Abstract

Coastal adaptation in the southern Cape can be seen around 100,000 years ago in sites such as Klasies River, Blombos Cave, and Pinnacle Point, representing the occupation of a new niche by early Homo sapiens in this region. However, there is relatively little information available on the details involved in fully entering this niche from a regional perspective. At Klasies River main site (KRM), evidence for coastal adaptation occurs in early MIS 5. Here we explore the variability in shellfish exploitation and how it links to lithic technology, in deposits dating to ca. 93,000–110,000 years ago. We compare this to broadly contemporaneous assemblages from Pinnacle Point 13B and Blombos Cave. The lithics in all the layers from KRM investigated here have been produced according to a unidirectional reduction system, but the lowermost assemblages contain more small debitage and bladelets, and no tools. These 110 ka layers are associated with a lower shellfish density and more diverse range of shellfish species and a higher lithic density. This points to a lesser dependency on shellfish coinciding with higher mobility in the lower layers. For the younger MIS 5c layers higher volumes of shellfish and the dominance of certain species is evident. The lithics show that all the stages of the reduction system are present and tools are produced and used on-site. This indicates a residential (provisioning of place) occupational strategy. Compared to other sites on the southern Cape coast, KRM shows exceptionally high densities in lithic artifacts while the shellfish densities are comparable to the Blombos M3 phase. The results of the analysis of the shellfish and lithic densities, technological patterns, and shellfish species exploited at Klasies River, Blombos Cave and Pinnacle Point, demonstrate a more diverse onset and expression of coastal adaptation during early MIS 5 than apparent from current literature.

摘要

大约 10 万年前，在 Klasies River、Blombos Cave 和 Pinnacle Point 等地点可以看到南开普省的沿海适应，这代表了早期智人占领了一个新的生态位在这个地区。然而，从区域的角度来看，关于完全进入这个利基市场所涉及的细节方面的信息相对较少。在 Klasies River 主要站点 (KRM)，海岸适应的证据出现在 MIS 5 的早期。在这里，我们探讨了贝类开发的可变性以及它如何与岩石技术联系起来，在可追溯至约 20 年的沉积物中。93,000–110,000 年前。我们将其与 Pinnacle Point 13B 和 Blombos Cave 的广泛同时代的组合进行比较。此处研究的 KRM 的所有层中的石块都是根据单向还原系统生产的，但最下面的组合包含更多的小齿和小刀片，并且没有工具。这 110 ka 层与较低的贝类密度和更多样化的贝类物种以及较高的岩石密度有关。这表明对贝类的依赖较少，同时较低层的流动性较高。对于较年轻的 MIS 5c 层，贝类的体积更大，某些物种的优势是显而易见的。石碑表明还原系统的所有阶段都存在，并且工具是在现场生产和使用的。这表明住宅（提供场所）职业战略。与开普敦南部海岸的其他地点相比，KRM 在石器文物中表现出异常高的密度，而贝类的密度与 Blombos M3 阶段相当。在 Klasies River、Blombos Cave 和 Pinnacle Point 开发的贝类和岩石密度、技术模式和贝类物种的分析结果，