INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

What evidence is known from the Klasies River Mouth
caves? These South African coastal caves have a
record dating from 120,000 to 60,000 years old, with
flake tools from the Middle Stone Age (Africa uses
this terminology instead of Paleolithic) and fancier
blade and other tools from the Late Stone Age
(equivalent of Upper Paleolithic; see pictures p. 104),
as well as remains of terrestrial mammals and marine
foods. There is disputed evidence for cannibalism and
for use of plant foods around hearths. Modern-looking
human skeletal remains appear very early here, about
100,000 years ago.
What major archaeological characteristics are present in the Upper Paleolithic? We can
characterize this time period, from perhaps 50,000 years ago to a little over 10,000 years ago, by
its sophisticated blade tools and also artifacts of bone, antler, and ivory that are very standardized
and diverse. The artifact typologies were established mostly in the south of France, where many
caves and rock shelters were excavated over the past
century.
Also this is the time of the earliest widespread art, both
on rock walls and as portable items. Was there no art
in the Middle Paleolithic? Did Neanderthals have the
concept of art? There are a few engraved bones and
now the newest, oldest find from a South African cave,
dated to 77,000 years old so in the Middle Stone Age,
is some stones with crisscross lines engraved in them,
associated with finely carved bone tools and fishing
gear (Blombos Cave finds, Jan 2002, in the news and
online; also in Henshilwood et al. 2002). Is this
doodling? Mapmaking? Evidence of complex thinking
or esthetics? No way to tell. What hominid made this?
Again, we do not know. But in the Upper Paleolithic there is what has been called an explosion
of art of many kinds.
What is Upper Paleolithic stationary art or parietal or mural art? Engravings and/or paintings on
cave walls, usually in the forms of animals, abstract lines, and sometimes people. What is
portable art? The stone or fired clay figurines in the forms of animals and people. The best
known examples of each are found in Europe (where, again, we have the longest history of
archaeological investigation, though not necessarily the earliest or best archaeology!). Where is
Lascaux cave, and what is in it? In the southwest of France, it is famous for painted animals, and
there are many other such caves in this region discussed in your book. Where is Dolni
Vestonice? In the Czech Republic, it has produced interesting evidence of portable art. Besides
the representation of the asymmetrical human face buried near a skeleton of a woman who would
have had such a face, the site has also produced thousands of fired clay figurines of animals and
women.