New age constraints on the Middle Stone Age occupations of Kharga Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt

• Published in: Journal of human evolution Vol. 52; no. 6; pp. 690 - 701
• Main Authors: Smith, Jennifer R., Hawkins, Alicia L., Asmerom, Yemane, Polyak, Victor, Giegengack, Robert
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.06.2007; Elsevier
• Subjects: Age; Archaeology; Climate change; Egypt; Generalities; Geology; Humans; Marine Isotope Stage 5e; Middle Stone Age; North Africa; Occupations; Organisation and history of research; Prehistory and protohistory; Stone Age; Uranium - analysis; Uranium-series geochronology; Middle Stone Age; New; Isotope stage 6; Middle Palaeolithic; North Africa; Africa; Egypt; Middle Stone Age; Climate change; North Africa; Marine Isotope Stage 5e; Uranium-series geochronology; Site; Plateau; Rock; Levallois; Materials; Oasis; Finds; Profession; Uranium; Analysis; Collection; Workshop; Tufa; Age
• ISSN: 0047-2484; 1095-8606
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.01.004

Spring-deposited carbonate rocks, or tufas, exposed along the flanks of the Libyan Plateau near Kharga Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt, can provide a directly datable stratigraphic context for Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic (MSA/MP) archaeological material, if such material can be found in situ within tufa strata. Two such localities (Mata'na Site G and Bulaq Wadi 3 Locus 1) described by Caton-Thompson were revisited and sampled for uranium-series analysis. At Mata'na Site G (KH/MT-02), Middle Stone Age (“Upper Levalloisian”) material is underlain by tufa with a uranium-series age of 127.9 ± 1.3 ka, and overlain by tufa with an age of 103 ± 14 ka. At Bulaq Wadi 3 Locus 1, a uranium-series age of 114.4 ± 4.2 ka on tufa capping a small collection of Middle Stone Age artifacts also provides a minimum age constraint on that material. Tufa underlying an MSA workshop (KH/MD-10) indicates that this assemblage, characterized by use of several Levallois reduction methods, was deposited after ∼124 ka. Furthermore, uranium-series ages averaging ∼133 ka on a Wadi Midauwara tufa (WME-10) without associated archaeological material suggest that one period of spring flow in the region began during the Marine Isotope Stage 6/5e transition, prior to the warmest portion of the last interglacial period. The dated archaeological material suggests that the distinction that has been identified between Nubian and non-Nubian complexes in the Nile Valley may hold for the Western Desert, although local complexity has yet to be fully described.