The Stillbay (also Still bay)
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
is the name given by
archaeologists A. J. H. Goodwin and C. van Riet Lowe in 1929 to a
Middle Stone Age stone tool manufacturing style after the site of
Stilbaai (also called Still Bay) in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier
Acheulian types. In addition to Acheulian stone tools, bone and antler picks were also used.
Its start and end are calculated at 71.9
ka and 71.0 ka. At present, too few data exist to limit the 95%
confidence intervals of these date to more than 4 to 5 ky. However, available data are consistent with a duration of less than 1 ky.
Sampson in 1974 questioned its existence on the grounds that sites were not properly described and they lacked stratigraphic
integrity However, more recent work from sites such as
Blombos Cave and
Sibudu Cave
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from years ago to years ago.
Evidence of some of the earliest examples of modern h ...
attest to its existence.
It is broadly analogous to the
Mousterian
The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...
culture in Europe.
Olduvai Gorge
The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-si ...
has within its many ages of tools, some of the Stillbay variety.
Tools and fire
Researchers have concluded that Stillbay people prepared the
silcrete
Silcrete is an indurated (resists crumbling or powdering) soil duricrust formed when surface soil, sand, and gravel are cemented by dissolved silica. The formation of silcrete is similar to that of calcrete, formed by calcium carbonate, and ferr ...
stone out of which they made their stone tools with preheating in
human made fire to increase its workability.
Experiments involved slowly heating silcrete stones to ~350 °C.
Thermoluminescence
Thermoluminescence is a form of luminescence that is exhibited by certain crystalline materials, such as some minerals, when previously absorbed energy from electromagnetic radiation or other ionizing radiation is re-emitted as light upon he ...
confirmed that all stones analysed (limited to 26 in number due this being a destructive process) had been heated to this temperature.
Heat treatment not only increases the length of flakes that can be removed from about a half-inch to 2 inches but makes them thinner, and sharper as they can remove flakes at angles nearly parallel to the stone's surface. Heat treatment allows greater precision of fracture due to increasing the uniformity of the stone's fracture response when hit.
This research identifies this not only with Stillbay sites dated to 72,000 BP but ones that could be as old as 164,000 BP.
Kyle Brown, one of the scientists responsible for this research has been quoted as making a link with the existence of language: "These people were extremely smart ... I don't think you could have passed down these skills from generation to generation without language."
[Callaway. E. (13 August 2009]
Earliest fired knives improved stone age tool kit.
New Scientist, online
References
{{reflist, 2
Middle Stone Age cultures