Coastal adaptations have been considered to play an important role in the bio-cultural evolution of early Homo sapiens and their dispersal out of Africa. In line with this assessment, recent years have seen increasing evidence for the exploitation of seafood from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of northern and southern Africa. Yet, chronological control constitutes a key problem for better understanding the evolution of these behaviours, with little well-dated evidence for their origins in the late Middle Pleistocene and only few sites dated to before 100 ka. The shellfish-bearing MSA site of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1), located in the Western Cape in South Africa, is one of the localities tentatively dated to the early Late Pleistocene. HDP1 has yielded a 1.5 m stratigraphic sequence with three phases of occupation, each containing abundant lithic artefacts, shellfish, terrestrial fauna, ostrich eggshell and pieces of ground ochre. Analyses of the cultural and zooarchaeological remains of HDP1 have provided evidence for systematic gathering of a narrow range of marine resources coupled with stable adaptations to coastal landscapes. Here we present the first complete absolute chronology for the site and its entire stratigraphic sequence by applying luminescence dating (OSL) to quartz grains extracted from the carbonate-rich sediments. The results show repeated human occupations during Marine Isotope Stages 5e-5c (∼130–100 ka) at HDP1, suggesting successful integration of coastal ecosystems into the regular repertoire of behavioural adaptations by early modern humans by no later than the beginning of the Late Pleistocene.

海岸适应被认为在早期智人的生物文化进化中起着重要作用以及他们从非洲的分散。根据这一评估，近年来有越来越多的证据表明在非洲北部和南部的中石器时代 (MSA) 中开采海鲜。然而，时间顺序控制构成了更好地理解这些行为演变的关键问题，几乎没有证据表明它们起源于中更新世晚期，而且只有少数地点可以追溯到 100 ka 之前。位于南非西开普省的 Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1) 的贝类 MSA 站点是初步确定为晚更新世早期的地点之一。HDP1 已经产生了一个 1.5 m 的地层序列，具有三个占据阶段，每个阶段都包含丰富的石制品、贝类、陆地动物群、鸵鸟蛋壳和地面赭石碎片。对 HDP1 的文化和动物考古遗迹的分析为系统地收集范围狭窄的海洋资源以及对沿海景观的稳定适应提供了证据。在这里，我们通过将发光测年 (OSL) 应用于从富含碳酸盐的沉积物中提取的石英颗粒，展示了该地点及其整个地层序列的第一个完整绝对年代学。结果显示，在 HDP1 的海洋同位素阶段 5e-5c（~130-100 ka）期间，人类重复占领，表明不迟于晚更新世开始，沿海生态系统已成功整合到早期现代人类的常规行为适应中.