Introduction

A significant assemblage of Middle Stone Age artefacts was discovered along the Namibia-Angola border during a geomorphic reconnaissance of the lower Cunene River near Serra Cafema (Figure 1), on a former river terrace at the perimeter of the hyperarid Cunene sand sea (Figure 2). The cobble-gravel surface lag on the terrace includes over 30 Middle Stone Age lithics preserved in an open-air context (Figure 3). Finds include quartzite flakes, cores, and points with varying degrees of edge abrasion and varnish, including the first Levallois-Mousterian types reported from this part of Africa (Figure 4).

Figure 1.

Google Earth image showing location of the site at Cafema along the lower Cunene River.

Figure 2.

Map showing location of the Cafema MSA site (red star) along the Cunene River (perennial basin outlined in white) along the Angola-Namibia border.

Manufacture of Levallois points involves knapping techniques that were specifically developed to prepare a core for the removal of blanks of a predetermined size and shape. Evidence of core preparation using the classic Levallois technique is not common in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) assemblages documented in southern Africa thus far. Hence the Cafema finds provide an important new context for reconstructing the geographic spread of technological innovations.

Figure 3.

The site is armoured with a quartzite cobble-gravel lag and MSA artefacts.

The remaining Cafema artefacts appear rather rudimentary and do not strongly resemble other regional and continental entities (Reference ClarkClark 1966 & 1967; Reference MitchellMitchell 2002). Although the morphology of the flake assemblage is not diagnostic, the number of flakes seems to be significant. The presence of comparatively fresh points suggests that artefacts have not been significantly reworked. Our suggestion is therefore that this part of the Lower Cunene river valley attracted hominin activity; many African Early MSA artefacts are found at similar vantage points, near water sources such as ephemeral rivers, springs and pans. The site pattern at Cafema might reflect wetter conditions than today, or hunters who opportunistically followed game within a desert landscape.

During antiquity, riparian corridors like the Cunene would have provided refugia during periods of seasonal or persistent drought. River networks and other permanent or ephemeral water bodies may have determined effective migration routes for hominins during the MSA. Because the modern Cunene River traverses several ecotomes across a large portion of southern Africa, its prehistoric archives offer a basis to further resolve patterns of hominin activity along different landscape domains, including the transitions from tropical rainforest to savannah grassland and hyperarid desert biome.

Figure 4.

Representative artefacts from the river terrace at Cafema.

There are presently no published radiometric dates for MSA sites in northern Namibia. Stone tool typologies provide general correlations to other dated sites across the region. The Early Stone Age (ESA) began around 1.8myr, and the Middle Stone Age-Late Stone Age (MSA-LSA) boundary varies from 40-20 kyr. The ESA-MSA boundary in Southern Africa is more difficult to define; radiometric dates at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa date the beginning of the MSA to at least 160 kyr, and published dates for African contexts with points of Levallois-Mousterian type range from about 265 to 25kyr, with most sites falling between c.150kyr and 40kyr (for a review, see Nicoll in press 2009). The MSA timeframe encompasses the development of regional lithic traditions, the appearance of technological innovations and the emergence of the modern species Homo sapiens sapiens. The MSA preserves evidence of significant new behaviours, including the production of musical instruments, art and jewellery. These innovations relate to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, who may have had enhanced cognitive abilities and strategies that enabled the colonisation of new habitats and eventual dispersal from Africa.

Since the prehistoric archaeology of northern Namibia is not well known, the Cafema finds are significant for the reconstruction of artefactual taxonomic patterns and initial correlations across southern Africa. Stratified sites such as those in rock shelters are rare in this part of the Namib desert (e.g. Reference VogelsangVogelsang 1998). Despite the frequent presence of lithics on the surface of the Namib, it is thought that scatters simply do not matter, especially in comparison to the well-dated, rich archives described in South Africa (e.g. Deruiter et al., 2008; Jacobs et al., 2008). Further documentation and dating of sites in under-represented regions like Namibia are essential to resolve local and regional-scale occupation patterns and reconstruct the palaeoenvironmental settings of southern Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. This short contribution is designed to stress that surface artefact scatters do matter and provide valuable contexts towards reconstructing hominin biogeographies.