Fig 1.
On top left, location of Sibudu Cave (29.522627S, 31.085895E). On the bottom left, Plan of Sibudu Cave. This schematic map was made on the basis of a topographic map of Southern Africa, source: Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html. On the bottom left the excavation grid is represented with the square meters for this analysis highlighted in grey. On the bottom right, stratigraphy of the North wall of Sibudu Cave (Stratigraphy courtesy of Lyn Wadley). The HP layers are highlighted in grey.
Fig 2.
Hearth 2 in GR layer, square C4.
Picture from L. Wadley’s excavation. Photograph courtesy of Lyn Wadley.
Table 1.
List with the different stratigraphic features recognised as part of GR and GR2 in Sibudu, from Wadley’s excavation.
Fig 3.
Top: percentage of rock types in Sibudu’s layer GR amongst pieces over 2cm in square B4. Bottom: Percentage of rock types for complete flakes in the 6m2 analysed (see S1 File). As can be seen these two samples are very similar and the main rock types knapped in GR layer at Sibudu are: dolerite, hornfels, sandstone, quartz, quartzite and cryptocrystalline material (in order of percentage representation in the layer).
Fig 4.
Freehand and bipolar quartz cores classified in this analysis.
Left: types of freehand cores. F1 conical core; F2, F3, F4, F5, F6 and F7 various types of prismatic cores (with different directions of removals); F8 centripetal core; F9 multifacial core. Right: different types of bipolar cores recognised in this study, with different directions of removals. B1. Unidirectional. B2. Bidirectional. B3 is the result of rotation. B4 is typical of fracture accidents during bipolar knapping.
Fig 5.
Different types of backed pieces considered in this study.
This typological classification takes into account the lateralization of the retouch and its curvature or lack thereof. The single trunctation type is what, in the southern African literature, is referred to as an ‘oblique backed point’
Table 2.
Variables recorded for quartz cores.
Table 3.
Variables recorded for cores (non-quartz rock types, such as hornfels, dolerite, sandstone, etc.).
Table 4.
Variables recorded for all unretouched blanks.
Table 5.
Variables recorded for retouched blanks.
Fig 6.
Grey Rocky core types by raw material type.
Table 6.
Grey Rocky core types by raw material type.
*See quartz subtypes cores in Table 7.
Table 7.
Type of cores in quartz (the types, such as B1 and B2) are illustrated in Fig 4. Ind = indeterminate.
Fig 7.
Dolerite and hornfels cores from GR layer.
1 Core on flake (Kostienki), hornfels. 2 and 3 HP core, hornfels. 4. HP core, dolerite. 5. Core on flake (burin core), dolerite. 6. Core on flake (burin core), hornfels. 7. Bladelet core on small nodule, hornfels.
Fig 8.
Prismatic blade core example in GR.
A. Prismatic blade core (#61) (dolerite) showing a change of direction in the knapping. 1. First striking platform and exploitation surface. Afterwards the core was rotated in order to continue the blade production. 2. Second and third striking platform (opposed) and knapping surface. B. Three dolerite blade blanks that could correspond to a prismatic core as example #61. 2. Is an overshoot.
Fig 9.
Freehand and bipolar quartz cores in Sibudu, layer GR.
Scale 1 cm.
Fig 10.
Percentage of conchoidal negatives, fissuration and bluntness of freehand and bipolar cores in Sibudu, layer GR.
Fig 11.
Examples of CCS and quartzite cores in Sibudu, layer GR.
1. Centripetal core (Levallois-like) on CCS. 2, 3 and 4. Bipolar quartzite cores. Scale 1 cm.
Fig 12.
Box-plot of the length, breadth and thickness of dolerite, hornfels and quartz cores.
Besides dolerite length there is ‘Length CR’, which is the box-plot of dolerite crest and semicrest and false semicrest, as it can give also an idea of the length of the cores. As can be seen, the measurements are clearly different among rock types, only breadth of dolerite and hornfels show some overlap.
Fig 13.
Core related by-products examples in Sibudu, layer GR.
1. Overshoot hornfels flake showing the morphology of a prismatic core with two opposed striking platforms. 2 and 3. Semicrest in hornfels. 4. Semicrest in dolerite from a big prismatic blade core. Scale 3 cm.
Fig 14.
Core related by-products-False semicrest examples in Sibudu, layer Gr.
These blanks are the result from a change in the direction of blank removal with the crest representing a previous overhang. On the top left schematic drawing explaining the production of these types of blanks. 1, 2, 3 and 4 dolerite examples. 1, 2 and 3 are coming from big blade prismatic cores as the one shown in Fig 8. 5 and 6. Hornfels examples. Scale 1 cm.
Table 8.
Numbers and percentages of core related by-products in GR for dolerite and hornfels.
Fig 15.
Different examples of dolerite flakes in Sibudu, layer GR.
1 to 4 seems related to a Levallois reduction sequence, whereas pieces such as 6 or 11 could be related to a discoidal knapping method or a preparatory phase of a Levallois core. Scale 3 cm.
Fig 16.
Flake scar patterning for dolerite, hornfels and sandstone in Sibudu, GR layer.
Fig 17.
Lateral edge for dolerite, hornfels and sandstone in Sibudu, layer GR.
Fig 18.
Dorsal scar pattern and shape of the blank for hornfels and dolerite in Sibudu, layer GR.
Fig 19.
Type of platform and dorsal scar pattern for hornfels and dolerite in Sibudu, layer GR.
Fig 20.
Typometrical distribution of platforms flakes by rock type in Sibudu, layer GR.
Fig 21.
Cortex percentage and scar pattern for hornfels and dolerite in Sibudu, layer GR.
Table 9.
Sibudu, layer GR. Technological recognition of flakes and blades/bladelets for hornfels, dolerite and sandstone.
Fig 22.
Above: Histograms of all completed blanks without distinguishing between flakes and blades. Below: Histogram of only the pieces recognized as blade/bladelets technologically.
Table 10.
Sibudu, layer GR. Univariate statistics of length, breadth and thickness of all complete blanks in the three main rock types.
Table 11.
Sibudu, layer GR. Shapiro-Wilk normality tests of length, breadth and thickness by rock type of all the blanks (without distinguishing by technological categories).
Table 12.
Shapiro-Wilk normality tests of length, breadth and thickness by rock type of all the blade and bladelets blanks (distinguished by technological criteria).
Table 13.
Mixture analysis for the length of dolerite, hornfels and sandstone blade/bladelets blanks.
Table 14.
Formal tools and retouched pieces in layer GR according to rock type.
Fig 23.
Different morphotypes from layer GR, generally referred to as ‘domestic tools’ in this paper.
1, 3 and 6 Retouched blade on hornfels and dolerite. 2 and 4 Strangulated blade on hornfels and dolerite. 5. Pieces with macrotraces on dolerite. 7 and 8 Burins on hornfels. Piece number 8 is a burin made on false semicrest from a big prismatic blade dolerite core.
Fig 24.
Backed tools in hornfels (left) and dolerite (right).
For hornels on the left: 1. Trapeze. 2,4,3,6 and 7. Segments. 5. Single truncation. For dolerite (on the right): 1,5,7 and 8.Segments. 2, 3, 4 and 6. Truncations.
Fig 25.
1,2,3,4 and 7 on quartz. Pieces # 2 and 8 are refittings. 5 and 6 on hornfels.
Fig 26.
Representation of domestic tools, backed pieces and bifacial pieces for the three main retouched rock types in GR layer.
Table 15.
Shapiro-Wilk normality tests of length, breadth and thickness for dolerite and hornfels backed pieces in GR.
Quartz was not included as it has a really small number of cases.
Table 16.
Univariate data for dolerite and hornfels backed pieces in GR.
Fig 27.
Box-plot of length, breadth and thickness of dolerite and hornfels backed tools.D = Dolerite, H = Hornfels.
Table 17.
F test and T test for breadth of backed pieces in hornfels and dolerite from layer GR.
Fig 28.
Comparison of percentage of GR and GS backed pieces.
Fig 29.
Comparison of percentage of GR and GS domestic tools.