Stone age tools reveal cultural differences

A study of stone tools found at sites 600 miles apart in South Africa are revealing the cultural differences between the groups that made them.

Two of South Africa’s most famous archaeological sites, Sibudu and Blombos, have revealed that Middle Stone Age groups who lived in these different areas, more than 1 000 kilometres apart, used similar types of stone tools some 71 000 years ago, but that there were differences in the ways that these tools were made.

“This was not the case at 65 000 years ago when similarities in stone tool making suggest that similar cultural traditions spread across South Africa,” says Professor Lyn Wadley, archaeologist from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

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Story: University of the Witwatersrand | Photo: University of the Witwatersrand