1
Homo sapiens Corridor
Cradle of our species & emergence of our culture
Tracking our 200,000 year epic journey
From Cape to Rio
10
Africa Alive Corridors
Homo sapiens Corridor
1st-person short stories
J.M. Anderson & M. de Wit
3
PINNACLE POINT
162,000 years ago
Phalium
labiatum,
Helmet
Shell
Glycymeris
connollyi ,
Dog Cockel
162,000 years ago
Fire as an
engineering tool
Alikreukal
Alikreukal
(Turbo
sarmaticus)
(Turbo sarmaticus)
162,000 years ago
160
Pinnacle Point
Climate curve
150
Phalium
labiatum,
Helmet
Shell
ka
140
Glycymeris
connollyi ,
Dog Cockel
Earliest use of ochre, shellfish, bladelets
Of the growing number of sites along the southern
Cape coast, this is perhaps the single most prolific.
Discovered only recently, in 1997 by Peter Nilssen, it
includes beds going back to 166,000 BP (the oldest
known occupation level along the HSC Corridor).
These levels yield the earliest evidence of shellfish collecting (diet), heat-treated silcrete blades
(technology), & use of ochre pigment (culture).
Alikreukal
(Turbo sarmaticus)
Typical seashells
collected from
Whale Barnacle
Pinnacle
IndicatesPoint
Brown mussel
(Perna Perna)
Whale Barnacle
Indicates
Scavenging of Whale
Skin and Blubber
Scavenging of Whale
Skin and Blubber
early MSA
162,000 BP
170
180
cold
hot
10ºC swing
Brown mussel
(Perna Perna)
1st-person short stories
Pinnacle Point
Whale
Brown
Indica
(Perna
Scave
Skin a
5
LANGEBAAN
120,000 years ago
Earliest known human footprints
Langebaan, with our earliest known human footprints
dating to 120,000 years ago is of the greatest
interest. They have been fondly dubbed ‘Eve’s
footprints’. Dave Roberts, who discovered the prints,
interprets them as those of a pregnant female (or
Langebaan Lagoon
one with particularly large buttocks) descending with
waddling gait diagonally down the side of an ancient
sand dune. It is an evocative picture.
ka
100
Climate curve
110
120
Eve’s footprints
Klasies River
120,000 BP
130
140 cold
hot
10ºC swing
1st-person short stories
Langebaan
7
KLASIES RIVER
115,000 years ago
Earliest reliably dated H sapiens skeletal remains.
It’s foremost significance is that it has yielded far more
early-human skeletal fragments (>30 specimens, 7
individuals) than any other site. These date to 90,000 &
115,000 BP. Interestingly, this unique sample has been
attributed to cannibalism—its earliest known occurrence.
The whole sequence shows that the coastal resources,
e.g., shell fish & seals, were systematically exploited.
ka
100
Climate curve
110
120
Klasies
Klasies River
115,000 BP
Klasies River
1 parietal fragment
2 maxillary
5 mandibles
fragments
1 ulna
Klasies River
115,000 BP
90,000 BP
2 individuals
5 individuals
130
140
cold
hot
10ºC swing
1st-person short stories
Klasies River
9
BLOMBOS CAVE
75,000 years ago
Earliest known artwork globally, cross-hatched ochre.
Excavations have uncovered a series of finds opening
new vistas on our behavioural evolution. From
occupation levels dated ca 75 ka have come the earliest
evidence of personal ornaments (a supposed shell-bead
necklace) & abstract art (geometric designs on ochre
Blombos Cave
& bone). And from those dated 100 ka come abalone
shell containers in which were evidently mixed ochre rich
pigment.
sharpened bone tool
ka
60
70
80
punctured beads
Climate curve
Howieson’s
Poort
Still Bay
75,000 BP
engraved ochre
Nassarius beads
Pre-Still Bay
90
cold
hot
10ºC swing
1st-person short stories
Blombos Cave
11
PINNACLE POINT
71,000 years ago
Earliest evidence of the bow & arrow.
Of the growing number of sites along the
southern Cape coast, this is perhaps the single
most prolific. Discovered only recently, in 1997
by Peter Nilssen.
The younger 71,000 BP occupation levels have
yielded the evidence for the bow & arrow.
Climate curve
50
60
70
80
silcrete blades
experimentally
attached to shaft
Sibudu
1cm
ka
microlithic blades
made from silcrete
Howieson’s
Poort
Still Bay
Pinnacle Point
71,000 BP
Pre-Still Bay
90
cold
hot
10ºC swing
1st-person short stories
Pinnacle Point
13
DIEPKLOOF
60,000 years ago
Engraved ostrich eggshell water containers are at the
heart of this rock shelter’s significance. A unique tally
of 270 fragments of these EOES represent a minimum
number of 25 containers. They ‘appear in 18 sequential
Diepkloof shelter
stratigraphic levels’, thus representing a tradition that
very likely persisted for ‘several thousand years’. These
are some of the earliest known symbols thought to
identify individuals within a group.
ka
Climate curve
50
60
70
80
Sibudu
Howieson’s
Poort
engraved ostrich
eggshells
60,000 BP
Still Bay
Diepkloof
Pre-Still Bay
cold
hot
10ºC swing
1st-person short stories
15
KLEIN SWARTBERG
2,000 years ago
Numerous rock-art sites depicting therianthropes.
The Klein Swartberg and adjacent ranges are rich
with San rock art sites. The paintings echo a world
of social relationships, mythology, rituals & beliefs—
offering a special glimpse of our human past. The
common depiction of therianthropes—half human
half animal, fish or bird—suggests the spiritual
leaning of the people. Ostrich men and watermeide
portray transformation during trance, altered states
of consciousness.
ka 0
10
final LSA
Wilton
Oakhurst
2,000 BP
Frieze of 24 ostrich-men
Robberg
20
Klein Swartberg
Watermeide
early LSA
30
40
cold
hot
10ºC swing
9. Klein Swartberg
Klein Swartberg
1st-person short stories
9. Klein Swartberg
CHANGING CLIMATE
2. The last 65 million years
From dinosaurs to mammals
3
0
2
1
ka
0
ca 2 Ma-12Ka
Antarctic
reglaciation
10
Woolly mammoth
Miocene
0
20
24
5,5 Ma
40
2
Equivalent
Vostok ∆T(°C)
2.2
2
3.1
3
3.3
4
80
b 5.2
Hot
Cold
pre 34 Ma
65,5
70 Ma
Paleocene
PETM
Polar Ocean
Equivalent ∆T(°C)
Cretaceous
4
6
8
10
H. heidelbergensis
Homo erectus
Eocene
Optimum
Eocene
Paleocene Eocene
Thermal Maximum
°C
20°C swing
The dinosaurs were cold-blooded creatures & thrived in hot
temperatures (a hothouse world); mammals are warm-blooded­
animals & thrive in cold temperatures (an icehouse world). The
mammals became the dominant land animals after the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous (65 myr). They
have evolved to great diversity in a cooling world—through
a drop of 20°C. If things return to the hothouse world of the dinosaurs, the mammals, including ourselves, will not survive.
Hot
18,000 years
180
260
b
7
200 ka
7.3
c
d
e
7.5
8.2
8
280
300
7.1
a
240
b
9.1
c
9.3
350,000
years ago
Today
Vegetation biomes
During intervals of maximum glaciation, Africa was
a parched and far grimmer
place for humans to eke
out an existence. The Cape
coastal region would have
been one of the few places where the climate and
food resources (terrestrial
& marine) would have been
manageable.
At 18 000 & again at around
138 000 years ago, the
world was very different
from how we know it today.
The ice caps were far more
extensive, the continental
shelves largely exposed, the
deserts way more expansive
& the tropical forests much
reduced.
8.5
9
isotype
stages
African vegetation
Hunter-gatherers occupying
Pinnacle Point on the Cape
coast during these same
glacial & interglacial epochs,
would have seen all-together different scenes—from
landscape with a diversity of
antelope to seascape with
whales & seals.
8.3
a
320
340
12
6.3
6.5
220
542 Ma–
60
160
6.2
6
200
Antarctica
50
56
140
Cold
ca 34 Ma
H. neanderthalesis
Antarctic
thawing
Antarctic
glaciation
Oligocene
270-190 Ma
190
5.5
120
Our world is a hugely different place during glacial & interglacial epochs. At 18,000
years ago & at 135,000
years ago, the ice-caps
were far more extensive
than now; with the Arctic ice
covering the greater part of
North America and Western
Europe.
Sea-level fluctuation
Today
d 5.4
Antarctica
40
Pinnacle Point
c 5.3
100
20
18,000
years ago
a 5.1
5
30
3
1
12
60
-8 -6 -4 -2
4
0
Pleistocene
Pliocene
5
Glacials-interglacials
Courtesy Richard Cowling
4
Across the divide to Homo sapiens
Today
Courtesy Curtis Marean
5
18,000 years ago
ice volume
glacial
interglacial
°C
10°C swing
On this graph, we home in on the last three major interglacial-glacial cycles. Each spanning ca 100,000 years and reflecting a swing of ca 10°C. Homo sapiens (anatomically modern
humans) first appeared somewhere, at around 200 ka, on the
cooling curve from the interglacial MIS 7 to the glacial MIS 6.
The compelling thing from this time on is how closely our major
cultural breakthroughs—our genius moments—parallel
cli1st-person short the
stories
mate curve. We will consider this further in the following graph.
Adopted from Compton (2011)
Ma
SHIFTING COASTLINES
6. The last 350,000 years
H. sapiens
17
Expanded continental shelf with sea level ca 120 m lower than today;
Southern Coastal Plain expanded by ca twice the area of the Kruger National Park
19
THE ANTHROPOCENE (6th EXTINCTION)
TSWAING
TOBA
GOBEKLI TEPE
Asteroid impact
Volcanic explosion
Human megaliths
220,000 years ago
75,000 years ago
9,600 years ago
Pretoria, South Africa
Genetic mutation
Mitochondrial Eve
(Our mutual great-great
great ...... granny)
Sumatra, Indonesia
Population bottleneck
(50 - 100,000 humans)
Bow & Arrow
Global colonisation
(1st Wave, Out of Africa)
Turkey, Middle-East
Organised Religion
Towns
Farming, Domestication
Global colonisation
(2nd Wave, Out of Mid.-East)
1st-person short stories
21
CAPE FOLD BELT
FYNBOS
6 Plant Kingdoms Worldwide
Cape Floral Kingdom, 9,000 species
(British Isles, 3,5x larger, 1,500 species)
1st-person short stories
Ericaceae (Erica)
627 species
Proteaceae (Protea)
330 species
MARINE DIVERSITY
23
From mollucs to whales
Warm
Mosambique
current
Cold
Benguella
current
77
37
species
globally
Bryde’s Whale.
species
SA
Humpback Whale
1st-person short stories
Southern Right Whale