This book addresses the question of variability in backed bladelet-based technologies. It also examines the role of LSA microlithic industries as adaptive strategies for coping with paleoenvironmental changes in North Africa. The multidisciplinary research activities conducted in caves and open-air sites in North Africa over the past two decades have highlighted the importance of this region for understanding the development of LSA microlithic technologies in Africa. This book, therefore, enriches the debate of origin and the spread of Late Pleistocene microlithic technologies in North Africa and beyond. Previously published in African Archaeological Review Volume 37, issue 3, September 2020

The hunting and gathering way of life is the most enduring and resilient in human history. However, the ways that a wild food-based subsistence system affects people's social and economic organization are often oversimplified and variability is poorly understood. In general, there's been a tendency, particularly among non-Anthropologists, to assume that hunter-gatherer societies are static and that historic groups represent an earlier, simpler way of life. This is particularly true in Africa, where small, highly mobile groups are common ethnographically. However, dramatic rainfall fluctuations over the last ~30,000 years significantly altered resources available to hunter-gatherers in diverse environments of northern and eastern Africa. To examine the ways hunter-gatherer groups responded to terminal Pleistocene and Holocene climatic shifts and investigate social and economic variability through time, this thesis compares two long archaeological sequences from distinct eastern African ecozones in semi-arid versus humid settings. Radiocarbon dates and faunal data from the Guli Waabayo rock shelter in the semi-arid plains of the southern Horn of Africa revealed occupation between ~26-6 kya. New dates indicated that early use of the site occurred during a period of aridity in the last glaciation, but Holocene occupation was associated with higher rainfall. Faunal species representation demonstrates that, throughout these fluctuations, people maintained a remarkably consistent focus on small game. Taxonomic and age based evidence for specialized dik-dik net-hunting during both arid and humid periods indicates maintenance of unique and resilient hunter-gatherer social and economic strategies that allowed people to survive on the Buur Heybe inselberg for thousands of years. In comparison, excavations at the Namundiri A shell midden in Uganda provide new insights into the flexibility of complex Kansyore hunter-gatherers who occupied the well-watered Lake Victoria Basin of East Africa ~8. 5-1. 5 kya. Dates from the site are the first evidence of Kansyore occupation between ~7-4. 4 kya, which, combined with site location and faunal data, indicate relatively stable lifeways along the lakeshore leading up to an arid phase in the mid-Holocene ~5-4 kya. Abandonment of the lake's edge and an increased emphasis on fishing along inland rivers after this period suggests reorganization among hunter-gatherers in response to changing climatic and environmental conditions in order to maintain a consistent presence in the region. This examination of Late Quaternary and Holocene hunter-gatherers living in drier and wetter regions of eastern Africa draws attention to the different ways foraging groups responded to environmental and social shifts in order to maintain continuity over long time spans. Together, these two case studies highlight unique hunter-gatherer strategies that involved reduced mobility and subsistence specialization, which are not documented in the ethnographic record of Africa. As a result, this research helps to expand global understandings of variability in the hunting and gathering lifestyle.

The study of the human societies of the Final Pleistocene of North Africa requires an in-depth analysis of the techno-typological characteristics of the microlithic industries that were widespread in the whole Mediterranean area during the period between 24000 and 10000 years ago. Most of the research projects in Maghreb and Libya were carried out decades ago. At the time sediments were rarely sieved and the small lithic tools, so characteristic of this period.

The rise and fall of microblade technology during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene is not only a part of the panorama of global microlithisation, but also a key question linked to human adaptive change in the face of climate fluctuation. This monograph creatively uses Lewis Binford's macroecological approach developed from his book Constructing Frames of Reference (2001) against both interglacial and glacial climate conditions, to provide an explanation of variation and change among late Pleistocene and early Holocene microblade-based industries in northeastern Asia. It uses six case studies to discuss two waves of cultural change linked with issues of the origin of microblade technology and the Palaeolithic to Neolithic transition.

The end of the Pleistocene (c. 75-15 ka) is a key period for the prehistory of the Nile Valley. The climatic fluctuations documented during this period have led human populations from the Middle and Late Palaeolithic to adapt to a changing Nile. In particular, the global shift to more arid conditions regionally translated into the expansion of the Sahara, the lowering of sea levels and the desiccation of some major eastern African lakes. These climatically-induced environmental changes influenced the behaviour of the Nile —although how exactly is still debated— and its role as an ecological refugium for human populations living in its vicinity. Genetic and fossil evidence highlight a strong population substructure in Africa during this period, suggesting the alternation of phases of major dispersals of modern humans within the continent, as well as out-of and back-into Africa, with phases of relative isolation of populations, which might be linked to the creation of environmental refugia during the climatic fluctuations of this period. Understanding to what extent the technological variability observed in north-eastern Africa between 75,000 and 15,000 years ago is linked to environmental changes and/or possible contacts between different human populations is critical in this context. The best-preserved evidence for past human behavior are archaeological assemblages, most often lithic assemblages. However, the use of different terminologies, whether they refer to cultural or techno-typological entities, hampers any systematic comparison between the Nile Valley on one hand and neighbouring regions on the other hand. An outcome of this practice is the artificial ‘isolation’ of the north-eastern African record from its neighbouring regions. This monograph groups together chapters presenting updated reviews and new data on regional archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, palaeoanthropological and geological records from north-eastern Africa, North Africa, the Levant and eastern Africa for the period ranging from 75,000 to 15,000 years ago. While north-eastern Africa, and the Nile Valley in particular, is generally considered as one of the main possible routes of migrations out of Africa, few recent studies allow the data from this region to be viewed from a macro-regional perspective. This book allows the exploration of topical issues, such as modern humans’ capacity for adaptation, particularly in the context of climate change, as well as population interactions and human dispersals in the past, taking a multidisciplinary approach.