Hoabinhian is a lithic techno-complex of archaeological sites associated with assemblages in Southeast Asia from late Pleistocene to Holocene, dated to c. 10,000–2000 BCE. It is attributed to hunter-gatherer societies of the region and their technological variability over time is poorly understood. In 2016 a rockshelter was identified in Yunnan (China), where artifacts belonging to the Hoabinhian technocomplex were recognized. These artifacts date from 41,500 BCE.
The Kondoa Rock-Art Sites or Kondoa Irangi Rock Paintings are a series of ancient paintings on rockshelter walls in central Tanzania. The Kondoa region was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 because of its impressive collection of rock art. These sites were named national monuments in 1937 by the Tanzania Antiquities Department. The paintings are located approximately nine kilometres east of the main highway (T5) from Dodoma to Babati, about 20 km north of Kondoa town, in Kondoa District of Dodoma Region, Tanzania. The boundaries of the site are marked by concrete posts. The site is a registered National Historic Sites of Tanzania.
Mumba Cave, located near the highly alkaline Lake Eyasi in Karatu District, Arusha Region, Tanzania. The cave is a rich archaeological site noted for deposits spanning the transition between the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age in Eastern Africa. The transitional nature of the site has been attributed to the large presence of its large assemblage of ostrich eggshell beads and more importantly, the abundance of microlith technology. Because these type artifacts were found within the site it has led archaeologists to believe that the site could provide insight into the origins of modern human behavior. The cave was originally tested by Ludwig Kohl-Larsen and his wife Margit in their 1934 to 1936 expedition. They found abundant artifacts, rock art, and burials. However, only brief descriptions of these findings were ever published. That being said, work of the Kohl-Larsens has been seen as very accomplished due to their attention to detail, especially when one considers that neither was versed in proper archaeological techniques at the time of excavation. The site has since been reexamined in an effort to reanalyze and complement the work that has already been done, but the ramifications of improper excavations of the past are still being felt today, specifically in the unreliable collection of C-14 data and confusing stratigraphy.
Balangoda Man refers to hominins from Sri Lanka's late Quaternary period. The term was initially coined to refer to anatomically modern Homo sapiens from sites near Balangoda that were responsible for the island's Mesolithic 'Balangoda Culture'. The earliest evidence of Balangoda Man from archaeological sequences at caves and other sites dates back to 38,000 BCE, and from excavated skeletal remains to 30,000 BC, which is also the earliest reliably dated record of anatomically modern humans in South Asia. Cultural remains discovered alongside the skeletal fragments include geometric microliths dating to 28,500 BC, which together with some sites in Africa is the earliest record of such stone tools.
Enkapune Ya Muto, also known as Twilight Cave, is a site spanning the late Middle Stone Age to the Late Stone Age on the Mau Escarpment of Kenya. This time span has allowed for further study of the transition from the Middle Stone Age to the Late Stone Age. In particular, the changes in lithic and pottery industries can be tracked over these time periods as well as transitions from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a herding lifestyle. Beads made of perforated ostrich egg shells found at the site have been dated to 40,000 years ago. The beads found at the site represent the early human use of personal ornaments. Inferences pertaining to climate and environment changes during the pre-Holocene and Holocene period have been made based from faunal remains based in this site.
Border Cave is an archaeological site located in the western Lebombo Mountains in Kwazulu-Natal. The rock shelter has one of the longest archaeological records in southern Africa, which spans from the Middle Stone Age to the Iron Age.
Jwalapuram is an archaeological site in the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, southern India, which shows hominid habitation before and after the Toba event according to the Toba catastrophe theory. It is unclear what species of humans settled Jwalapuram as no fossil remains have yet been found.
Buur Heybe, which translates to "The Hill of the Potter's Sand", is a late Pleistocene and Holocene archaeological complex located in the largest granite inselberg in the inter-riverine region of the southern Bay province of Somalia approximately 180 km northwest of the capital Mogadishu. Buur Heybe has a longstanding history of archaeological research dating back to the 1930s when Paolo Graziosi carried out the first professional archaeological excavation in Somalia in the rockshelter site of Gogoshiis Qabe in Buur Heybe. Further excavations by J. Desmond Clark in the 1950s and later by the Buur Ecological and Archaeological Project (BEAP) led by Steven Brandt in the 1980s have made Buur Heybe one of the best dated and closely studied archaeological sites in Somalia.
Elands Bay Cave is located near the mouth of the Verlorenvlei estuary on the Atlantic coast of South Africa's Western Cape Province. The climate has continuously become drier since the habitation of hunter-gatherers in the Later Pleistocene. The archaeological remains recovered from previous excavations at Elands Bay Cave have been studied to help answer questions regarding the relationship of people and their landscape, the role of climate change that could have determined or influenced subsistence changes, and the impact of pastoralism and agriculture on hunter-gatherer communities.
Central Africa is generally considered to encompass ten countries which amounts to more than six million square kilometers or roughly the size of the United States west of the Mississippi River. Despite its large size, very little archaeological research has been done in the region.
Rose Cottage Cave (RCC) is an archaeological site in the Free State, South Africa, situated only a few kilometers away from Ladybrand, close to the Caledon River, on the northern slopes of the Platberg. RCC is an important site because of its long cultural sequence, its roots in modern human behavior, and the movement of early modern humans out of Africa. Rose Cottage is the only site from the Middle Stone Age that can tell us about the behavioral variability of hunter-gatherers during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Berry D. Malan excavated the site between 1943 and 1946, shortly followed by Peter B. Beaumont in the early 1960s, and the most recent excavations occurred from 1987 to 1997 by Lyn Wadley and Philip Harper in 1989 under Wadley's supervision. Humans have inhabited Rose Cottage for over 100,000 years throughout the Middle and Later Stone Ages. Site formation and sediment formation processes at Rose Cottage appear to be primarily anthropogenic. Archaeological research focuses primarily on blade technology and tool forms from the Middle Stone Age and the implications of modern human behavior. Structurally, the cave measures more than 6 meters deep and about 20 by 10 meters. A boulder encloses the front, protecting the cave, but allowing a small opening for a skylight and narrow entrances on both the east and west sides.
Panga ya Saidi is an archaeological cave site located in Kilifi County, southeastern Kenya, about 15 km from the Indian Ocean in the Dzitsoni limestone hills. The cave site has rich archaeological deposits dating to the Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and Iron Age. Excavated deposits preserve an unusually long record of human activities, from around 78,000 years ago until around 400 years ago, a chronology supported by radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence dating. This sequence puts Panga ya Saidi alongside other key sites such as Enkapune ya Muto, Mumba Rockshelter, and Nasera Rockshelter that are important for understanding the Late Pleistocene and the Middle to Later Stone Age transition in eastern Africa.
Nasera Rockshelter is an archaeological site located in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area within Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region in northern Tanzania, and it has evidence of Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age occupations in the Late Pleistocene to early Holocene, and ceramic-bearing Holocene occupations attributed to Kansyore, Nderit, and Savanna Pastoral Neolithic traditions. It was first excavated by Louis Leakey in 1932. A second series of excavations by Michael Mehlman in 1975 and 1976 led to the first comprehensive published study of the shelter, its stratigraphy and chronology, and its abundant material culture, including stone tools, faunal remains, and pottery. Recent work has sought to better understand chronology, lithic technology, mobility and demography, and site formation processes at Nasera Rockshelter. Nasera Rockshelter is considered a key site in eastern Africa for understanding the Middle Stone Age to Later Stone Age transition, and also for the study of the spread of livestock herding during the Pastoral Neolithic. Its chronology and archaeological sequence have been compared to those of other key sites in the region such as Mumba Rockshelter, Kisese II Rockshelter, Panga ya Saidi, and Enkapune ya Muto.
The history of Central Africa has been divided into its prehistory, its ancient history, the major polities flourishing, the colonial period, and the post-colonial period, in which the current nations were formed. Central Africa is the central region of Africa, bordered by North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Sahara Desert. Colonial boundaries are reflected in the modern boundaries between contemporary Central African states, cutting across ethnic and cultural lines, often dividing single ethnic groups between two or more states.
West African hunter-gatherers, West African foragers, or West African pygmies dwelled in western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP and dwelled in West Africa between 16,000 BP and 12,000 BP until as late as 1000 BP or some period of time after 1500 CE. West African hunter-gatherers are archaeologically associated with the West African Microlithic Technocomplex. Despite its significance in the prehistory of West Africa, the peopling of various parts of Western Africa from the Sub-Saharan regions of coastal West Africa and the forests of western Central Africa often goes overlooked.
The prehistory of West Africa spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the Iron Age in West Africa. West African populations were considerably mobile and interacted with one another throughout the population history of West Africa. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP. During the Pleistocene, Middle Stone Age peoples, who dwelled throughout West Africa between MIS 4 and MIS 2, were gradually replaced by incoming Late Stone Age peoples, who migrated into West Africa as an increase in humid conditions resulted in the subsequent expansion of the West African forest. West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP, dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP, and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania.
The Mlambalasi Rock Shelter is a historic site located in Iringa District of Iringa Region in southern Tanzania, 50 km away from Iringa City. Excavations in 2006 and 2010 by the Iringa Region Archaeological Project uncovered artifactual deposits from the Later Stone Age (LSA), the Iron Age, and the historic periods, as well as external artifacts from the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Direct dating on Achatina shell and ostrich eggshell beads indicates that the oldest human burials at Mlambalasi are from the terminal Pleistocene. Mlambalasi is characterized by interment LSA and Iron Age periods, as well as by cycles of use and abandonment.
Mochena Borago is a rockshelter and archaeological site situated on the western slope of Mount Damota, nearest to the town of Wolaita Sodo in Ethiopia, located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. The site is well-dated, with 59 radiocarbon dates, which gives it one of the most secure chronologies among Late Pleistocene sites in the Horn of Africa and Eastern Africa. It is one of only a few African sites found with intact deposits dating to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 outside of South Africa, and was potentially a refugium for hunter-gatherering peoples during the cold and arid period of MIS 4. This makes it an important research site for testing the "refugium theory," which states that over the past 70,000 years, during cold, arid conditions, like those of the Last Glacial Maximum and MIS 4, humans sought refuge in the mountains of the southwest Ethiopian Highlands, which received higher rainfall, making them more habitable than the surrounding areas. Research at Mochena Borago is helping to reconstruct human behavior during the Late Pleistocene, and the paleoenvironment that Homosapiens would have inhabited at this time in the Horn of Africa.
The population history of West Africa is composed of West African populations that were considerably mobile and interacted with one another throughout the history of West Africa. Acheulean tool-using archaic humans may have dwelled throughout West Africa since at least between 780,000 BP and 126,000 BP. During the Pleistocene, Middle Stone Age peoples, who dwelled throughout West Africa between MIS 4 and MIS 2, were gradually replaced by incoming Late Stone Age peoples, who migrated into West Africa as an increase in humid conditions resulted in the subsequent expansion of the West African forest. West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP, dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP, and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania.
The prehistory of Central Africa spans from the earliest human presence in the region until the emergence of the Iron Age in Central Africa. By at least 2,000,000 BP, Central Africa was occupied by early hominins. West African hunter-gatherers occupied western Central Africa earlier than 32,000 BP, dwelled throughout coastal West Africa by 12,000 BP, and migrated northward between 12,000 BP and 8000 BP as far as Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. Prehistoric West Africans may have diverged into distinct ancestral groups of modern West Africans and Bantu-speaking peoples in Cameroon, and, subsequently, around 5000 BP, the Bantu-speaking peoples migrated into other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
