Jessica Thompson

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at Yale University

Landscapes are formed by long-term interactions between the underlying geology and climatic, edaphic and biotic factors, including human activity. The Kasitu Valley in the Mzimba District of northern Malawi includes the Kasitu River and its adjacent floodplains and uplands, and it has been a location of sustained human occupation since at least 16...

Northern Malawi encompasses the southern extensional graben of the East African Rift System and the western shores of Lake Malawi (Niassa). The region has experienced significant shifts in vegetation and hydrology throughout the Pleistocene, owing to changes in global climate and local feedback mechanisms. This impacted human populations, for which...

Mwanganda's Village (MGD) and Bruce (BRU) are two open-air site complexes in northern Malawi with deposits dating to between 15 and 58 thousand years ago (ka) and containing Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic assemblages. The sites have been known since 1966 and 1965, respectively, but lacked chronometric and site formation data necessary for their inte...

In most African contexts, glass beads are evidence of direct and indirect exchanges between communities and are often useful chronological markers. Their analysis contributes to a better understanding of the social relationships between ancient societies. Over the last decade, the archaeometric analysis of glass beads has gained ground in Sub-Sahar...

Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa1,2,3,4. Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient pop...

Relatively little is known about Nubia’s genetic landscape prior to the influence of the Islamic migrations that began in the late 1st millennium CE. Here, we increase the number of ancient individuals with genome-level data from the Nile Valley from three to 69, reporting data for 66 individuals from two cemeteries at the Christian Period (~650–10...

This poster presents the new MicroAsh project, with starting date September 1st 2021 and funded by a Marie Curie individual fellowship. Learning how to use and control of fire has been a major step in our technological evolution and has shaped who we are today. However, relatively little is known about the rise of early pyrotechnology. The Micro...

Modern Homo sapiens engage in substantial ecosystem modification, but it is difficult to detect the origins or early consequences of these behaviors. Archaeological, geochronological, geomorphological, and paleoenviron-mental data from northern Malawi document a changing relationship between forager presence, ecosystem organization, and alluvial fa...

Nubia has been a corridor for the movement of goods, culture, and people between sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, and West Eurasia since prehistory, but little is known about the genetic landscape of the region prior to the influence of the Islamic migrations that began in the late 1st millennium CE. We report genome-wide data for 66 individuals from the...

Hunter-gatherers, especially Pleistocene examples, are not well-represented in archeological studies of niche construction. However, as the role of humans in shaping environments over long time scales becomes increasingly apparent, it is critical to develop archeological proxies and testable hypotheses about early hunter-gatherer impacts. Modern fo...

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. Genetic data are consistent with a diverse and subdivided African ancestry, potentially including gene flow with currently unidentified African archaic populations. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils also...

The African Middle Stone Age (MSA, typical range ~ 320–30 ka) has been the subject of intense research interest in recent decades as a culture-chronological Unit associated with the emergence and dispersal of our species. Recent results of this work have shown that sites designated as “MSA” contain common approaches to lithic reduction, but that wi...

The habitual consumption of large-animal resources (e.g., similar sized or larger than the consumer) separates human and nonhuman primate behavior. Flaked stone tool use, another important hominin behavior, is often portrayed as being functionally related to this by the necessity of a sharp edge for cutting animal tissue. However, most research on...

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils suggest that morphologically varied populations pertaining to the H. sapiens clade lived throughout Africa. Similarly, the African archaeological record demonstrates the...

Understanding the environmental circumstances that promote contingent strategies of risk reduction is an enduring area of anthropological investigation with significant implications for the evolution of human adaptability. As part of the Malawi Ancient Lifeways and Peoples Project (MALAPP), we are using strontium isotope ratio provenance analysis t...

Zooarchaeological analyses of carcass transport behavior require methodologies that control for the effects of density-mediated attrition on skeletal element abundances. Taphonomic observations suggest that based on differences in bone structure and density, large mammal skeletal elements can be divided into a high-survival subset of skeletal eleme...

The Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age (MSA) record of Africa provides early examples of standardised stone tool production and complex manufacturing sequences, superficially implying a long-term trend towards greater complexity in MSA technology at a continental scale. However, at this scale, spatial and temporal expressions of technological comple...

Studies of bone surface modifications (BSMs) such as cut marks are crucial to our understanding of human and earlier hominin subsistence behavior. Over the last several decades, however, BSM identification has remained contentious, particularly in terms of identifying the earliest instances of hominin butchery; there has been a lack of consensus ov...

We assembled genome-wide data from 16 prehistoric Africans. We show that the anciently divergent lineage that comprises the primary ancestry of the southern African San had a wider distribution in the past, contributing approximately two-thirds of the ancestry of Malawi hunter-gatherers ∼8,100–2,500 years ago and approximately one-third of the ance...

A critical issue in human evolution is how to determine when hominins began incorporating significant amounts of meat into their diets. This fueled evolution of a larger brain and other adaptations widely considered unique to modern humans. Determination of the spatiotemporal context of this shift rests on accurate identification of fossil bone sur...

The Federated Archaeological Information Management Systems (FAIMS) Project is an Australian, university-based initiative developing a generalized, open-source mobile data collection platform that can be customized for diverse archaeological activities. Three field directors report their experiences adapting FAIMS software to projects in Turkey, Ma...

The Southern Montane Forest-Grassland mosaic ecosystem in the humid subtropics southern Rift Valley of Africa comprised the environmental context for a large area in which modern human evolution and dispersal occurred. Variable climatic conditions during the Late Pleistocene have ranged between humid and hyperarid, changing the character of the eco...

The identification of butchery marks in the zooarchaeological record has consistently been debated. Much experimental work has been done to understand the causal agents behind some bone surface modifications, but recent controversies show that there is still no consensus. Terminology is not consistent between researchers, and there is ambiguity in...

The identification of butchery marks in the zooarchaeological record has consistently been debated. Much experimental work has been done to understand the causal agents behind some bone surface modifications, but recent controversies show that there is still no consensus. Terminology is not consistent between researchers, and there is ambiguity in...

The landscape of northern Malawi is defined by several river catchments that drain from the highlands in the west into Lake Malawi in the east. Many thousands of Middle Stone Age (MSA) artefacts are present on the surface, in particular, in areas where sedimentary units assigned to the Chitimwe Beds are exposed. The unique configuration of the regi...

The ability of Homo sapiens to kill prey at a distance is arguably one of the catalysts for our current ecological dominance. Despite the importance of projectile technology in human hunting strategies, there is still no consensus on when it first emerged. Most evidence has stemmed from analysis of the lithic projectiles themselves, not the trauma...

In this study, we compared the effectiveness of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of bulk ochre to laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry of homogenized ochre chips (HOC LA–ICPMS) at distinguishing among three ochre sources in northern Malawi. Both techniques upheld the Provenance Postulate; however, HOC LA–ICPMS...

The site of Mwanganda's Village, located along a paleochannel in northern Malawi, is one of only a few sites that have characterized the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of Malawi for decades (Clark & Haynes, ; Clark et al., ; Kaufulu, ). The Malawi Earlier-Middle Stone Age Project has re-examined the site using new mapping and chronometric tools in order to...

The site of Blombos Cave (BBC), Western Cape, South Africa has been a strong contributor to establishing the antiquity of important aspects of modern human behaviour, such as early symbolism and technological complexity. However, many linkages between Middle Stone Age (MSA) behaviour and the subsistence record remain to be investigated. Understandi...

Tortoises are one of the most common faunal components at many Palaeolithic archaeological sites across the Old World. They provide protein, fat, and other ‘animal’ resources in a ‘collectable’ package. However, for most sites their interpretation as human food debris is based only on association, rather than demonstrated through taphonomic analysi...

The Karonga District of northern Malawi has an extensive Stone Age archaeological record, primarily represented by stone artefacts that occur in both superficial and buried contexts. Work conducted in the 1960s provided initial documentation of this record. Some of this was presented in summary form in a small number of publications. However, most...

AimPalaeoecological data are crucial to understanding the historical extinction of the blue antelope (Hippotragus leucophaeus). This study examined late Quaternary fossil evidence bearing on the blue antelope's calving and migratory habits. LocationCape Floristic Region (CFR), South Africa. Methods Blue antelope mortality patterns were reconstructe...

J. Desmond Clark and his colleagues were first to investigate the rich Middle Stone Age (MSA - from ca. 285 to 30,000 years ago) deposits in the Karonga District of northern Malawi in the 1960s. This work demonstrated the enormous potential of the area to inform about Middle to Late Pleistocene hominin lifeways, but further studies were hindered by...

J. Desmond Clark’s Middle Stone Age excavation at Chaminade 1A, Karonga, Malawi during the 1960s yielded utilized ochre artefacts suggestive of pigment production. Our 2011 survey of regional ochre deposits suggested that many potential sources are difficult-to-characterize, sedimentary rocks containing detrital minerals from diverse parent rocks....

Sandia Cave generated much interest when in the 1940s extinct Pleistocene megafauna were reported in association with what appeared to be a pre-Folsom Paleoindian component. By the 1950s a series of controversies regarding the stratigraphy and dating began to push the site into obscurity. The human occupation at the site has never been directly dat...

Humans and human ancestors have exploited wetland resources for at least two million years. The most significant predators in these landscapes are crocodiles, which leads to two potential taphonomic problems: 1) human-accumulated bones may become intermingled with crocodile-modified bones; and 2) hominins themselves may have been victims of crocodi...

Sandia Cave is an important latest Pleistocene(late Rancholabrean) vertebrate fauna, with more than 30 species of mammals, including 9 members of extinct Pleistocene megafauna: Nothrotheriops shastensis, 2 species of Equus, Camelops hesternus, Hemiauchenia macrocephala, Capromeryx minor, Bison antiquus, Mammut americanum, and Mammuthus columbi.When...

A detailed taphonomic analysis is provided for the mammalian and tortoise faunal assemblages from Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (PP13B). It is the first of several reports on the fauna from this site, and must necessarily precede analyses focused on higher level interpretations of Middle Stone Age (MSA) butchery, transport, and hunting behavior. The taph...

In discussions of Paleolithic hominin behavior it is often assumed that cut marks are an unwanted byproduct of butchery activities, and that their production causes the dulling of stone tool edges. It is also presumed that Paleolithic butchers would have refrained from making cut marks to extend the use life of their tools. We conducted a series of...

Sandia Cave in New Mexico was excavated in the late 1930s by Frank Hibben, who described a unique type of chipped stone artifact-the “Sandia point”-in association with a faunal assemblage that included extinct Pleistocene species. The site was interpreted as a late Pleistocene Paleoindian hunting station, making it the earliest human occupation kno...

Sandia Cave in New Mexico was excavated in the late 1930s by Frank Hibben, who described a unique type of chipped stone artifact - the "Sandia point" - in association with a faunal assemblage that included extinct Pleistocene species. The site was interpreted as a late Pleistocene Paleoindian hunting station, making it the earliest human occupation...

Numerous experiments on modern bone assemblages have demonstrated that carnivores preferentially ravage bone portions that have high fat content such as ribs, vertebrae, pelves, and the spongy ends of long bones. If marrow is present in long bones, carnivores will break them to access it. If humans remove the marrow first, carnivores typically igno...

The frequencies of surface modification such as percussion, cut, and tooth marks on experimental faunal assemblages are not always directly comparable to those in fossil assemblages. Extensive post-depositional modification of bone surfaces may render many of these marks unidentifiable, depressing the overall frequencies or affecting some mark clas...

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