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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
earth and planetary sciences
Renewed investigations into the Middle Stone Age of northern Malawi
Quaternary International, Volume 270, Year 2012
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Description
J. Desmond Clark and his colleagues were first to investigate the rich Middle Stone Age (MSA - from ca. 285 to 30,000 years ago) deposits in the Karonga District of northern Malawi in the 1960s. This work demonstrated the enormous potential of the area to inform about Middle to Late Pleistocene hominin lifeways, but further studies were hindered by difficulties in dating the sites and understanding their fine-scale depositional and paleoenvironmental contexts. With the advances that have been made in the fields of geoarchaeology, lithic analysis, palaeoenvironments, and geochronology over the last fifty years, the time is ideal to renew these investigations. Recent survey and excavation in Karonga, Malawi show that MSA lithic artifacts are preserved in a variety of stratified sedimentary contexts and that they exhibit limited weathering or other indications of post-depositional transport. These deposits are in close proximity to the high-resolution paleoenvironmental records derived from sediments at the bottom of nearby Lake Malawi, which provide context for the human behavior recorded by the artifacts. Results of excavations at one of these stratified sites - the Airport Site - are detailed here. This provides a renewed example of the site formation and behavioral data available in the region. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.
Authors & Co-Authors
Thompson, Jessica C.
Australia, Brisbane
The University of Queensland
Mackay, Alex
Australia, Canberra
The Australian National University
Wright, David K.
South Korea, Seoul
Seoul National University
Welling, Menno
Malawi
African Heritage Research and Consultancy
Greaves, Amanda
Australia, Brisbane
The University of Queensland
Gomani-Chindebvu, Elizabeth
Malawi
Wildlife and Culture
Simengwa, Davie
Malawi, Zomba
University of Malawi
Statistics
Citations: 24
Authors: 7
Affiliations: 6
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1016/j.quaint.2011.12.014
ISSN:
10406182
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study
Study Approach
Quantitative
Study Locations
Malawi