The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort technological traditions
- Date
- c. 77,000–59,000 years ago
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Southern Africa (South Africa)
- Era
- Prehistory
- Significance
During the later Middle Stone Age, southern African populations developed two distinctive and short-lived stone-tool industries that mark bursts of technological and symbolic innovation. The Still Bay (broadly c.
77,000–71,000 years ago) is characterised by finely worked, leaf-shaped bifacial points, some made on heat-treated silcrete using pressure flaking, suitable for spear tips and knives. The later Howiesons Poort (roughly 65,000–59,000 years ago) shifts to small, standardised crescent-shaped 'backed' blades that were hafted with adhesives into composite tools, including likely arrow armatures. Both industries are associated with engraved ochre, ostrich-eggshell containers and beads, signalling that technical and symbolic behaviour advanced together. High-resolution optically stimulated luminescence dating by Zenobia Jacobs and colleagues showed that each tradition appeared and vanished relatively abruptly, separated by a gap. Researchers debate whether these pulses reflect demographic expansions and contractions, climate-driven population movements, or the transmission of innovations across networks — but they remain key evidence that complex, cumulative culture characterised African humans long before the European Upper Palaeolithic.
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