Africa, South: Later Stone Age

This entry explores the period in time known as the Later Stone Age, roughly 40,000 years ago until the ethnographic present, taken to be the middle of the 20th century. This period of the Stone Age is the most technologically diverse and has the greatest organic preservation, allowing for a fuller glimpse into the material culture repertoire of past populations. Here, I explore some of the questions that have interested archaeologists over the last few decades, including how we sub-divide and name variations and continuities in the archaeological record, the origins of pastoralism in the region, the incidences of inter-personal violence, and how where we choose to look for evidence of Later Stone Age occupations influences what we can know about the past. Some more contemporary issues, such as who can claim ownership of the Later Stone Age, and the many ways in which identities become remoulded as a consequence of cultural contact between two ethnically and technologically distinct groups of people, are also touched on.