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Science 31 October 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5902, pp. 733 - 735
DOI: 10.1126/science.1162219
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Reports

Ages for the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Implications for Human Behavior and Dispersal

Zenobia Jacobs,1* Richard G. Roberts,1 Rex F. Galbraith,2 Hilary J. Deacon,3 Rainer Grün,4 Alex Mackay,5 Peter Mitchell,6 Ralf Vogelsang,7 Lyn Wadley8

The expansion of modern human populations in Africa 80,000 to 60,000 years ago and their initial exodus out of Africa have been tentatively linked to two phases of technological and behavioral innovation within the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa—the Still Bay and Howieson's Poort industries—that are associated with early evidence for symbols and personal ornaments. Establishing the correct sequence of events, however, has been hampered by inadequate chronologies. We report ages for nine sites from varied climatic and ecological zones across southern Africa that show that both industries were short-lived (5000 years or less), separated by about 7000 years, and coeval with genetic estimates of population expansion and exit times. Comparison with climatic records shows that these bursts of innovative behavior cannot be explained by environmental factors alone.

1 GeoQuEST Research Centre, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales 2522, Australia.
2 Department of Statistical Science, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
3 Iziko Museums of Cape Town, Cape Town 8000, South Africa.
4 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 0200, Australia.
5 School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
6 School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK.
7 Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, African Archaeology Unit, University of Cologne, Köln 50823, Germany.
8 School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Sciences, and Institute for Human Evolution, University of the Witwatersrand, WITS 2050, South Africa.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zenobia{at}uow.edu.au

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