Lithic miniaturization was one of our Pleistocene ancestors' more pervasive stone tool
production strategies and it marks a key difference between human and non‐human tool …

The MSA/LSA transition is a major shift in the African archaeological record, but questions
on its beginning remain debated. In southern Africa, most sites suggest an origin of LSA …

Birch tar production by Neanderthals—used for hafting tools—has been interpreted as one
of the earliest manifestations of modern cultural behavior. This is because birch tar …

Increased population density is among the proposed drivers of the behavioural changes
culminating in the Middle to Later Stone Age (MSA–LSA) transition and human dispersals …

Elands Bay Cave (EBC) is a key South African site allowing discussion of technological
change and adaptations that occurred from the Upper Pleniglacial to the Holocene. In 2011 …

Lithic miniaturization refers to the systematic production and use of small tools made from
small cores. Archaeologists typically associate the production of miniature toolkits with small …

We present experimental data examining the energetics and identification of axial bipolar
reduction in contexts of lithic miniaturization on milky quartz. These experiments answer two …

Recognized by archaeologists for over a century, and practiced by hominins in nearly every
archaeological context in which flaked stone is used, bipolar technology involves the …

Amongst the least well-defined periods in North African prehistoric archaeology is the
interval between∼ 40 and 20 ka BP. This encompasses a phase (or phases) of major …

The end of the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa, often called the final MSA (∼ 40–28 ka),
represents one of the most understudied technocomplexes in this part of the world …