Evolving entanglements with highland southern Africa: Site formation, initial chronology, and occupational pulsing during the Middle Pleistocene at Likonong Shelter, Lesotho

Abstract While premodern hominins utilized highland landscapes in East Africa as early as 2 million years ago, the processes by which hominins first utilized southern Africa’s highest mountains - the Maloti-Drakensberg - are relatively unknown. This paper introduces a new site in these southern mountains, Likonong Shelter. The results of our luminescence dating and excavations establish Likonong as the earliest-known site in Highland Lesotho and demonstrate a hominin presence in the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains as early as ~ 242,000 years ago. This first suite of archaeological, geochemical and sedimentological data from Likonong charts the progression of hominin-highland engagements from ephemeral encounters during interglacial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 7 to the intentional exploitation of the landscape under a broader range of environmental conditions. We suggest that social and demographic transformations during the Middle Pleistocene may have triggered highland occupation pulses and potentially cumulative cultural evolution, generating adaptive strategies that allowed for more sustained highland occupation during the Middle to Late Pleistocene transition (occupations dating from late MIS 6 to MIS 5c). Importantly, the stresses placed on foragers by sub-freezing temperatures, snow, and extreme resource stress would have required more innovative and collaborative solutions requiring both behavioral flexibility and the attainment of certain demographic preconditions.