Amy Clark, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University and a member of the ASPR’s Program Board, is conducting research at the sites of Bizmoune Cave and Jorf el Hamam in Morocco. Large-scale investigation at Bizmoune cave began in 2014, and the research team have since recovered the earliest evidence of beads (made from marine shell and dating back to over 142,000 years ago) at the site (Sehasseh et al., 2021). Dr. Clark began work at the nearby site of Jorf el Hamam in 2019 which contains artifacts from the Middle and Late Stone Age (about 280,000 to 50,000 and 50,000 to 39,000 years ago, respectively).
Eastern Africa has long been considered the “cradle of civilization” for humans, but recent evidence suggests that the origins of Homo sapiens may have been a continent-wide phenomenon and important evolutionary advances were also taking place in Northwest Africa. For example, the oldest Homo sapiens cranium, dating back to around 315,000 years, was recently found at the Moroccan site of Jebel Irhoud (Hublin et al., 2017), and some of the earliest evidence of bone tool creation by Homo sapiens was also found in this region (Bouzouggar et al., 2018). Dr. Clark’s research, therefore, has the ability to shed new light on Northwest Africa’s contribution to the study of human origins, and she has a few specific questions that will guide her investigations. She plans to use lithic artifacts to elucidate the extent of the sites’ connection with other locations, including distant places in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as to indicate patterns of site use and mobility (Kuhn and Clark 2015). In addition, members of the research team will perform an analysis of macro-botanical and faunal remains which can reveal the range of resources that the inhabitants of these sites were exploiting. Dr. Clark will also look for signs of modern human behavior, like beads and worked bone, to better understand the lives of people at Jorf el Hamam and Bizmoune Cave.
For more information, visit Dr. Clark’s website.
References cited
Bouzouggar, A., Humphrey L.T., Barton N., Parfitt S.A., Clark Balzan L., Schwenninger J-L. et al. (2018). 90,000 year-old specialised bone technology in the Aterian Middle Stone Age of North Africa. PLOS ONE, 13(10), e0202021.
Hublin, J.J., Ben-Ncer, A., Bailey, S. et al. (2018). New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens. Nature, 546, 289–292.
Kuhn, S. L. and Clark, A. E. (2015). Artifact densities and assemblage formation: Evidence from Tabun Cave. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 38, 8-16.
Sehasseh E.M., Fernandez P., Kuhn S., Stiner M., Mentzer S., Colarossi D., Clark A., Lanoe F., Pailes M., Hoffmann D., Benson A., Rhodes E., Benmansour M., Laissaoui A., Ziani I., Vidal-Matutano P., Morales J., Djellal Y., Longet B., Hublin J.J., Mouhiddine M., Rafi F.Z., Worthey K.B., Sanchez-Morales I., Ghayati N., Bouzouggar A. (2021). Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco. Science Advances, 7(39), 1–10.