This review summarizes current thinking about the concept of modern behavior in the
context of Neandertals and anatomically modern humans. The decoupling of modern …

The behavioral origins of Homo sapiens can be traced back to the first material culture
produced by our species in Africa, the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Beyond this broad …

Abstract The Central African Middle Stone Age (MSA) is very poorly understood in
comparison to the higher-resolution records of East and southern Africa. Severe taphonomic …

Paleolithic archaeologists conceptualize the uniqueness of Homo sapiens in terms of
“behavioral modernity,” a quality often conflated with behavioral variability. The former is …

This article examines the possible origins of modern thinking by evaluating the cognitive
models of working memory, executive functions and their interrelationship. We propose that …

Mankind's utter dependency on technology extends back approximately three million years
to the first stone tools, but it was only with the innovation of hafting, some 300,000 years ago …

This paper argues that the origins of language can be detected one million years ago, if not
earlier, in the archaeological record of Homo erectus. This controversial claim is based on a …

It is generally accepted that abstract and iconographic representations are reflections of
symbolic material culture. Here we describe a fragmented ocherous pebble bearing a …

We present the results of a technological analysis of the Howiesons Poort and MSA III lithic
artifacts from Cave 1A at Klasies River. We studied most of the debitage and retouched …

For many decades the use of backed pieces from the Howiesons Poort, between about 70ka
and 55ka ago, in South Africa has been a point of discussion. Recently direct evidence has …