Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorSchmidt, Patricken_ZA
dc.contributor.authorMackay, Alexen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2016-03-08T10:54:49Z
dc.date.available2016-03-08T10:54:49Z
dc.date.issued2016en_ZA
dc.description.abstractPeople heat treated silcrete during the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa but the spatial and temporal variability of this practice remains poorly documented. This paucity of data in turn makes it difficult to interrogate the motive factors underlying the application of this technique. In this paper we present data on heat treatment of silcrete through the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort of the rock shelter site Mertenhof, located in the Western Cape of South Africa. In contrast to other sites where heat treatment has been documented, distance to rock source at Mertenhof can be reasonably well estimated, and the site is known to contain high proportions of a diversity of fine grained rocks including silcrete, hornfels and chert at various points through the sequence. Our results suggest the prevalence of heat treatment is variable through the sequence but that it is largely unaffected by the relative abundance of silcrete prevalence. Instead there is a strong inverse correlation between frequency of heat treatment in silcrete and prevalence of chert in the assemblage, and a generally positive correlation with the proportion of locally available rock. While it is difficult to separate individual factors we suggest that, at Mertenhof at least, heat treatment may have been used to improve the fracture properties of silcrete at times when other finer grained rocks were less readily available. As such, heat treatment appears to have been a component of the MSA behavioural repertoire that was flexibly deployed in ways sensitive to other elements of technological organisation.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationSchmidt, P., & Mackay, A. (2016). Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa. <i>PLoS One</i>, http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17573en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationSchmidt, Patrick, and Alex Mackay "Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa." <i>PLoS One</i> (2016) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17573en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationSchmidt, P., & Mackay, A. (2016). Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa. PloS one, 11(2), e0149243. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0149243en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Journal Article AU - Schmidt, Patrick AU - Mackay, Alex AB - People heat treated silcrete during the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa but the spatial and temporal variability of this practice remains poorly documented. This paucity of data in turn makes it difficult to interrogate the motive factors underlying the application of this technique. In this paper we present data on heat treatment of silcrete through the Howiesons Poort and post-Howiesons Poort of the rock shelter site Mertenhof, located in the Western Cape of South Africa. In contrast to other sites where heat treatment has been documented, distance to rock source at Mertenhof can be reasonably well estimated, and the site is known to contain high proportions of a diversity of fine grained rocks including silcrete, hornfels and chert at various points through the sequence. Our results suggest the prevalence of heat treatment is variable through the sequence but that it is largely unaffected by the relative abundance of silcrete prevalence. Instead there is a strong inverse correlation between frequency of heat treatment in silcrete and prevalence of chert in the assemblage, and a generally positive correlation with the proportion of locally available rock. While it is difficult to separate individual factors we suggest that, at Mertenhof at least, heat treatment may have been used to improve the fracture properties of silcrete at times when other finer grained rocks were less readily available. As such, heat treatment appears to have been a component of the MSA behavioural repertoire that was flexibly deployed in ways sensitive to other elements of technological organisation. DA - 2016 DB - OpenUCT DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0149243 DP - University of Cape Town J1 - PLoS One LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2016 T1 - Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa TI - Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17573 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149243en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/17573
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationSchmidt P, Mackay A. Why was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africa. PLoS One. 2016; http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17573.en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisherPublic Library of Scienceen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Archaeologyen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Scienceen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.rightsThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.en_ZA
dc.rights.holder© 2016 Schmidt, Mackayen_ZA
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0en_ZA
dc.sourcePLoS Oneen_ZA
dc.source.urihttp://journals.plos.org/plosoneen_ZA
dc.subject.otherHeat treatmenten_ZA
dc.subject.otherRaw materialsen_ZA
dc.subject.otherArchaeologyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherPaleoanthropologyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherPetrologyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherStratigraphyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherTemperingen_ZA
dc.subject.otherRiversen_ZA
dc.titleWhy was silcrete heat-treated in the Middle Stone Age? An early transformative technology in the context of raw material use at Mertenhof Rock Shelter, South Africaen_ZA
dc.typeJournal Articleen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceArticleen_ZA
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Schmidt_Why_Was_Silcrete_Heat_Treated_2016.pdf
Size:
10.81 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Collections
Journal Articles