The Middle Stone Age (MSA) corresponds to a critical phase in human evolution, overlapping with the earliest emergence of Homo sapiens as well as the expansions of these populations across and beyond Africa. Within the context of growing recognition for a complex and structured population history across the continent, Eastern Africa remains a critical region to explore patterns of behavioural variability due to the large number of well-dated archaeological assemblages compared to other regions. Quantitative studies of the Eastern African MSA record have indicated patterns of behavioural variation across space, time and from different environmental contexts. Here, we examine the nature of these patterns through the use of matrix correlation statistics, exploring whether differences in assemblage composition and raw material use correlate to differences between one another, assemblage age, distance in space, and the geographic and environmental characteristics of the landscapes surrounding MSA sites. Assemblage composition and raw material use correlate most strongly with one another, with site type as well as geographic and environmental variables also identified as having significant correlations to the former, and distance in time and space correlating more strongly with the latter. By combining time and space into a single variable, we are able to show the strong relationship this has with differences in stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use, with significance for exploring the impacts of processes of cultural inheritance on variability in the MSA. A significant, independent role for terrain roughness for explaining variability in stone tool assemblages highlights the importance of considering the impacts of mobility on structuring the archaeological record of the MSA of Eastern Africa.

中石器时代（MSA）对应人类进化的关键阶段，与最早出现的智人重叠以及这些人口在非洲及其他地区的扩展。在人们日益认识到整个大陆复杂而结构化的人口历史的背景下，由于与其他地区相比，日期安排得当的考古组合数量众多，东非仍然是探索行为变异模式的关键地区。对东非MSA记录的定量研究表明，行为在空间，时间和不同环境背景下的行为变化模式。在这里，我们通过使用矩阵相关性统计数据来检验这些模式的性质，探讨组装组合和原材料使用的差异是否与彼此之间的差异，组装年龄，空间距离，以及MSA站点周围景观的地理和环境特征。组件的组成和原材料使用之间的相关性最强，站点类型以及地理和环境变量也被确定与前者具有显着的相关性，时间和空间距离与后者之间的相关性更强。通过将时间和空间合并为一个变量，我们可以证明其与石材工具组合组成和原材料使用差异之间的密切关系，对于探索文化继承过程对MSA变异性的影响具有重要意义。重大的