Africa from MIS 6-2

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Africa from MIS 6-2: The Florescence of Modern Humans

   • Brian A. Stewart, Sacha C. Jones

   Pages 1-20

3. Coasts

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Mid to Late Quaternary Landscape and Environmental Dynamics in the Middle Stone Age of Southern South Africa

      • Andrew S. Carr, Brian M. Chase, Alex Mackay

      Pages 23-47

   3. Technological Change and the Importance of Variability: The Western Cape of South Africa from MIS 6-2

      • Alex Mackay

      Pages 49-63

   4. Cultural Change, Demography, and the Archaeology of the Last 100 kyr in Southern Africa

      • Judith Sealy

      Pages 65-75

   5. Patterns of Hominin Occupation and Cultural Diversity Across the Gebel Akhdar of Northern Libya Over the Last ~200 kyr

      • Sacha Jones, Annita Antoniadou, Huw Barton, Nick Drake, Lucy Farr, Chris Hunt et al.

      Pages 77-99

4. Deserts

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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   2. Climate Change and Modern Human Occupation of the Sahara from MIS 6-2

      • Nick Drake, Paul Breeze

      Pages 103-122

   3. Climate, Environment, and Population Dynamics in Pleistocene Sahara

      • Emanuele Cancellieri, Mauro Cremaschi, Andrea Zerboni, Savino di Lernia

      Pages 123-145

   4. Technological Systems, Population Dynamics, and Historical Process in the MSA of Northern Africa

      • Philip Van Peer

      Pages 147-159

   5. Late Quaternary Environmental Change and Human Occupation of the Southern African Interior

      • Sallie L. Burrough

      Pages 161-174

   6. The Kalahari During MIS 6-2 (190–12 ka): Archaeology, Paleoenvironment, and Population Dynamics

      • Lawrence H. Robbins, George A. Brook, Michael L. Murphy, Andrew H. Ivester, Alec C. Campbell

      Pages 175-193

   7. Paleoenvironments, Sea Levels, and Land Use in Namaqualand, South Africa, During MIS 6-2

      • Genevieve Dewar, Brian A. Stewart

      Pages 195-212

5. Grasslands, Woodlands and Rainforests

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 213-213

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   2. Human Evolution in Late Quaternary Eastern Africa

      • Marta Mirazón Lahr, Robert A. Foley

      Pages 215-231

   3. Environmental Change, Ungulate Biogeography, and Their Implications for Early Human Dispersals in Equatorial East Africa

      • J. Tyler Faith, Christian A. Tryon, Daniel J. Peppe

      Pages 233-245

   4. Follow the Senqu: Maloti-Drakensberg Paleoenvironments and Implications for Early Human Dispersals into Mountain Systems

      • Brian A. Stewart, Adrian G. Parker, Genevieve Dewar, Mike W. Morley, Lucy F. Allott

      Pages 247-271

   5. Across Rainforests and Woodlands: A Systematic Reappraisal of the Lupemban Middle Stone Age in Central Africa

      • Nicholas Taylor

      Pages 273-299

   6. The Later Pleistocene in the Northeastern Central African Rainforest

      • Els Cornelissen

      Pages 301-319

Bringing together archaeological, paleoenvironmental, paleontological and genetic data, this book makes a first attempt to reconstruct African population histories from out species' evolution to the Holocene. Africa during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 to 2 (~190-12,000 years ago) witnessed the biological development and behavioral florescence of our species. Modern human population dynamics, which involved multiple population expansions, dispersals, contractions and extinctions, played a central role in our species’ evolutionary trajectory. So far, the demographic processes – modern human population sizes, distributions and movements – that occurred within Africa during this critical period have been consistently under-addressed. 


The authors of this volume aim at (1) examining the impact of this glacial-interglacial- glacial cycle on human group sizes, movements and distributions throughout Africa; (2) investigating the macro- and micro-evolutionary processes underpinning our species’ anatomical and behavioral evolution; and (3) setting an agenda whereby Africa can benefit from, and eventually contribute to, the increasingly sophisticated theoretical and methodological palaeodemographic frameworks developed on other continents.

• African population history
• palaeodemographic frameworks
• human group movements
• behavioral evolution
• marine isotope stages
• prehistoric population dynamics
• late quarternary environmental change
• human dispersal

“For anyone interested in African prehistory, populations, and paleoenvironments/ paleoclimates, Africa from MIS 6-2: Population Dynamics and Paleoenvironments is a must read.” (Deborah I. Olszewski, University of Pennsylvania)

• University of Cambridge, McDonald Inst. for Archaeological Rsch, United Kingdom

  Sacha C. Jones

• University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, ANN ARBOR, USA

  Brian A. Stewart

Dr. Sacha C. Jones is a postdoctoral research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. She specializes in the Palaeolithic period, in particular that of North Africa and India. 

Dr. Brian A. Stewart is a paleolithic archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology and the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the archaeology of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Africa, especially southern Africa. 

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