The Middle Stone Age

These artifacts represent the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa (250 000- 21 000 years ago) that is dominated by flake based formal tools rather than the core based formal tools of the Acheulean. Some of these have the bulb of percussion reduced to facilitate fixing to a haft. Presently, the oldest stone spear tips were believed to have been discovered at Kathu Pan 1. Researchers managed to put forward a good case in favour of those pointed blades being used in such a fashion 500 000 years ago. (Please correct this if I missed more recent publications). The artifacts in featured in the first picture are from Stellenbosch, while the rest are from the Klein Karoo.