Cultural change, demography, and the archaeology of the last 100 kyr in Southern Africa

Abstract

Recent research has highlighted the role of demography in cultural innovation and transmission. Some authors have suggested that changes in population size may be associated with the appearance and disappearance of the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort, c. 75–60 ka, and that the advanced cognitive and behavioral skills attested by these industries underpinned the expansion of early modern humans out of Africa. Our ability to test demographic hypotheses in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) is limited, because we still have only a few well-excavated sites from the relevant periods. Turning to the much better documented record of Holocene hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, I explore this line of argument using the appearance and disappearance of the mid-Holocene microlithic “Wilton” as a model. Estimates of relative population sizes based on archaeological evidence from the Holocene do not fit the predictions of the model, calling into question its utility in the MSA.