UI Explorers Seminar
Event Details
Event Description
The UI Pentacrest Museums and UI Museum of Natural History will start the spring UI Explorers Seminar series with Dr. Jim Enloe and Teddy Marks from the UI Department of Anthropology. Enloe and Marks will speak about the “Middle and Late Stone Age in Arid Southern Africa: Excavations at Erb Tanks, Namibia” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 28The in the Biosphere Discovery Hub.
Erb Tanks Rockshelter is a Middle and Late Stone Age site located in the Central Namib Desert of Namibia. This site is the only stratified site from the Central Namib to be successfully dated to the Middle Stone Age. In 2012, Enloe and Marks reported on their excavations, incorporated new recording techniques, and increased their artifact sample to include nearly 13,000 objects. This new data combined with the upper layers at the site appear to show occupation of the site near the time of the Last Glacial Maximum and human occupation of the Namib.
While analysis of all recovered artifacts is incomplete, their results tentatively point to the possibility of continuity between the Middle and Late Stone Age in Southwestern Africa. Erb Tanks is forcing scientists to question previous models that argue for regional depopulation and cultural discontinuity between the Middle and Late Stone Age.
This event is rescheduled from February 21, due to inclement weather.
This event is free and open to the public.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events.
For more information on the UI Pentacrest Museums and the UI Museum of Natural History, visit http://www.uiowa.edu/mnh or call (319) 335-0606.
University of Iowa Museum of Natural History
17 N Clinton St
Iowa City, IA
319-335-0480
