The Stone Age could have continued 20,000 years longer in some parts of Africa than previously thought, recent archaeological discoveries have revealed.
The new findings from sites in Senegal on the West Coast of Africa, made by researchers at the Max Planck Institute, fuel a rethink of the passage of human evolution.
Previous findings have suggested that people in Africa have stopped using certain tools and methods – including simple and scraping points – in favor of more complex and artisanal equipment, including spears and blades about 30,000 years ago.
This distinction in equipment and the shift to a more artistic and regional approach to instruments marks the transition from the Middle to the later Stone Age.
Archaeologists have discovered that the ancient inhabitants of West Africa still used simple tools about 11,000 years ago – up to 20,000 years after they came out of their favor elsewhere.
This refutes a long-standing theory that humanity has evolved in a uniform way toward our modern lifestyle – and instead has evolved at different speeds around the world.
New discoveries at sites in Senegal on the West Coast of Africa, made by researchers at the Max Planck Institute, fuel a rethink of the passage of human evolution
The Stone Age is divided into three periods – the Lower Stone Age before Homo sapiens, the Middle Stone Age in which early Homo sapiens used simple tools such as spikes and scrapers – and the Late Stone Age, where the craft began to catch.
The Middle Stone Age finds that it most frequently appears in African records between about 300,000 and 30,000 years ago, after which they have largely disappeared – although new research suggests that this continued in some isolated areas much later.
The exact transition varies from region to region, but the last stage of the later Stone Age – Neolithic – the road to the Bronze Age around 3,500 BC.
Archaeologists claim that their research supports the idea that – for most of human prehistory – groups of people were relatively isolated from each other.
The discovery comes as archaeologists take some of the first steps in discovering the prehistoric past of West Africa, which they say has been under-studied compared to the east and south of the continent.
The lead author of a new study, Dr. Eleanor Scerri, said that West Africa is a real frontier for human evolutionary studies – as almost nothing is known about prehistory.
“Almost everything we know about human origins is extrapolated from discoveries in small parts of eastern and southern Africa,” Scerri explained.
Her colleague, Dr. Khady Niang, of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal, added: “These findings demonstrate the importance of investigating the entire African continent if we are to truly gain control over the deep human past.
“Before our work, the story of the rest of Africa suggested that long before 11,000 years ago, the last traces of the Middle Ages disappeared long ago.”
The team does not know exactly why the Stone Age inhabitants of West Africa took longer to adopt new tools, but speculates that it may be due to geographical isolation.
Other theories suggest that it may be due to less radical climate change, which meant that people living there did not need to find new ways to adapt.
Archaeologists claim that their research supports the idea that – for most of human prehistory – groups of people were relatively isolated from each other. These drawings show some of the tools used 11,000 years ago in West Africa that were not used elsewhere.
Dr. Niang said: “All we can be sure of is that this persistence is not simply about the lack of ability to invest in the development of new technologies.
“These people were smart, they knew how to choose the right stone for making tools and exploit the landscape in which they lived.”
The team said their findings, along with genetic discoveries that show a huge amount of diversity among people living on the continent, fit a newer view of human evolution that Stone Age groups have experienced and experienced. they developed separately.
Dr. Niang said: “We are not sure why, but apart from the physical distance, there may be some cultural boundaries. Perhaps the populations that use these different material cultures have also lived in slightly different ecological niches.
Team walking along the Gambia River, Senegal. The team doesn’t know exactly why the Stone Age inhabitants of West Africa took longer to adopt new tools, but speculates that it could be due to geographical isolation.
About 15,000 years ago, a major increase in humidity and forest growth in Central and West Africa connected different areas and provided corridors for group dispersal – which explains the end of the Middle Ages tools.
Dr. Scerri added: “These discoveries do not fit into a simple one-line model of cultural change towards ‘modernity.’
“Groups of hunter-gatherers embedded in radically different technological traditions have occupied Africa’s neighboring regions for thousands of years and sometimes divided the same regions.
Long-isolated regions, on the other hand, could have been important reservoirs of cultural and genetic diversity. It may have been a defining factor in the success of our species. ‘
The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE STONE AGE?
The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the initial development of stone tools that cover more than 95% of human technological prehistory.
It begins with the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins, ancient ancestors of humans, during the ancient Stone Age – starting about 3.3 million years ago.
About 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, the pace of innovation in stone technology began to accelerate very slowly, a period known as the Middle Ages of Stone.
At the beginning of this time, the hand was made with refined skill. Eventually, this gave rise to smaller and more diverse sets of instruments, with an emphasis on flake instruments rather than larger basic instruments.
The Stone Age is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the initial development of stone tools that cover more than 95% of human technological prehistory. This image shows Neolithic jadeite axes from the Toulouse Museum
These toolkits have been established for at least 285,000 years in parts of Africa and 250,000 to 200,000 years in Europe and parts of West Asia. These sets of instruments have lasted for at least 50,000 to 28,000 years.
During the later Stone Age, the pace of innovation increased and the level of mastery increased.
Groups of Homo sapiens have experienced various raw materials, including bone, ivory and horns, as well as stone.
The period, between 50,000 and 39,000 years ago, is also associated with the emergence of modern human behavior in Africa.
Different groups sought their own distinct cultural identity and adopted their own ways of doing things.
Later, the Stone Age peoples and their technologies spread to Africa over the next few thousand years.