Howiesons Poort
Encyclopedia
Howiesons Poort is a lithic technology
cultural period in the Middle Stone Age
in Africa named after the Howieson’s Poort Shelter
archeological site near Grahamstown
in South Africa
. Research published in 2008 showed it lasted around 5,000 years between roughly 65,800 BP and 59,500 BP.
Humans of this period as in the earlier Stillbay
cultural period showed signs of having used symbolism and having engaged in the cultural exchange of gifts.
Howiesons Poort culture is characterized by tools that seemingly anticipate many of the characteristics, 'Running ahead of time', of those found in the Upper Palaeolithic period that started 25,000 years later around 40,000 BP. Howiesons Poort culture has been described as “both ‘modern’ and ‘non-modern’”.
dating has pushed back the date of its remains and it is now estimated to have started 64.8 ka and ended 59.5 ka with a duration of 5.3 ka. This date matches the oxygen isotope stage OIS4 which was a period aridity and sea level lowering in southern Africa.
In the South African Middle Stone Age
sequence culture it occurs following a gap of 7 ka after the Stillbay
period. The culture occurs in various sites around mainly South Africa but also Namibia
and Zimbabwe
.
Artifact
s from it were first described in 1927 by Rev. P. Stapleton, a Jesuit schoolteacher at St Aidan's College and John Hewitt
a zoologist and the director of the local Albany museum. The period name was given to their finds by AJH Goodwin and Clarence van Riet Lowe in 1929. After this and until the mid 1970s, Howieson’s Poort industry was taken to be a variety of Magosian
and so intermediate in time and technology between the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age
.
. The most notable come from composite weapons. These were made from “geometric backed” blades that were hafted together with heated ochre and gum compound glue. These blades are sometimes called segments, crescents, lunates or microlith
s are the type fossils for identifying a technology as Howiesons Poort. Organic residues preserved on the tips of these stone tools show not only that they were hafted but also that they were used as hunting weapons.
From this period at Sibudu Cave
the earliest bone arrow and needle come has been excavated. The presence of a high percentage of the small antelope small blue duiker
remains have been suggested as evidence of the use of traps.
Fine-grained stone such as silcrete
and quartz
make up a large percentage of Howiesons Poort artifacts than in both earlier and later Middle Stone Age cultures. Howiesons Poort tools seem not to differ greatly in shape from those of the Late Stone Age
lithic tools such as those manufactured by Wilton
culture though they tend to be larger but somewhat smaller than the typical flake and blade tools elsewhere in the Middle Stone Age. They have indeed been described as ‘fully “Upper Palaeolithic” in almost every recognized technological and typological sense’. The Howiesons Poort Industry is anomalous not only for its early appearance, which Vishnyatsky calls ‘running ahead of time’, but because it is replaced by Middle Stone Age industries that are similar to those of pre-Howiesons Poort. This change seems to have happened gradually.
It has been noted that “Not only was ochre collected and returned to the site but there is evidence in the ochre 'pencils' with ground facets that it was powdered for use. Ochre may have had many uses but the possibility that it was used as a body paint, and therefore had served a symbolic purpose”
It has been suggested that backed blades played a role in gift exchanges of hunting equipment, and this ceased with culture changes that stopped this exchange and so the need for their manufacture. This idea is supported by evidence that the long-distance transport of non-local raw materials (which such gift culture would have encouraged) is reduced after the Howiesons Poort period.
While the end of this culture might be due to climate change this seems unlikely since its disappearance does not link to any identifiable climatic event.
Relationship to the Late Stone Age
Lithic Technology
In archeology, lithic technology refers to a broad array of techniques and styles to produce usable tools from various types of stone. The earliest stone tools were recovered from modern Ethiopia and were dated to between two-million and three-million years old...
cultural period in the Middle Stone Age
Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African Prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50-25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550-500,000...
in Africa named after the Howieson’s Poort Shelter
Howieson’s Poort Shelter
Howieson’s Poort Shelter is a small rock cave in South Africa containing the archeological site from which the Howiesons Poort period in the Middle Stone Age gets its name...
archeological site near Grahamstown
Grahamstown
Grahamstown is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa and is the seat of the Makana municipality. The population of greater Grahamstown, as of 2003, was 124,758. The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799 of which 77.4% were black,...
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. Research published in 2008 showed it lasted around 5,000 years between roughly 65,800 BP and 59,500 BP.
Humans of this period as in the earlier Stillbay
Stillbay
The Stillbay industry is the name given by the archaeologists Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in 1929 to a mid-Palaeolithic stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types...
cultural period showed signs of having used symbolism and having engaged in the cultural exchange of gifts.
Howiesons Poort culture is characterized by tools that seemingly anticipate many of the characteristics, 'Running ahead of time', of those found in the Upper Palaeolithic period that started 25,000 years later around 40,000 BP. Howiesons Poort culture has been described as “both ‘modern’ and ‘non-modern’”.
Date
Modern research using optically stimulated luminescenceOptically stimulated luminescence
In physics, optically stimulated luminescence is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation.The method makes use of electrons trapped between the valence and conduction bands in the crystalline structure of certain types of matter . The trapping sites are imperfections of the lattice -...
dating has pushed back the date of its remains and it is now estimated to have started 64.8 ka and ended 59.5 ka with a duration of 5.3 ka. This date matches the oxygen isotope stage OIS4 which was a period aridity and sea level lowering in southern Africa.
In the South African Middle Stone Age
Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African Prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50-25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550-500,000...
sequence culture it occurs following a gap of 7 ka after the Stillbay
Stillbay
The Stillbay industry is the name given by the archaeologists Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in 1929 to a mid-Palaeolithic stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types...
period. The culture occurs in various sites around mainly South Africa but also Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
.
Artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s from it were first described in 1927 by Rev. P. Stapleton, a Jesuit schoolteacher at St Aidan's College and John Hewitt
John Hewitt (herpetologist)
John Hewitt was a South African zoologist and archaeologist of British origin. He was born in Dronfield nearby Sheffield, England, and died in Grahamstown, South Africa. He was the author of several herpetological papers which described new species.He graduated with a first-class in natural...
a zoologist and the director of the local Albany museum. The period name was given to their finds by AJH Goodwin and Clarence van Riet Lowe in 1929. After this and until the mid 1970s, Howieson’s Poort industry was taken to be a variety of Magosian
Magosian
The Magosian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry found in southern and eastern Africa. It dates to between 10,000 and 6,000 years BC and is distinguished from its predecessors by the use of microliths and small blades.In 1953, J...
and so intermediate in time and technology between the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age
Late Stone Age
The Later Stone Age refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic...
.
Technology
Howiesons Poort is associated with various archaeological artifactsArtifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
. The most notable come from composite weapons. These were made from “geometric backed” blades that were hafted together with heated ochre and gum compound glue. These blades are sometimes called segments, crescents, lunates or microlith
Microlith
A microlith is a small stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. It is produced from either a small blade or a larger blade-like piece of flint by abrupt or truncated retouching, which leaves a very typical piece of waste,...
s are the type fossils for identifying a technology as Howiesons Poort. Organic residues preserved on the tips of these stone tools show not only that they were hafted but also that they were used as hunting weapons.
From this period at Sibudu Cave
Sibudu Cave
Sibudu Cave is a cave in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago...
the earliest bone arrow and needle come has been excavated. The presence of a high percentage of the small antelope small blue duiker
Blue Duiker
Blue Duiker is a small forest dwelling duiker found in the Central Africa and southern South Africa.Blue Duikers stand around 35 centimetres tall at the shoulder and weigh 4 kilograms.They are the smallest of the antelope family. Blue Duikers have a brown coat with a slight blue tinge – hence...
remains have been suggested as evidence of the use of traps.
Fine-grained stone such as silcrete
Silcrete
Silcrete is an indurated soil duricrust formed when silica is dissolved and resolidifies as a cement. It is a hard and resistant material, and though different in origin and nature, appears similar to quartzite...
and quartz
Quartz
Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...
make up a large percentage of Howiesons Poort artifacts than in both earlier and later Middle Stone Age cultures. Howiesons Poort tools seem not to differ greatly in shape from those of the Late Stone Age
Late Stone Age
The Later Stone Age refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic...
lithic tools such as those manufactured by Wilton
Wilton
- England :*Wilton, Cumbria, a place in the county of Cumbria*Wilton, Herefordshire, a village in south Herefordshire*Wilton, North Yorkshire, a place in the county of North Yorkshire*Wilton, Redcar and Cleveland, a place in the borough of Redcar and Cleveland...
culture though they tend to be larger but somewhat smaller than the typical flake and blade tools elsewhere in the Middle Stone Age. They have indeed been described as ‘fully “Upper Palaeolithic” in almost every recognized technological and typological sense’. The Howiesons Poort Industry is anomalous not only for its early appearance, which Vishnyatsky calls ‘running ahead of time’, but because it is replaced by Middle Stone Age industries that are similar to those of pre-Howiesons Poort. This change seems to have happened gradually.
Symbolism
Like the earlier Stillbay industry, the Howiesons Poort culture produced symbolic artifacts such as engraved ochre, ostrich eggshells and shell beads. There is a particularly abundant and diverse use of ochre as a pigment and this has been interpreted as reflecting an increasingly complex symbolic culture.It has been noted that “Not only was ochre collected and returned to the site but there is evidence in the ochre 'pencils' with ground facets that it was powdered for use. Ochre may have had many uses but the possibility that it was used as a body paint, and therefore had served a symbolic purpose”
Disappearance
Howiesons Poort culture did not survive and this has raised questions as to why. For example Lyn Wadley has noted that “if the Howiesons Poort backed blade production was an important marker of modern human behaviour it is difficult to explain why it should have lasted for more than 20,000 years and then have been replaced by ‘pre-modern’ technology?” p. 203It has been suggested that backed blades played a role in gift exchanges of hunting equipment, and this ceased with culture changes that stopped this exchange and so the need for their manufacture. This idea is supported by evidence that the long-distance transport of non-local raw materials (which such gift culture would have encouraged) is reduced after the Howiesons Poort period.
While the end of this culture might be due to climate change this seems unlikely since its disappearance does not link to any identifiable climatic event.
Although the Howiesons Poort occurred during a period of climatic warming, this was also the case for the late and final MSA occupations at Sibudu. The Stillbay and post-Howiesons Poort periods cannot be reliably associated with either warm or cool intervals. Accordingly, we cannot identify any particular climatic attribute that is consistently and uniquely associated with any MSA industry the Stillbay coincided (within error) with the Toba volcanic super-eruption and with the end of megadroughts in tropical Africa, whereas the Howiesons Poort is not associated with any such known events. Environmental factors may have been responsible for episodic occupation and abandonment of rock shelters, but they were not necessarily the driving force behind technological change. … The cause of these two bursts of technological innovation, closely spaced yet separated in time, remains an enigma, as does the reason for their disappearance. But, intriguingly, both fall within the genetic bottleneck that occurred 80 to 60 ka and the subsequent expansions of modern human populations within and out of Africa.
Zenobia Jacobs and colleagues ScienceScience (journal)Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....
2008
Sites
- South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
- Klasies River CavesKlasies River CavesThe Klasies River Caves are a series of caves located to the east of the Klasies River mouth on the Tsitsikamma coast in the Humansdorp district of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The three main caves and two shelters at the base of a high cliff have revealed evidence of middle stone...
- Howieson’s Poort ShelterHowieson’s Poort ShelterHowieson’s Poort Shelter is a small rock cave in South Africa containing the archeological site from which the Howiesons Poort period in the Middle Stone Age gets its name...
- Sibudu CaveSibudu CaveSibudu Cave is a cave in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago...
- Peers Cave (Skildegat)
- Diepkloof Rock ShelterDiepkloof Rock ShelterDiepkloof Rock Shelter is a rock cave in Western Cape, South Africa in which has been found some of the earliest evidence of the human use of symbols, in the form of patterns engraved upon ostrich eggshell water containers. These date around 60,000 years ago.The symbolic patterns consist of lines...
- Nelson Bay Cave
- Boomplaas
- Border CaveBorder CaveBorder Cave is a rock shelter on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains in KwaZulu-Natal near the border between South Africa and Swaziland. Border Cave has a remarkably continuous stratigraphic record of occupation spanning about 200 ka. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons together with...
- Umhlatuzana
- Rose Cottage Cave
- Cave of Hearths
- SehonghongSehonghongSehonghong is a community council located in the Thaba-Tseka District of Lesotho. Its population in 2006 was 5,814. The village of Sehonghong is located between Taung and Matebeng on the Senqu River.-Villages:...
Moshebi's Shelter /Ntloana Tsoana - Montagu
- Klasies River Caves
- NamibiaNamibiaNamibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
- Apollo 11
- Aar l
- Bremen IC
- Haalenberg
- Pockenbanck
- ZimbabweZimbabweZimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
- Matopos : Nswatugi
Quotes
SymbolismThe chain of operations followed in the making of the Howiesons Poort backed artefacts goes beyond that necessary for purely functional tasks.
Sarah Wurz South African Archaeological Bulletin 1999The Upper Palaeolithic illustrates intensification in the use of symbols that may be associated with crowding or density dependent behaviour. … The Upper Palaeolithic was not a global stage and no equivalent of the Upper Palaeolithic has been recorded in sub-Saharan Africa or other regions outside the Upper Palaeolithic spread. In such regions, the emergence of symbolic behaviour would be indicated in different context specific markers. The importance of the evidence of the Howiesons Poort is that symbolic behaviour can be recognised in an African context at a significantly earlier time. Then, as now, symbolic communication was an essential in daily life.
Sarah Wurz South African Archaeological Bulletin 1999
Relationship to the Late Stone Age
The Howiesons Poort was a very original and innovative industry; but it did not persist and did not give rise to the LSA. In a sense it was both ‘‘modern’’ and ‘‘non-modern’’. This is why it is interesting.
Sylvain Soriano, Paola Villa, Lyn Wadley Journal of Archaeological Science 2007p. 700
The Howiesons Poort can no longer be seen as the product of 'Neo-anthropic influences' emanating out of Europe but it would be equally mistaken to see the Howiesons Poort as precociously anticipating the Upper Palaeolithic.
Sarah Wurz South African Archaeological Bulletin 1999
The exploitation of animal bones, antlers and ivory as raw materials for the production of mundane or ritual tools as well as for art objects became a common practice in the Upper Paleolithic, although these raw materials were available to Middle Paleolithic humans. … The exception is the rich assemblages of the Howiesons Poort entity in South Africa, and in particular in Bloombos cave, generally dated to 80–60,000 years ago. For the time being this cultural phenomenon is unique, isolated, stratigraphically and chronologically intercalated between two Middle Stone Age industries lacking bone tools. One may hypothesize that the makers of this culture did not survive to a later age and thus their innovative venture had no relationship to the appearance of similar bone and antler tools, beads and pendants in Eurasia.
Palaeolithic people could foresee their technological future no more, or even less, than we are able to. They never said, ‘The Middle Palaeolithic has gone on quite long enough - now we’d better get on with a transition to the Upper.’ So what is one to make of those precocious lithic industries which prefigure key features of later innovations, the industries which ‘run ahead’ of their own time?
LB Vishnyatsky AntiquityAntiquity (journal)Antiquity is an academic journal dedicated to the subject of archaeology. It publishes four editions a year, covering topics worldwide from all periods. Its current editor is Martin Carver, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of York....
1994