Spatial temporal visualisations of the Southern African Middle Stone Age

This thesis explores the chronology of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa across three nested spatial and temporal scales. The MSA (300-30 ka) is typically associated with moments of innovation and symbolic behaviour. However, understanding this period has been hindered by the limitations of traditional frameworks, chronological constraints, and research bias. This thesis’s first study critically evaluates the historical development of southern African MSA chronology, revealing how political influences and research traditions have shaped our understanding of this period. The second study presents a comprehensive chronological database for the southern African MSA, documenting over 1,840 absolute ages associated with archaeological assemblages. This database enables the exploration of spatial-temporal patterns and reveals significant research gaps that limit exploration of population dynamics, environmental interaction and technological trends. The third study begins to fill in some of these spatial gaps through the first luminescence dating project in a Mozambican archaeological site. The 20 newly dated luminescence and Radiocarbon samples from Daimane Rock Shelter II provide insights into site formation processes and highlight the necessity of engaging with complex chronologies. The final study employs artificial intelligence as a visualisation tool to reimagine MSA environments and people, demonstrating how novel approaches can enhance our understanding and communication of sites with limited visual representation. Collectively, these studies demonstrate the value of multi-scalar approaches in addressing questions which have long characterised MSA research as well as exploring where future research needs to go in order to obtain a fuller more complete picture of the human past.