Manuel Will

University of Tübingen | EKU Tübingen · Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Medieval Archaeology

Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations (broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited s...

The period from 200,000 to 30,000 years ago in Africa encompasses the archaeological background for the early evolution and global dispersal of Homo sapiens. Here we provide an overview of current models of behavioral change and cultural evolution in this timeframe, followed by a review on the timing and temporal tra-jectory of relevant empirical d...

Considerations of materiality and object-oriented approaches have greatly influenced the development of archaeological theory in recent years. Yet, Palaeolithic archaeology has been slow in incorporating this emerging body of scholarship and exploring its bearing on the human deep past. This paper probes into the potential of materiality theory to...

Increasing body and brain size constitutes a key macro-evolutionary pattern in the hominin lineage, yet the mechanisms behind these changes remain debated. Hypothesized drivers include environmental, demographic, social, dietary, and technological factors. Here we test the influence of environmental factors on the evolution of body and brain size i...

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 consensus, the origins, patterns, and causes of behavioral complexity in modern humans remain debated. Here, we consider whether recent findings continue to support popular scenario...

Southern Africa features an intensively studied Stone Age sequence, though one with geographical and temporal gaps. The archaeology of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 remains understudied, particularly between ~ 50 and 25 ka. This period encompasses important ecological, demographic and cultural changes, most notably the transition from Middle Stone A...

Current phyto-scapes (plant populations in their geo-spatial context) are not exact replicas of past foraging potential, yet they provide valuable data about the carrying capacity or potential of a foraging-scape. Knowledge about contemporary micro-ecologies and ethno-historical plant use can inform on behavioral aspects, should such plants be foun...

This study examines knapping techniques in the production of stone tools made on dolerite to understand the knapping characteristics of this igneous tool stone. Extensive experimental research exists on the knapping of silica-rich materials like flint, yet studies on materials low in silica remain scarce. Dolerite, an igneous rock composed mainly...

The erosional landscape of the Jojosi Dongas in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, expose accretionary slope deposits that preserve important geological and archaeological information. This landscape has been occupied by modern humans during the stone age for many thousands of years as evidenced by the presence of numerous stone artefacts interbedded wit...

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is mainly known from rock shelters and caves. How early modern humans interacted with their landscapes remains comparatively understudied. The site of Jojosi 1, situated north of Nquthu in north central KwaZulu-Natal, is set within erosional badlands, known locally as “dongas.” This locality offers a ra...

Hunter-gatherer groups conduct most of their activities in open landscapes as they provide drinking water, food, and raw materials, and offer spaces for social gatherings. The remains left behind at such sites allow for unique archaeological insights into the spatial patterning of prehistoric behaviour. The Stone Age record in southern Africa remai...

Southern Africa features an intensively studied Stone Age sequence, though one with geographical and temporal gaps. The archaeology of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 remains understudied, particularly between ~ 50 − 25 ka. This period encompasses numerous ecological, demographic and behavioural changes, most notably the passage from Middle Stone Age...

It has been argued that enhanced phenotypic plasticity and life-history variability, in addition to a greater adaptive dependence on social learning, behavioral flexibility, and niche construction, are characteristics of the hominin lineage that accommodated both environmental variation and the colonization of new environments. The extended evoluti...

This is the editorial for the research topic of our special issue entitled 'Living on the edge—interdisciplinary perspectives on coastal and marine ecosystems in human prehistory'

The ubiquity and durability of lithic artifacts inform archaeologists about important dimensions of human behavioral variability. Despite their importance, lithic artifacts can be problematic to study because lithic analysts differ widely in their theoretical approaches and the data they collect. The extent to which differences in lithic data relat...

Every human-made tool is the product of a design process and fulfils a specific purpose. The functionality of the tool is thus inherent in its form. The method of analysing techno-functional units (unités techno-fonctionelles) developed in French-language research and is used to identify different functional areas on a stone tool. In addition, the...

The method of re-sorting stone assemblages into original raw material units, known in German-speaking countries as transformation analysis, was defined by the Erlangen prehistorian W. Weißmüller (1950–2005) as a standardised model for the evaluation of stone artefacts. An analysis of raw material units based on macroscopic investigations of the raw...

The chaîne opératoire approach is concerned with reconstructing the different technical stages from raw material procurement through blank production, tool manufacture, use and recycling to discard by drawing on the entirety of a stone artefact assemblage. Thus, on the one hand, statements can be made about the chronological sequence and, on the ot...

Attribute analysis is a methodological approach that divides an assemblage or a sample of stone tools into individual lithic artefacts and lithic artefacts into individual elements (attributes or traits), with the latter constituting the basic analytical units. Attributes, which capture the complex morphology and metrics of stone artifacts, are ind...

Stone tools appear at first glance as static objects. However, dynamic processes have been preserved on their surfaces in the form of negatives of stone knapping. The method of working stage analysis serves to reconstruct the manufacturing or shaping process from these negatives. Each artefact forms an analytical unit, so that the method is suitabl...

The concept of standardization has been applied in archaeological research as a proxy measure for cognitive and behavioral complexity since the late nineteenth century. Here we evaluate these issues in the context of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) examining microlithic technology and laminar blanks and their corresponding core reduction and tool assemb...

In 1952, Gordon Cramb published the first report on his excavations at Holley Shelter, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Although Cramb’s work implied organic preservation associated with a unique stone tool assemblage from a Middle Stone Age (MSA) context, Holley Shelter disappeared from the archaeological landscape until 2015, when we provided a re...

The use of marine resources and the settlement of coastal settlements may have influenced the bio-cultural evolution and dispersal of Pleistocene Homo sapiens in Africa. In order to test such scenarios, however, we require evidence for these behaviours deriving from an expanded spatio-temporal archaeological record. The Stone Age of South Africa do...

For the last 10 years, we have been carefully excavating rich, well-stratified Middle Stone Age (MSA) horizons from Sibhudu in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This work has provided a great abundance of numerous classes of cultural material from well-controlled contexts dating to between > 90 and 36 ka that is relevant for documenting the Late Pleisto...

The MSA/LSA transition is a major shift in the African archaeological record, but questions on its beginning remain debated. In southern Africa, most sites suggest an origin of LSA technology after about 30.000 years BP. The single exception is Border Cave situated at the border between South Africa and Eswatini, with surprisingly old dates of ∼43....

Coastal adaptations have been considered to play an important role in the bio-cultural evolution of early Homo sapiens and their dispersal out of Africa. In line with this assessment, recent years have seen increasing evidence for the exploitation of seafood from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of northern and southern Africa. Yet, chronological control...

The study of raw materials is an essential step in lithic analysis, regardless of the age, provenance, and technology of the assemblages. As in many other contexts of the Paleolithic, researchers of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa have often focused their attention on fine-grained, non-local rock types, such as silcrete. Here, I spotl...

Objective To investigate reported extreme temperature-related catastrophic events and associated mortality on the European continent including the Russian Federation. Design Cross-sectional respecting Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) criteria. Settings Data source: Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT)....

Since more than 80 years, the University of Tübingen hosts the archaeological collections excavated by Margit and Ludwig Kohl-Larsen between 1934 and 1939 in modern-day Tanzania. Despite the great scientific relevance of these collections, most of them were never published on an international scale and were thus unavailable for the broader Africani...

The Howiesons Poort (HP) of southern Africa plays an important role in models on the early behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens. The HP is often portrayed as a coherent MSA industry characterized by early complex material culture. Recent work has emphasized parallel technological change through time across southern Africa potentially driven by ecol...

Dieses essential gibt einen Überblick über aktuelle Analysemethoden von Gesteinsartefakten von der Attributanalyse ganzer Inventare bis hin zu mikroskopischen Gebrauchsspurenanalysen einzelner Artefakte. Dabei zeigen die vorgestellten Ansätze die Bandbreite der Analyse urgeschichtlicher Steinartefakte im deutschsprachigen Raum. Einfache Anwendungsb...

Stone artefacts are frequently used to identify and trace human populations in the Paleolithic. Convergence in lithic technology has the potential to confound such interpretations, implying connections between unrelated groups. To further the general theoretical debate on this issue, we first delineate the concepts of independent innovation, diffus...

Mikroskopische Gebrauchsspurenanalysen an Steinartefakten besitzen ein großes Erkenntnispotenzial. Denn so können unter Umständen die konkrete Nutzungsweise eines Steinwerkzeuges im Sinne der mit ihm ausgeführten Bewegungen, das damit bearbeitete Material und, falls zutreffend, teils auch die Art der Schäftung nachempfunden werden. Dies ist sehr au...

Die im deutschsprachigen Raum unter dem Begriff Transformationsanalyse bekannte Methode zur Rücksortierung von Steininventaren in ursprüngliche Gesteinseinheiten wurde von dem Erlanger Urgeschichtsforscher W. Weißmüller (1950–2005) als standardisiertes Modell zur Auswertung von Steinartefakten definiert. Eine auf makroskopischen Untersuchungen der...

Die Attribut- oder Merkmalsanalyse ist ein methodischer Ansatz der ein Inventar in einzelne Steinartefakte und Steinartefakte in einzelne Elemente (Attribute oder Merkmale) zerteilt, die jeweils die grundsätzlichen analytischen Einheiten bilden. Die Attribute, die die komplexe Morphologie und Metrik von Steinartefakten erfassen, werden individuell...

Steinwerkzeuge erscheinen auf den ersten Blick als statische Objekte. Auf ihren Oberflächen haben sich jedoch dynamische Prozesse in Form von Negativen der Steinbearbeitung erhalten. Die Methode der Arbeitsschrittanalyse dient dazu, aus diesen Negativen den Herstellungs- bzw. Umformungsprozess zu rekonstruieren. Jedes Artefakt bildet eine analytisc...

Jedes von Menschenhand hergestellte Werkzeug ist das Produkt eines Gestaltungsprozesses und erfüllt einen bestimmten Nutzungszweck. Die Funktionalität des Werkzeuges ist somit in dessen Gestalt angelegt. Mit der in der französischsprachigen Forschung entwickelten Methode der Analyse von techno-funktionalen Einheiten (unités techno-fonctionelles) we...

Beim Chaîne opératoire-Ansatz geht es darum, durch das Heranziehen der Gesamtheit eines Steinartefaktinventars die verschiedenen Stufen von der Rohmaterialbeschaffung über Grundformproduktion, Werkzeugfertigung und Recycling bis hin zum Verwerfen nachzuvollziehen. Damit können einerseits Aussagen zur zeitlichen Abfolge sowie Gestaltung und anderers...

Did our closest relatives adapt to the sea in the same way as early Homo sapiens ?

Phenotypic plasticity is common among metazoans. We have previously argued that enhanced phenotypic plasticity is a characteristic of the hominin lineage (Wells and Stock, 2007). This hypothesis remains challenging to test as phenotypic correlates of environmental variation may result from either natural selection or plasticity. Recent evidence sug...

The open-air archaeology of southern Africa is extremely rich, yet has been only modestly influential in constructions of Late Pleistocene human behavior. Here we report on two seasons of work conducted as part of the Doring River Archaeology Project, which aims to reveal patterns of human land use and technological decision-making from the Earlier...

The Swabian Jura has long played a crucial role in key debates about the European Paleolithic. One of the best-known sites, Geißenklösterle Cave in the Ach Valley, has yielded a stratigraphic sequence including both Middle and Upper Paleolithic find horizons separated by a largely geogenic horizon. Here we present combined techno-economic and attri...

This study investigates patterns of extreme temperature-related events in Europe and its significance for the public health, with a focus on the vulnerable pediatric population. A generalized additive model of average surface temperature development for the European countries is described and discussed with an in-depth analysis of the influence of...

The fossil record of early Homo sapiens in the African Pleistocene remains sparse. In contrast to its prominent position regarding the cultural evolution of our species, southern Africa plays a secondary role in narratives regarding human biological origins. Reasons for this are a limited and fragmentary fossil record from the Middle Stone Age (MSA...

Building on the important work of Lyn Wadley at Sibudu, archeologists from the University of Tübingen have excavated the upper stratigraphic units of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) sequence down to the Howiesons Poort (HP). Here, we present the main results from lithic analyses of the lowest part of the Sibudan sequence to assess its overall variabilit...

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa is central to current discussions on the early behavioral evolution of modern humans. Recent MSA research has focused on two technocomplexes, the Still Bay (SB) and Howiesons Poort (HP) that are associated with the early appearance of many cultural innovations. Apart from this temporal emphasis, a regio...

Body size is a central determinant of a species’ biology and adaptive strategy, but the number of reliable estimates of hominin body mass and stature have been insufficient to determine long-term patterns and subtle interactions in these size components within our lineage. Here, we analyse 254 body mass and 204 stature estimates from a total of 311...

The database of hominin body size estimates in Excel format used in Will et al. (2017).

Body size is one of the most important determinants of the biology of a species, as it correlates with life history, energetic expenditure, diet, thermoregulation, and home range size, among other factors. Although the evolution of body size within the genus Homo is an important issue, the most influential large-scale studies have been performed ov...

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of Africa documents the earliest and longest record of marine resource use and coastal settlements by modern humans. Here, we provide a long-term and evolutionary perspective of these behaviors. We propose a definition of " coastal adaptations " rooted in the principles of evolutionary biology as a workable analytical dev...

While the majority of research on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa has been conducted in the southern and western Cape, studies of the east coast of South Africa have become increasingly important due to the existence of well-stratified sites such as Sibudu. Because of the scarcity of comparable localities, however, we still know littl...

Lithic technologies have been used to trace dispersals of early human populations within and beyond Africa. Convergence in lithic systems has the potential to confound such interpretations , implying connections between unrelated groups. Due to their reductive nature, stone artefacts are unusually prone to this chance appearance of similar forms in...

Sibudu in KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) with its rich and high-resolution archaeological sequence provides an ideal case study to examine the causes and consequences of short-term variation in the behavior of modern humans during the Middle Stone Age (MSA). We present the results from a technological analysis of 11 stratified lithic assemblages whic...

The estimation of body size among the earliest members of the genus Homo (2.4–1.5Myr [millions of years ago]) is central to interpretations of their biology. It is widely accepted that Homo ergaster possessed increased body size compared with Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, and that this may have been a factor involved with the dispersal of Homo...

Hoedjiespunt 1 has long been recognized as one of the earliest Middle Stone Age (MSA) shell-bearing sites on the southwestern Cape coast. Together with the closely adjacent and roughly contemporary site at Sea Harvest, and the extensively documented site of Ysterfontein, Hoedjiespunt provides a record of MSA people’s adaptations to coastal environm...

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of sub-Saharan Africa currently provides the earliest and longest record of marine resource exploitation by modern humans. Here we present data on coastal settlement systems from our excavations at the shellfishbearing MSA locality of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1), Western Cape, South Africa. We also review recent advances in res...