Stillbay

The Stillbay (also Still bay) industry is the name given by archaeologists A. J. H. Goodwin and C. van Riet Lowe in 1929[1] to a Middle Stone Age stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai (also called Still Bay) in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types. In addition to Acheulian stone tools, bone and antler picks were also used.

The Middle Stone Age
↑ Early Stone Age
pre-Still Bay
Stillbay
Howiesons Poort
post-Howiesons Poort
late
final MSA phases
↓ Later Stone Age

Its start and end are calculated at 71.9 ka and 71.0 ka. At present, too few data exist to limit the 95% confidence intervals of these date to more than 4 to 5 ky. However, available data are consistent with a duration of less than 1 ky.[2]

Sampson in 1974 questioned its existence on the grounds that sites were not properly described and they lacked stratigraphic integrity[3] However, more recent work from sites such as Blombos Cave[4] and Sibudu Cave[5] attest to its existence.

It is broadly analogous to the Mousterian culture in Europe.

Olduvai Gorge has within its many ages of tools, some of the Stillbay variety.[6]

Tools and fire

Researchers have concluded that Stillbay people prepared the silcrete stone out of which they made their stone tools with preheating in human made fire to increase its workability.[7] Experiments involved slowly heating silcrete stones to ~350 °C. Thermoluminescence confirmed that all stones analysed (limited to 26 in number due this being a destructive process) had been heated to this temperature.[7]

Heat treatment not only increases the length of flakes that can be removed from about a half-inch to 2 inches but makes them thinner, and sharper as they can remove flakes at angles nearly parallel to the stone's surface. Heat treatment allows greater precision of fracture due to increasing the uniformity of the stone's fracture response when hit.[8]

This research identifies this not only with Stillbay sites dated to 72,000 BP but ones that could be as old as 164,000 BP.[7]

Kyle Brown, one of the scientists responsible for this research has been quoted as making a link with the existence of language: "These people were extremely smart ... I don't think you could have passed down these skills from generation to generation without language."[9]

References
  1. Goodwin, AJH; van Riet Lowe, C (1929). "The Stone Age cultures of South Africa". Ann. S. Afr. Mus. 27: 1–289.
  2. Jacobs, Z; Roberts, RG; Galbraith, RF; Deacon, HJ; Grün, R; Mackay, A; Mitchell, P; Vogelsang, R; Wadley, L (2008). "Ages for the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa: implications for human behavior and dispersal". Science. 322 (5902): 733–5. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.469.1059. doi:10.1126/science.1162219. PMID 18974351.
  3. Sampson GS. (1974). The Stone Age Archaeology of Southern Africa. Academic Press, New York.
  4. Grine, FE; Henshilwood, CS (2002). "Additional human remains from Blombos Cave, South Africa: (1999-2000 excavations)". J Hum Evol. 42 (3): 293–302. doi:10.1006/jhev.2001.0525. PMID 11846532.
  5. Wadley, L (2007). "Announcing a Still Bay industry at Sibudu Cave, South Africa". J Hum Evol. 52 (6): 681–9. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.01.002. PMID 17337038.
  6. Langer, William L., ed. (1972). An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 9. ISBN 978-0-395-13592-1.
  7. Brown, KS; Marean, CW; Herries, AI; Jacobs, Z; Tribolo, C; Braun, D; Roberts, DL; Meyer, MC; Bernatchez, J (2009). "Fire As an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans". Science. 325 (5942): 859–862. doi:10.1126/science.1175028. PMID 19679810.
  8. Webb, J. Domanski M. (2009). "Fire and Stone". Science. 325 (5942): 820–821. doi:10.1126/science.1178014. PMID 19679799.
  9. Callaway. E. (13 August 2009) Earliest fired knives improved stone age tool kit. New Scientist, online
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