ArticlePloS one2018
Middle and Later Stone Age chronology of Kisese II rockshelter (UNESCO World Heritage Kondoa Rock-Art Sites), Tanzania.
Article in PloS one, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed, 80 citations in OpenAlex.
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- A dataset of scientific dates from archaeological sites in eastern Africa spanning 5000 BCE to 1800 CE.Scientific data · 2025Article
- A Later Stone Age quartz knapping workshop and fireplace dated to the Early Holocene in Senegal: The Ravin Blanc X site (RBX).PloS one · 2025Article
- Back(s) to basics: The concept of backing in stone tool technologies for tracing hominins' technical innovations.Evolutionary anthropology · 2024Review
- Symbolic innovation at the onset of the Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia shown by the personal ornaments from Tolbor-21 (Mongolia).Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- Integrative geochronology calibrates the Middle and Late Stone Ages of Ethiopia's Afar Rift.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Human burials at the Kisese II rockshelter, Tanzania.American journal of physical anthropology · 2021Article
- Ostrich eggshell bead strontium isotopes reveal persistent macroscale social networking across late Quaternary southern Africa.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Neural networks differentiate between Middle and Later Stone Age lithic assemblages in eastern Africa.PloS one · 2020Article
- Ostrich eggshell bead diameter in the Holocene: Regional variation with the spread of herding in eastern and southern Africa.PloS one · 2019Article
- 78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later stone age innovation in an East African tropical forest.Nature communications · 2018Article
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10 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The archaeology of East Africa during the last ~65,000 years plays a central role in debates about the origins and dispersal of modern humans, Homo sapiens. Despite the historical importance of the region to these discussions, reliable chronologies for the nature, tempo, and timing of human behavioral changes seen among Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological assemblages are sparse. The Kisese II rockshelter in the Kondoa region of Tanzania, originally excavated in 1956, preserves a ≥ 6-m-thick archaeological succession that spans the MSA/LSA transition, with lithic artifacts such as Levallois and bladelet cores and backed microliths, the recurrent use of red ochre, and >5,000 ostrich eggshell beads and bead fragments. Twenty-nine radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshell carbonate make Kisese II one of the most robust chronological sequences for understanding archaeological change over the last ~47,000 years in East Africa. In particular, ostrich eggshell beads and backed microliths appear by 46-42 ka cal BP and occur throughout overlying Late Pleistocene and Holocene strata. Changes in lithic technology suggest an MSA/LSA transition that began 39-34.3 ka, with typical LSA technologies in place by the Last Glacial Maximum. The timing of these changes demonstrates the time-transgressive nature of behavioral innovations often linked to the origins of modern humans, even within a single region of Africa.
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