Experiment-based approach to Middle Stone Age artisanship at Rose Cottage Cave

Full title

Experiment-based approach to Middle Stone Age artisanship at Rose Cottage Cave

Principal investigator

Noora Taipale

Co-principal investigators

Viola Schmid (Austrian Academy of Sciences), Lyn Wadley (University of the Witwatersrand)

Funding

The Leakey Foundation (grant number F202410578)

Years

2025–2026

Summary

This collaborative project funded by The Leakey Foundation uses experimental archaeology to gain new perspectives on Middle Stone Age lithic industries at the reference site Rose Cottage Cave (South Africa) between 100 000 and 30 000 years ago.

The dual aim of the project is to better comprehend the production sequences of stone tools and to produce replica artefacts for use-wear experiments to reconstruct human activities at the site. The investigators work together with expert knapper and lithic technologist Morgan Roussel (Paleocraft and Skills, University of Leiden) to gain insights into the possibilities and challenges faced by the Middle Stone Age knappers when they worked with the locally and regionally available raw materials.

The researchers test different hammers, gestures, and approaches to core reduction to understand how technical traditions and raw material properties interacted. Input from the use-wear study of Middle Stone Age artefacts allows them to understand which edge qualities and other tool attributes were sought for by the Stone Age artisans and why, and how the toolmakers found ways to meet the functional demands in this particular raw material situation.

This collective research expands the methodological basis of lithic technological and functional analysis in South Africa and provides new insights into the lifeways and technological competence of our ancestors in a unique archaeological setting.