DAVIS, CALIFORNIA—According to a statement released by the University of California, Davis, Alex Mackay of the University of Wollongong, Teresa Stelle of the University of California, Davis, and their colleagues have found evidence that people who lived between 80,000 and 92,000 years ago at a rock shelter site in southwestern South Africa used heat to make stone tools, transported mollusk shells over long distances, and crafted items from ostrich eggshells. The researchers add that no evidence of such technologies have been found at other Mesolithic sites about 65 miles to the south. However, a few thousand years later, after a shift toward a more favorable climate, similar stone tools are found in both regions, Steele said. Isolation may have helped motivate adaptation and innovation, she explained. The researchers will continue to investigate the history of climate change in the region and how it may have shaped culture. To read about ostrich eggshell beads fashioned in eastern and southern Africa between 50,000 and 33,000 years ago, go to "Artifact."
