Middle Stone Age

This article is about the term as applied to African prehistory. For the "middle" period of the Stone Age in general, see Mesolithic. For the "middle" part of the "Old Stone Age", see Middle Paleolithic.

Middle Stone Age tool from Blombos Cave
The Middle Stone Age
↑ Early Stone Age
Pre-Still Bay
Stillbay
Howiesons Poort
Post-Howiesons Poort
Late
Final MSA phases
↓ Later Stone Age

The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago.[1] The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA.[2] The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span; however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, Homo neanderthalensis, than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic.[3] The MSA is associated with both anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) as well as archaic Homo sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo helmei. Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa.[2]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference McBrearty was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Herries, A.I.R. (2011). "A chronological perspective on the Acheulian and its transition to the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa: the question of the Fauresmith". International Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 2011: 1–25. doi:10.4061/2011/961401. PMC 3139141. PMID 21785711.
  3. ^ D'Errico, Francesco; Banks, William E. (2013). "Identifying Mechanisms behind Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age Cultural Trajectories" (PDF). Current Anthropology. 54 (8): 371–387. doi:10.1086/673388. S2CID 144922210.