The Khormusan: Evidence for an MSA East African industry in Nubia
quote:
There is clear evidence of lithic technological variability in Middle Paleolithic (MP) assemblages along the Nile valley and in adjacent desert areas. One of the identified variants is the Khormusan, the type-site of which, Site 1017, is located north of the Nile's Second Cataract. The industry has two distinctive characteristics that set it apart from other MP industries within its vicinity. One is the use of a wide variety of raw materials; the second is an apparent correlation between raw material and technology used, suggesting a cultural aspect to raw material management. Stratigraphically, site 1017 is situated within the Dibeira-Jer formation which represents an aggradation stage of the Nile and contains sediments originating from the Ethiopian Highlands. While it has previously been suggested that the site dates to sometime before 42.5 ka, the Dibeira-Jer formation can plausibly be correlated with Nile alluvial sediments in northern Sudan recently dated to 83 ± 24 ka (MIS 5a). This stage coincides with the 81 ka age of sapropel S3, indicating higher Nile flow and stronger monsoon rainfall at these times.
Other sites which reflect similar raw material variability and technological traditions are the BNS and KHS sites in the Omo Kibish Formation (Ethiopia) dated to ∼100 ka and ∼190 ka respectively. Based on a lithic comparative study conducted, it is suggested that site 1017 can be seen as representing behavioral patterns which are indicative of East African Middle Stone Age (MSA) technology, adding support to the hypothesis that the Nile Valley was an important dispersal route used by modern humans prior to the long cooling and dry trend beginning with the onset of MIS 4. Techo-typological comparison of the assemblages from the Khormusan sites with other Middle Paleolithic sites from Nubia and East Africa is used to assess the possibility of tracing the dispersal of technological traits across the landscape and through time.
--Mae Goder-Goldberger
Quaternary International 25 June 2013, Vol.300:182–194, doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.11.031 The Middle Palaeolithic in the Desert
quote:Evidence for a hunter-gatherer range-expansion is indicated by the site of Station One in the northern Sudan, a surface scatter of chipped stone debris systematically collected almost 40 years ago, though not studied until present. Based on technological and typological correlates in East Africa, the predominant use of quartz pebbles for raw material, and the production of small bifacial tools, the site can be classified as Middle Stone Age. While often appearing in East African assemblages, quartz was rarely used in Nubia, where ferrocrete sandstone and Nile pebble were predominantly used by all other Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age populations. Additionally, façonnage reduction is characteristic of lithic technology in East Africa in the late Middle Stone Age, while Middle Palaeolithic industries in the Nile Valley display only core reduction. It is proposed this assemblage represents a range-expansion of Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers from East Africa during an Upper Pleistocene pluvial.
[...]
Studies of mitochondrial DNA suggest that all mod- ern humans are derived from a common ancestral group that was living in sub-Saharan Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago (Cann et al. 1987; Vigi- lant et al. 1991; Horai et al. 1995; Quintana-Murci et al. 1999; Ingman et al. 2000). This ‘Out of Africa’ model posits multiple dispersals via the Arabian (Tchernov 1992; Ronen & Weinstein-Evron 2000; Rose 2000; Stringer 2000; Rose 2004) and/or Levantine corridors (Bar-Yosef 1987; 1994; 2000; Van Peer 1998) between 110,000 and 50,000 BP, which places these events in the latter half of the Middle Palaeolithic (henceforth MP)/Middle Stone Age (henceforth MSA).
It is reasonable to assume if any population expanded from East Africa to Northeast Africa, and subsequently into the Levant, they would have brought with them the lithic technology from whence they came. There are scattered assemblages from the Sudan that are characteristic of the Sangoan (e.g. Arkell 1949; Guichard & Guichard 1965), indicating some degree of technological continuity between Central and Northeast Africa during the late Early Stone Age (henceforth ESA).
To date, however, there has been no convincing archaeological evidence to suggest inter-regional af- finities during the MSA between East Africa and Northeast Africa. On the contrary, MP industries of Sudan (e.g. Marks 1968a,b) are technologically and typologically distinct from those found in Kenya and Ethiopia (e.g. Breuil et al. 1951; Merrick 1975). Furthermore, comparative analyses of Egyptian and Levantine MP assemblages suggest that no compel- ling technological connections existed between these two regions at this time (Marks 1990; Van Peer 1998). So, while there is a plethora of genetic evidence sup- porting the ‘Out of Africa’ model, archaeological data along one of the primary corridors of human migration have been absent until now. Station One, an MSA site from northern Sudan, represents the only example of a techno-typological connection be- tween the source area of anatomically modern hu- mans and Northeast Africa.
[...]
-- Jeffrey Rose
New Evidence for the Expansion of an Upper Pleistocene Population out of East Africa, from the Site of Station One, Northern Sudanmore
posted
^ Interesting. So the cultural diversity at that time was greater than expected. Recall that the MSA Nubian culture was found to have derivatives as far as southeastern Arabia in Oman. I can't help but to think the Euronuts will find a way to twist these findings to suggest that 'Eurasians' or at least their ancestors developed in northeast Africa already. Though I believe Swenet, who is not a Euronut, has reached a similar conclusion before. The irony is despite whatever cultural or technological diversity or differences existed, recall that the Hofmeyr skull of South Africa (37 kya) closely resembles the skulls of UP Eurasians. I am very curious about the disparities between the technologies of Egypt and the Levant and what exactly is Egypt's relation to other adjacent areas? Recall the 2008 finding about a prehistoric watershed that cut across from the central Sahara to the Mediterranean in Libya about 130-170 kya.
According to that study, "The study shows, for the first time, that monsoon rains fed rivers that extended from the Saharan watershed, across the northern Sahara, to the Mediterranean Sea. These corridors rivalled the Nile Valley as potential routes for early modern human migrations to the Mediterranean shores... The similarities between Middle Stone Age artifacts in places like Chad and the Sudan, with those of Libya, strongly support this theory."
So apparently the author saw affinities between the assemblages of Sudan, Chad, and Libya during the MSA.
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