Going Coastal: Sea cave yields ancient signs of modern behavior
By Bruce Bower
At Pinnacle Point on South Africa’s southern coast, a cave perched above the sea has provided scientists with evidence of a set of surprisingly complex behaviors practiced by Stone Age people about 164,000 years ago, near the evolutionary dawn of Homo sapiens. Our species emerged an estimated 200,000 years ago.
A team led by anthropologist Curtis W. Marean of Arizona State University in Tempe found three critical clues in the cave that point to modern-human behavior: the remains of mussels and other shellfish, 57 pieces of reddish pigment probably used for body coloring or other symbolic acts, and more than 1,800 stone implements, including small, expertly crafted blades.