Evidence for Earlier Stone Age ‘coastal use’:
the site of Dungo IV, Benguela Province, Angola
Isis Mesfin cs 2023 PLoS
doi org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278775

The relationship between ESA hominins & the S-African coastal environment has been poorly investigated, despite the high concentration of open-air sites in marine & fluvial terraces of the coastal plain, from c 1Ma onward during the mid-Pleistocene
Transition.
S-Africa provides some of the earliest evidence of coastal subsistence strategies since the end of the mid-Pleistocene, during the Middle Stone Age MSA.
These coastal MSA sites showcase the role of coastal environments in the emergence & development of modern human behaviors.
Given the high prevalence of coastal ESA sites throughout the region, we seek to question the relationship between hominins & coastal landscapes much earlier in time.

Ehe +100 m raised beaches of the Benguela Province are well-preserved, and contain a dense record of rehistoric occupation from the beginning of the mid-Pleistocene, incl. sites like Dungo, Mormolo, Sombreiro, Macaca & Punta das Vacas.
We provide
- a critical review of the coastal ESA record of S-Africa &
- a detailed presentation of the Dungo IV site, through a qualitative technological analysis + a quantitative inter-site comparison with contemporary S-African coastal plain sites.
Our detailed technological analyses highlight the influence of coastal lithological resources on the technical behaviors of hominin groups,
we propose the existence of a “regional adaptive strategy” in a coastal landscape >600 ka,
we argue for the integration of coastal landscapes into hominins’ territories, suggesting:
adaptation to coastal environments is actually a slower process, which begins with “territorialization” well before the emergence & development of H.sapiens.

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