MicroAsh · Pyrotechnologies of Middle and Later Stone Age foragers in central Africa: a micro-contextual approach
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-09-01 → 2023-08-31
- EU contribution
- €147,815
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Pyrotechnologies of Middle and Later Stone Age foragers in central Africa: a micro-contextual approach
The use of fire defines us, as no other species uses fire the way we do and has such control over it. Understanding how fire was adopted into our toolkit, becoming a technology, is key to understanding who we are. Archaeological sites in the Kasitu Valley of Northern Malawi contain abundant remains of prehistoric fires, made by hunter-gatherers of the Middle and Later Stone Age. The evidence shows that hunter-gatherers did not only make fires for domestic use, e.g. for warmth and cooking, but also used the rockshelters to cremate and bury their dead, at times accompanied by big fires which are preserved as thick layers of ash. The project “MicroAsh” targeted the “invisible” microscopic record of fire-derived sediments from three rockshelter sites to understand the evolution of pyrotechnology. Micromorphology, the study of intact sediment blocks in thin section, and microFTIR analysis on thin sections were used to study site formation processes and characterize fire features. The overall aim of MicroAsh is to identify how prehistoric hunter-gatherers used fire for subsistence and ritual/social events in Central Africa by tracing changes in pyrotechnology and site-use across the MSA-LSA transition. The project´s specific objectives involved: (1) Establishing natural site formation processes and characterize fire features (2) Investigate the (recursive) relationship between the use of fire and environmental changes (3) Explore spatial and chronological changes in pyrotechnology (4) Reconstruct site-use intensity
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The ability to produce and control fire is a momentous technological development and one that is unique to humans. The ways in which early pyrotechnology evolved and varied amongst prehistoric foragers is, however, poorly resolved. The main objective of the MicroAsh project is to reconstruct Middle and Later Stone Age (MSA and LSA) pyrotechnology variability by focusing on three closed-space rockshelters located in the Kasitu Valley (Malawi), which show exceptional preservation of organic materials. My pilot studies have shown that ashes constitute the main sedimentary components at the selected sites, though individual combustion features are invisible based solely on field observations. Human remains have been retrieved from all three sites, with the apparent use of fire for ritual interment practices during the LSA. MicroAsh will apply high-resolution geoarchaeological techniques (micromorphology, µFTIR, GIS), to study (1) site formation processes, (2) the relationship between fire use and paleoenvironment, (3) variability in the use of fire for ritual and subsistence through time, and (4) site-use intensity. The project will create, and make openly available, experimental datasets on characterization of ashes from varied local botanical resources that are of use to research in similar archaeological contexts in Africa. The largely unexplored potential of using human-made residues will contribute to our understanding of the transition from MSA to LSA foraging strategies. My experience in geoarchaeological studies in Malawi will directly assist me on achieving the goals of this ambitious project. The array of technical and transferable skills I will gather through the completion of MicroAsh and the widening of my collaboration network will be key in achieving my future career goals of becoming a team leader and starting my own research group.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDADE DO ALGARVE · FaroCoordinatorPortugal
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union