Investigating the archaeological implications of environmental change during the Middle Stone Age: a contribution from the geochemical analysis of speleothems in the southern Cape , South Africa

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorAdigun, Jane Sabina
dc.date.accessioned2016-10-18T13:28:30Z
dc.date.available2016-10-18T13:28:30Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.descriptionA thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, 2016.
dc.description.abstractIn current Middle Stone Age research there is interest in understanding whether climatic and environmental factors played a role in behaviours related to subsistence, mobility patterns and material culture production. From a palaeoenvironmental perspective, the southern Cape is recognized as an important study region for exploring the link, if any, between past environmental conditions and key MSA occurrences. The research presented in this thesis aimed to contribute to the existing database of past environments in the southern Cape through the geochemical analysis of speleothems from a previously uninvestigated locality in the De Hoop Nature Reserve. Together, the De Hoop speleothems provide a discontinuous record of environmental change from marine oxygen isotope stage MIS 5a to MIS 3 (and the Holocene). Results from the De Hoop records indicate warm summer rain and C4 vegetation in early MIS 5a (c. 85 ka to 80 ka) but more variability by late MIS 5a (c. 79 ka to 74 ka). At Klasies River main site, also on the southern Cape coast, the upper MSA II is associated with the warm early MIS 5a conditions. At Blombos Cave, another important coastal MSA site, the Still Bay occurring within terminal MIS 5a was linked to warm but more variable late MIS 5a conditions. While early MIS 4 (c. 73 ka to 68 ka) was comparatively cooler, conditions were similar to those in early MIS 5a. From this research, the earlier phase of the Howiesons Poort at Klasies River main site and the Howiesons Poort at Klipdrift Shelter were correlated with the early MIS 4 conditions in De Hoop. By late MIS 4 (c. 67 ka to 60 ka), conditions remained cool, but were seemingly more variable than during the earlier part of this iii stageen_ZA
dc.description.librarianGR2016en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10539/21240
dc.language.isoenen_ZA
dc.subject.lcshGlobal environmental change--South Africa
dc.subject.lcshGlobal environmental change--Mesolithic period
dc.subject.lcshAnalytical geochemistry--South Africa
dc.subject.lcshArchaeology--South Africa--De Hoop Nature Reserve
dc.subject.lcshSpeleothems
dc.titleInvestigating the archaeological implications of environmental change during the Middle Stone Age: a contribution from the geochemical analysis of speleothems in the southern Cape , South Africaen_ZA
dc.typeThesisen_ZA
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
Adigun_PhD Thesis_Final .pdf
Size:
6.02 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.71 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:
Download
Collections
ETD Collection