Cramb, 1952: 181). He also opened up a small trial trench in advance in order to probe for the depth of the deposits which turned out to be three feet and six inches thick (a bit less

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Recent Research on the MSA in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is central to current discussions on the early beha... more The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is central to current discussions on the early behavioral evolution of modern humans. Recent MSA research has focused on two technocomplexes, the Still Bay (SB) and Howiesons Poort (HP) that are associated with the early appearance of many cultural innovations. Apart from this temporal emphasis, a regional focus of research on the southern and western coasts of South Africa is largely due to taphonomic factors and research history. This research bias constituted the starting point for two PhD dissertations at the University of Tübingen, whose main findings are summarized here. The current contribution focuses on new results concerning lithic assemblages from the understudied region KwaZulu-Natal during the lesser-known period of MIS 3, and provides a general overview on recent Stone Age research by the University of Tübingen. Our main study site of Sibudu is a key locality for the chrono-cultural stratigraphy of southern Africa due to its exceptional finds, excellent preservation of organic materials, long sequence and secure chronology, though the site has long been regionally isolated. Our research thus aimed to generate a comparative regional framework for the MSA archaeology of KwaZulu-Natal, with the nearby-but mostly forgotten-sites of Holley Shelter and Umbeli Belli as ideal case studies. The MIS 3 lithic assemblages of Sibudu following the HP provide evidence of sophisticated knapping behaviors associated with technological innovations. Based upon clear technotypological signals, these assemblages were used to define the "Sibudan" technocomplex. The large amount of diachronic variability within the sequence is mostly due to the exceptionally high temporal resolution for the MSA. Comparisons with Holley Shelter show many similarities, whereas site-specific differences can be attributed to differential access to raw materials influencing techno-economic behaviors on small scales. New archaeological work at Umbeli Belli provides insights on the technology and chronology for the relatively unknown end of the MSA on the eastern seaboard of South Africa, the so-called "final MSA." Our research suggests that the archaeology of MIS 3 in southern Africa can be characterized by persistent cultural complexity after the HP, with a high degree of regional variability and dynamic change through time. These results have important implications for models of the early behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens. We conclude with outlining future directions of research by the University of Tübingen in the MSA of South Africa which intend to extend the spatio-temporal scope of the work presented here.

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