Across Rainforests and Woodlands: A systematic reappraisal of the Lupemban middle stone age in central Africa

Abstract

The Central African Middle Stone Age (MSA) is very poorly understood in comparison to the higher-resolution records of East and southern Africa. Severe taphonomic barriers to the construction of reliable chrono-stratigraphic, techno-typological, and paleoenvironmental frameworks continue to inhibit any nuanced understanding of post-MIS 6 technological change and behavioral adaptations. This chapter reviews existing knowledge of the earlier part of MIS 6-2 in the rainforests and woodlands of Central Africa from the perspective of the MSA Lupemban industry. Archaeological sequences on the woodland fringes of the Congo Basin bear witness to a technological shift characterized by the replacement of hand-held (Mode 2) Acheulean implements by distinctive tools suitable for hafting (Mode 3). While Mode 2 technology is absent from the contemporary equatorial rainforest zone, Mode 3 tools, including bifacial lanceolate points, core axes, and backed blades, are found across the region as the MSA Lupemban industry. As the earliest sustained archaeological signature in Central Africa, U-series dates of ~260 ka for the industry at Twin Rivers (Zambia) suggest the initial dispersal of pre-sapiens hominins into the equatorial forest belt during MIS 7. The development of sophisticated composite technologies in this ecological context bears directly upon current debates about the origins of behavioral and cognitive complexity in archaic Homo sapiens. In this chapter, current knowledge of the Lupemban is explored systematically with special reference to the hypothesis that it represents a late Middle Pleistocene rainforest and woodland adapted technology. A new site database is drawn upon to critically reassess the industry’s geographical distribution, stratigraphic integrity, chronological position, and paleoenvironmental associations, from which its potential evolutionary significance is reconsidered.