Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs) by Author "Mentzer, Susan"

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    Reassessing the stratigraphy and formation of the basal deposits at Klasies River Main Site with a multiscale and multiproxy approach
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Morrissey, Peter; Wurz, Sarah; Mentzer, Susan
    The basal deposits at Klasies River Main site, associated with the MSA I and II lithic cultural phases and dating from >120 ka to ~80 ka, have yielded highly significant archaeological assemblages and human fossils across multiple phases of excavation since the late 1960s. These finds have contributed to a growing understanding of the appearance and intensification of modern human behaviours and provide rare insight into Homo sapiens anatomy during the early parts of the Late Pleistocene. The three recesses occupied during this period represent distinct depositional environments with differing degrees of attractiveness for human activities. Significant climatic, environmental, and geomorphic changes, including large fluctuations in sea level, occurred, impacting formation processes within the site complex. Stratigraphic relationships across a space like this would always be complicated but understanding them here is even more difficult because there are not continuous deposits between the recesses for all or part of their respective sequences. Geoarchaeological research has taken place alongside all three phases of excavation at Klasies. Until Sarah Wurz began her field programme in 2013, this work entailed macroscopic descriptions of standing sections (at differing resolutions) and the sedimentological analysis of bulk samples. Given the finely laminated nature of many of the deposits, even higher resolution bulk sampling resulted in the incorporation of multiple visible deposits into individual samples in many cases. More recently, archaeological micromorphology and other microscale analyses have been applied to deposits in the site complex by Susan Mentzer and colleagues. This work has provided important new insights into human behaviour and the spatially and temporally variable impacts of different diagenetic processes. Here, field observations of standing sections and microcontextual analysis are used to provide greater insight into the formation of deposits in two areas of the site complex. This information is used, along with unpublished field notes and profile drawings and critical engagement with the extensive, but seldom detailed, literature to assess and refine stratigraphic correlations of the basal deposits both between different recesses and different stratigraphic systems (the layers used in the initial excavations and the excavation units grouped into members and sub-members in subsequent work). The results demonstrate that the formation of any particular deposit could involve any number of combinations and relative intensities of different depositional and post- depositional processes. Furthermore, the interplay between geogenic, biogenic, and anthropogenic processes is often significant. Anthropogenic deposition has long been recognised as being highly significant at Klasies, but it is now also clear that humans played a major role in reworking sediment through daily activities during occupations, very likely including trampling and site maintenance activities. Chemical diagenesis had a major impact on the preservation of anthropogenic features, but variations in the intensity and frequency of anthropogenic deposition also influenced how susceptible deposits were to diagenesis. It has proven possible to correlate between the two stratigraphic systems in Cave 1B, a particularly understudied area of the site complex, providing clarity on the cultural association of a highly significant human fossil. The overall stratigraphic system used at the site complex is now also better understood, both in terms of correlations and the nature of the system. Finally, this study highlights the utility of a multiscale geoarchaeological approach to site complexes like Klasies for understanding site formation and stratigraphy. It also highlights the vital, but often ignored or underplayed, connection between site formation processes and stratigraphy, especially in such a complicated context.