The study showed that the latest artifacts of the Middle Paleolithic were almost 20 thousand years younger than previously thought.
The work was published in Scientific Reports. Finds of the Middle African Paleolithic date back approximately between 300 and 30 thousand years ago, after which they largely disappear. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the History of Humanity in Germany and Sheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal have recorded the youngest known artifacts dating back to the Middle Stone Age during field research.
The finds were made on the territory of modern Senegal, they are stone tools - scrapers and flakes. It is noteworthy that much less is known about the ancient cultures of West Africa than about the eastern and southern parts of the continent. Therefore, scientists have drawn up a research map of the study of the territory of Senegal. Found instruments from the sites of Laminia and Saxomununya are dated from 22-21 and less than 11 thousand years ago.
“Before our work, the history of the rest of Africa assumed that long before 11,000 years ago, the last traces of the Middle Stone Age and the way of life that reflected it had long disappeared,” said one of the study's authors, Hadi Niang. Among the possible reasons for the length of this period is the fact that the West African region is isolated from the rest of the continent: with the eastern tropical forests, and in the north by the Sahara desert.
Even the river systems of western Africa form an autonomous group.
In addition, the area is likely to be less affected by extreme recurring climate changes. Therefore, local residents did not have much incentive to change established technologies.
The results of the study are consistent with the fact that the cultural transition to more elegant instruments in western Africa, in principle, occurred much later than in other parts of the continent. But about 15 thousand years ago, the climate changed in the central and western parts of the mainland: it became more humid, which contributed to the growth of forests. This could be the reason for the linking of different regions of Africa and the exchange of experience between representatives of different cultures.