Howiesons Poort

Howiesons Poort (also called HP) is a lithic technology cultural period in the Middle Stone Age in Africa named after the Howieson's Poort Shelter archeological site near Grahamstown in South Africa. It seems to have lasted around 5,000 years between roughly 65,800 BP and 59,500 BP (Jacobs 2008).

Humans of this period as in the earlier Stillbay cultural period showed signs of having used symbolism and having engaged in the cultural exchange of gifts.

Howiesons Poort culture is characterized by tools that seemingly anticipate many of the characteristics, 'Running ahead of time', of those found in the Upper Palaeolithic period that started 25,000 years later around 40,000 BP. Howiesons Poort culture has been described as "both 'modern' and 'non-modern'".

Date

Modern research using optically stimulated luminescence dating has pushed back the date of its remains and it is now estimated to have started 64.8 ka and ended 59.5 ka with a duration of 5.3 ka. This date matches the oxygen isotope stage OIS4 which was a period aridity and sea level lowering in southern Africa.

In the South African Middle Stone Age sequence culture it occurs following a gap of 7 ka after the Stillbay period. While the culture mainly occurs in various sites around South Africa, it is also present in Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Artifacts from it were first described in 1927 by Rev. P. Stapleton, a Jesuit schoolteacher at St Aidan's College and John Hewitt a zoologist and the director of the local Albany museum. The period name was given to their finds by AJH Goodwin and Clarence van Riet Lowe in 1929.Goodwin AJH. van Riet Lowe C. (1929). The Stone Age cultures of South Africa. ''Annals of the South African Museum'', 27. After this and until the mid-1970s, Howieson’s Poort industry was taken to be a variety of Magosian and so intermediate in time and technology between the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age.

Technology

Howiesons Poort is associated with various archaeological artifacts. The most notable come from composite weapons. These were made from "geometric backed" blades that were hafted together with heated ochre and gum compound glue. These blades are sometimes called segments, crescents, lunates or microliths are the type fossils for identifying a technology as Howiesons Poort. Blades from the Howiesons Poort assemblages were produced by soft hammer percussion on marginal platforms and the backed tools of this industry subsequently fashioned from these flakes. Organic residues preserved on the tips of these stone tools show not only that they were hafted but also that they were used as hunting weapons. Sarah Wurz's study shows that the general assemblage, frequency of retouch pieces, and the variability in formal tool morphologies still need to be looked into further. Meanwhile, Harper's study at Rose Cottage contain a confusion concerning the backed pieces and laterally crested blades

From this period at Sibudu Cave the earliest bone arrow and needle come has been excavated. The presence of a high percentage of the small antelope small blue duiker remains have been suggested as evidence of the use of traps.

Fine-grained stone such as silcrete and quartz make up a large percentage of Howiesons Poort artifacts than in both earlier and later Middle Stone Age cultures. Howiesons Poort tools seem not to differ greatly in shape from those of the Late Stone Age lithic tools such as those manufactured by Wilton culture though they tend to be larger but somewhat smaller than the typical flake and blade tools elsewhere in the Middle Stone Age. They have indeed been described as 'fully "Upper Palaeolithic" in almost every recognized technological and typological sense'. The Howiesons Poort Industry is anomalous not only for its early appearance, which Vishnyatsky calls 'running ahead of time', but because it is replaced by Middle Stone Age industries that are similar to those of pre-Howiesons Poort. This change seems to have happened gradually.

Symbolism

Like the earlier Stillbay industry, the Howiesons Poort culture produced symbolic artifacts such as engraved ochre, ostrich eggshells and shell beads. There is a particularly abundant and diverse use of ochre as a pigment and this has been interpreted as reflecting an increasingly complex symbolic culture.

It has been noted that "Not only was ochre collected and returned to the site but there is evidence in the ochre 'pencils' with ground facets that it was powdered for use. Ochre may have had many uses but the possibility that it was used as a body paint, and therefore had served a symbolic purpose"

Disappearance

Howiesons Poort culture did not survive and this has raised questions as to why. For example, Lyn Wadley has noted that "if the Howiesons Poort backed blade production was an important marker of modern human behaviour it is difficult to explain why it should have lasted for more than 20,000 years and then have been replaced by 'pre-modern' technology?" ^p. 203

It has been suggested that backed blades played a role in gift exchanges of hunting equipment, and this ceased with culture changes that stopped this exchange and so the need for their manufacture. This idea is supported by evidence that the long-distance transport of non-local raw materials (which such gift culture would have encouraged) is reduced after the Howiesons Poort period.

While the end of this culture might be due to climate change this seems unlikely since its disappearance does not link to any identifiable climatic event.

Sites

ROCEEH
" longitude="24.25" latitude="-29" zoom="5" width="450", height="350">

*South Africa
** Klasies River Caves
** Howieson's Poort Shelter
** Sibudu Cave
** Peers Cave (Skildegat)
** Diepkloof Rock Shelter
** Nelson Bay Cave
** Boomplaas Cave
** Border Cave
** Umhlatuzana
** Rose Cottage Cave
** Cave of Hearths
** Sehonghong Moshebi's Shelter /Ntloana Tsoana
**Montagu
**Duinefontein
*Namibia
** Apollo 11 Cave
** Aar l
** Bremen IC
** Haalenberg
** Pockenbanck
*Zimbabwe
** Matopos : Nswatugi

Quotes

;Symbolism

;Relationship to the Late Stone Age

References

{{Prehistoric technology, state=expanded

Middle Stone Age cultures