Still Bay and Howiesons Poort
Two bursts of innovation in southern Africa appear, flourish for a few thousand years, and stop.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 18 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 3 thousand years
- Era
- Late Pleistocene, Quaternary
The Still Bay industry, with its finely worked bifacial points, and the later Howiesons Poort, with small backed blades made for hafting into composite weapons, represent striking technological sophistication — and each lasts only a few thousand years before being replaced by simpler toolkits. The pattern of innovation followed by apparent loss is puzzling, and is usually explained by demographic fluctuation: small, fragmented populations cannot reliably transmit complex skills.