The aim of this chapter has been to examine the representations of Africa in the historic and prehistoric record and to question the presentation of the continent and its people as unchanging, traditional, and primitive, especially in light of behavioral modernity debate centered on the MSA. Attention has been given to the rise of anthropology as a discipline, and its preoccupation with the Other. Trouillot (1991), Fabian (2002), and Hall (1996) all discuss the Othering of non-Western peoples, tying this to the creation of the West itself, and ultimately to the creation of anthropology. Fabian (2002) demonstrates how the West has manipulated Time and situated the Other (the primitive, the traditional, the Third World, or other substitutions) as distant in both Time and Space. This distancing is easily seen in the manipulation and treatment of the prehistoric record.
McBrearty and Brooks (2000) and Stahl (2005) all express the idea that the African archeological record has been hijacked by Eurocentric ideas that paint Europe as technologically and behaviorally modern, and Africa as a cultural backwater, stagnant and unchanging. These Western notions are derived from the Standard View, an often reproduced master narrative that frames humanity
barbarism, and civilization or Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages) (Hall 1996; McBrearty and Brooks 2000; Pfaffenberger 1992; Stahl 2005). McBrearty and Brooks (2000) and Stahl (2005) describe these Eurocentric failings: (1) the European material record is conflated with and compared to the African record, and (2) European Time is mapped onto African Time, not only by utilizing the same or similar terminology to describe Time sequences (ages and stages), but by also expecting distinct continents and environments to progress along the same Timeline.
McBrearty and Brooks (2000) discussed how anatomically modern humans from the Africa MSA are often viewed through a Eurocentric lens, and are often seen as behaviorally stagnant and primitive. They are not accepted as fully human, and are often viewed as lacking indicators of modern human
behavior. However, behavioral traits used as measures indicating modern human behavior are present in the African record, but such indicators are often deemed too rare or the context is questioned. McBrearty and Brooks (2000) argue that changes in technology and behavior took place gradually and did not arrive in a revolutionary package, as is often described for the European Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition (see Klein 2000; Mellars 1989).
One way this thesis hopes to dismantle notions of Africans in the archaeological record as primitive is by demonstrating that modern human behavior is indeed present in the MSA alongside anatomically modern humans. The MSA mudstone lithics from Birimi may offer clues that point to behavior modernity. The Birimi MSA lithic assemblage may indicate modern human
behavior in two ways: (1) through technological complexity, specifically through the presence of Levallois technology, and (2) through the presence of style, which has been argued to be an extension of symbolism, a criterion often used for indicating behavioral modernity.
The African record must be evaluated on its own terms using its own artifacts. It is irresponsible to link the African record with the European in the way described above. Western models and interpretations have held hostage the prehistoric record of Africa—it has been misrepresented as stagnant and primitive. McBrearty and Brooks (2000) as well as Stahl (2005), Casey (2005), and others have all attempted to highlight these myths and ill begotten
illustrations. I hope to do the same. I am committed to answering Trouillot’s (1991) call to dismantle the savage slot and Cobb’s appeal to practice “…a deep historical anthropology that will continue to undermine stereotypes about the Other in the past as well as the present” (Cobb 2005: 563).
CHAPTER 3
THE MIDDLE STONE AGE ACROSS AFRICA
The MSA is an exciting time period to study from an evolutionary
perspective. The oldest known fossils that represent the earliest members of the
Homo sapiens lineage coincide with this time (McBrearty and Tryon 2006), as does the migration of anatomically modern humans around and out of Africa
(Wurz 2013). In addition to the appearance of the fully modern Homo sapiens
skeleton, modern human behavior also developed and coalesced during this compelling period. This chapter will offer an overview of the African MSA. It will demonstrate that the MSA is a period of behavioral and technological modernity and diversity.
The chapter opens with a discussion of the MSA in relation to the Paleolithic, broadly defining the MSA temporally and technologically. Then, typical problems researchers face when studying deep time will be addressed. Next, Levallois technology, a prepared core technique commonly found at MSA sites that was shown in the last chapter to be an important cognitive and
technological development, will be explored and defined in detail. Following this in depth look at a typical lithic technology found across the MSA in time and space, will be a regional overview of the MSA. This regional overview will highlight important sites and finds and show how the MSA is incredibly diverse
across Africa. It will also demonstrate that traits linked to modern human behavior appear at different times in different regions and that there are distinct regional styles of lithic artifacts in the MSA. And finally, attention will focus on Birimi, the site central to this thesis. A description of Birimi and its MSA artifacts will be given.