Possible cultural complexes Middle Stone Age

aterian stone tool

as homo sapiens began diversify ecological zones inhabited during msa, archaeological record associated these zones begins show evidence regional continuities. these continuities significant number of reasons. expansion of homo sapiens various ecological zones demonstrates ability adapt variety of environmental contexts including marine environments, savanna grasslands, relatively arid deserts, , forests. adaptability reflected in msa artifacts found in these zones. these artifacts display stylistic variability depending on zone. during acheulian, spanned 1.5 million years ago 300 thousand years ago, lithic technology displayed incredible homogeneity throughout ecological niches. msa technologies, evidence regional variability , continuity, represent remarkable advance. these data have been used support theories of social , stylistic development throughout msa.

in southern africa, see technocomplexes of howiesons poort , stillbay, named after sites @ first discovered. several others have not been dated or have been dated unreliably; these include lupemban technocomplex of central africa, bambatan in southeast africa, 70-80ka, , aterian technocomplex of northern africa, 160-90ka.