Paul Mellars' recent position paper.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

Paul Mellars “persiste et signe”, in the current issue of Evolutionary Anthropology:

Mellars, Paul. 2005. The Impossible Coincidence. A Single-Species Model for the Origins of Modern Human Behavior in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology 14: 12-27.

Introductory statement:

Few topics in palaeoanthropology have generated more recent debate than the nature and causes of the remarkable transformation in human behavioral patterns that marked the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe.1–11 Those of us who have argued for an effective technological and cultural “revolution” at this point in the Paleolithic sequence have emphasized three main dimensions: the wide range of different aspects of behavior that appear to have been affected (Fig. 1); the relative speed and abruptness with which most of these changes can be documented in the archeological records from the different regions of Europe; and the potentially profound social and cognitive implications of many of the innovations involved. Most striking of all in this context is the abrupt appearance and proliferation of various forms of perforated animal teeth, shells, beads, and other personal ornaments, and the even more dramatic eruption of remarkably varied and sophisticated forms of art, ranging from representations of male and female sex organs, through the highly stylized animal and combined animal-human figures from southern Germany, to the striking wall paintings of the Chauvet Cave. One might add to this the similar proliferation of more enigmatic but potentially equally significant abstract “notation” systems on bone and ivory artifacts To describe the Upper Paleolithic revolution in Europe as reflecting preeminently an explosion in explicitly symbolic behavior and expression is in no sense an exaggeration, as most prehistorians would now agree. We are probably on safe ground in assuming that symbolic behavior and expression of this level of complexity would be inconceivable in the absence of highly structured language systems and brains closely similar, if not identical to, our own.

Click HERE for the full article.

I have yet to read the paper with the attention it deserves, but it is clear that Mellars sees his “position” as greatly reinforced by some of the African (mostly southern) archaeological evidence (e.g., Klasies River, Blombos). But see:

Villa, Paola , Anne Delagnes, and Lyn Wadley. 2005. A late Middle Stone Age artifact assemblage from Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal): comparisons with the European Middle Paleolithic. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 399–422. See HERE
… for a recent reality check -- likely, something Mellars was not aware of at the time he wrote his paper -- on the meaning of this evidence.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

Having been put together rather quickly, my earlier post ended up being a bit too -- perhaps frustratingly -- concise. In order to clarify the contrast that I read between Mellars’ recent fine tuning of his quite “classic” position and that of Villa & al., here are copies of latter’s Abstract and Conclusion:

Abstract:

It has been suggested that many behavioral innovations, said to appear during the late Middle Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa, facilitated the expansion of anatomically modern humans from Africa and the Near East into Europe at about 50 kyr; the process eventually led to the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans and the emergence of the Upper Paleolithic. However, assemblages in this time range are little known in South Africa. In fact, the transition from Middle to the Later Stone Age in Southern Africa is controversial. The early appearance in South Africa of many innovations, such as sophisticated knapping techniques (e.g. the use of soft hammer or indirect percussion in blade production, of composite tools, of microlithic and bladelet technologies) remains to be established through technological analysis.

We present here the first results of a project designed to carry out detailed technological studies of several lithic assemblages in South Africa and France dated to the transition period. At this time we have completed the study of a post-Howiesons Poort assemblage from the rock shelter site of Sibudu. The O2 m deep stratigraphic sequence of Sibudu extends from Howiesons Poort at its base to final Middle Stone Age, directly under Iron Age layers. We have analyzed in detail layer RSP (ca. 53 kyr, 1 m above the Howiesons Poort levels) which has provided a large assemblage of several thousand stone artifacts. Compared to published MSA assemblages this industry is unusual for the very high proportions of retouched pieces (15%). The technology is not very elaborate and there is no strong standardization of the end-products. There are no flakes of predetermined shapes; retouch is used to modify irregular flakes to obtain desired edges. Knapping of flakes and blades is done by hard hammer; soft hammer is used only for retouching tools. Interestingly the older Howiesons Poort blades were produced on the same raw materials by soft hammer. Raw material (hornfels and dolerite) was procured from distances of less than 20 km. Unifacial points are the dominant type and there is strong evidence of hafting and use as spear armatures. Detailed comparisons with Middle Paleolithic assemblages of Western Europe show that the late Middle Stone Age technology in South Africa is very similar to that of the Middle Paleolithic; in fact we see no fundamental differences between the two entities, as far as lithic technology is concerned. Implications for the Out of Africa hypothesis are discussed.

Keywords:
South Africa; Late MSA; Sibudu; Lithic technology

6. Conclusion:

Our preliminary assessment of the Howiesons Poort
levels, contrasting with post-Howiesons Poort technologies,
suggests that reconstructions of unilinear and
cumulative technological evolution in the South African
MSA should be taken with a grain of salt. Evidence
from the Sibudu post-Howiesons Poort levels supports
the idea of the episodic and discontinuous nature of
some of the South African MSA occurrences. Layer
RSP indicates that the lithic technology of the late MSA
is very similar to that of Middle Paleolithic assemblages
and we see no fundamental di•erence between the two
entities, as far as lithic technology is concerned. By
40–35 kyr layers at Sibudu still contain an MSA
industry with a similar kind of technology. Comparable
data are provided by the post-Howiesons Poort levels of
Rose Cottage Cave ([115] and Soriano and Villa,
unpublished data) thus showing that the Sibudu results
are not strictly local. This runs contrary to expectations
that innovations in lithic technologies played a role in
the expansion of modern humans out of Africa, at least
as far as South Africa is concerned. It remains to be seen
if similarities between the late MSA and the Middle
Paleolithic are less strong than similarities between the
LSA and the Upper Paleolithic, as implied by the idea
that a fundamental rearrangement of human behavior
had its beginning in Africa and spread to Europe after
50,000 BP.

Clearly, we are provided here with an approach that is quite different from that used as part of the standard “compare and contrast” exercise that has characterized recent versions of the OoA credo.  Not only does it sticks much closer to the geographical and chronological realities of the actual record, but it is also, in my view potentially more attuned to the full range of possibilities/solutions that are suggested by the anthropological literature -- and this, regardless of the strictly biological legacy of the Neanderthals.

Jacques Cinq-Mars