Pub Date : 2016-12-31DOI: 10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27875
C. Miller, S. Mentzer, C. Berthold, P. Leach, B. Ligouis, C. Tribolo, J. Parkington, Guillaume Porraz
Elands Bay Cave is a small coastal rock shelter formed in quartzite that contained up to ca. 3 m of anthropogenic and geogenic deposits with archaeological materials dating to the Middle Stone Age through Later Stone Age. Today, only the lower portion of the sedimentary sequence, comprising ca. 1.2 m of sediment remains. A geoarchaeological study of the remaining deposits was undertaken in conjunction with renewed excavations of the site (2010–2012). A ground penetrating radar survey revealed that the excavation area targeted the deepest portion of the sedimentary infill within the rock shelter. Furthermore, micromorphological analyses of the remaining Middle and Later Stone Age deposits indicate that combustion features are present. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction measurements were used to identify secondary minerals, including taranakite, hydroxylapatite, gypsum, variscite, ardealite, opal, and whitlockite. The distributions of these secondary minerals — present mainly as microcrystalline nodules — track zones of moisture within the sediment, as well as areas where calcium carbonate (e.g. ashes, shell) and bones are not preserved. In addition to the chemical dissolution of several components of the archaeological assemblage, secondary processes impacting the Elands Bay Cave deposits include bioturbation and mechanical fragmentation of rocks and charcoal. Despite the effects of post-depositional alteration, our study indicates a good degree of localized preservation of the stratigraphic units.
{"title":"Site-formation processes at Elands Bay Cave, South Africa","authors":"C. Miller, S. Mentzer, C. Berthold, P. Leach, B. Ligouis, C. Tribolo, J. Parkington, Guillaume Porraz","doi":"10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27875","url":null,"abstract":"Elands Bay Cave is a small coastal rock shelter formed in quartzite that contained up to ca. 3 m of anthropogenic and geogenic deposits with archaeological materials dating to the Middle Stone Age through Later Stone Age. Today, only the lower portion of the sedimentary sequence, comprising ca. 1.2 m of sediment remains. A geoarchaeological study of the remaining deposits was undertaken in conjunction with renewed excavations of the site (2010–2012). A ground penetrating radar survey revealed that the excavation area targeted the deepest portion of the sedimentary infill within the rock shelter. Furthermore, micromorphological analyses of the remaining Middle and Later Stone Age deposits indicate that combustion features are present. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction measurements were used to identify secondary minerals, including taranakite, hydroxylapatite, gypsum, variscite, ardealite, opal, and whitlockite. The distributions of these secondary minerals — present mainly as microcrystalline nodules — track zones of moisture within the sediment, as well as areas where calcium carbonate (e.g. ashes, shell) and bones are not preserved. In addition to the chemical dissolution of several components of the archaeological assemblage, secondary processes impacting the Elands Bay Cave deposits include bioturbation and mechanical fragmentation of rocks and charcoal. Despite the effects of post-depositional alteration, our study indicates a good degree of localized preservation of the stratigraphic units.","PeriodicalId":44964,"journal":{"name":"Southern African Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2016-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67154538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2016-12-23DOI: 10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27876
C. Tribolo, N. Mercier, H. Valladas, Y. Lefrais, C. Miller, J. Parkington, Guillaume Porraz
In 2011 we conducted a field campaign at the site of Elands Bay Cave (EBC), on the West coast of South Africa, with the aim of clarifying the nature and chronology of its human Pleistocene occupations. In the present paper, we present the results of a chronology based on various materials and methods: radiocarbon (C14) dating was applied to 8 fragments of charcoal whereas luminescence dating methods (OSL, IRSL and TL) were applied to quartz and feldspar grains extracted from 5 sediment samples and to 4 burnt fragments of quartzite rock. For the upper part of the sequence, the luminescence ages are either in agreement with or slightly younger than the C14 ages. The results suggest that the upper part of the EBC sequence extends from MIS3 to MIS2, including successively late Middle Stone Age (starting from 38 ± 3 ka), Early Later Stone Age (ending 22 ka ago) and Robberg occupations (starting 19.1 ± 0.3 ka ago). The lower part of the EBC sequence, associated with Early Middle Stone Age assemblages, remains poorly constrained: the sediment sample taken above could be a mixture of different layers and could not be dated, whereas OSL ages for sediments below are 236 ± 23 ka and only one stone sample could be dated within this layer (83 ± 14 ka). Considering both the chronological and techno-cultural points of view, the EBC sequence is complementary to the Diepkloof sequence, located less than 20 km eastward.
{"title":"Chronology of the Pleistocene deposits at Elands Bay Cave (South Africa) based on charcoals, burnt lithics, and sedimentary quartz and feldspar grains","authors":"C. Tribolo, N. Mercier, H. Valladas, Y. Lefrais, C. Miller, J. Parkington, Guillaume Porraz","doi":"10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15496/PUBLIKATION-27876","url":null,"abstract":"In 2011 we conducted a field campaign at the site of Elands Bay Cave (EBC), on the West coast of South Africa, with the aim of clarifying the nature and chronology of its human Pleistocene occupations. In the present paper, we present the results of a chronology based on various materials and methods: radiocarbon (C14) dating was applied to 8 fragments of charcoal whereas luminescence dating methods (OSL, IRSL and TL) were applied to quartz and feldspar grains extracted from 5 sediment samples and to 4 burnt fragments of quartzite rock. For the upper part of the sequence, the luminescence ages are either in agreement with or slightly younger than the C14 ages. The results suggest that the upper part of the EBC sequence extends from MIS3 to MIS2, including successively late Middle Stone Age (starting from 38 ± 3 ka), Early Later Stone Age (ending 22 ka ago) and Robberg occupations (starting 19.1 ± 0.3 ka ago). The lower part of the EBC sequence, associated with Early Middle Stone Age assemblages, remains poorly constrained: the sediment sample taken above could be a mixture of different layers and could not be dated, whereas OSL ages for sediments below are 236 ± 23 ka and only one stone sample could be dated within this layer (83 ± 14 ka). Considering both the chronological and techno-cultural points of view, the EBC sequence is complementary to the Diepkloof sequence, located less than 20 km eastward.","PeriodicalId":44964,"journal":{"name":"Southern African Humanities","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2016-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"67154590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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