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Projectile technology is considered to appear early in the southern African Middle Stone Age (MSA) and the rich and high resolution MSA sequence of Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal has provided many new insights about the use and hafting of various projectile forms. We present the results of a functional and technological analysis on a series of unpublished serrated bifacial points recently recovered from the basal deposits of Sibudu Cave. These serrated tools, which only find equivalents in the neighbouring site of Umhlatuzana, precede the Still Bay techno-complex and are older than 77 ka BP. Independent residue and use-wear analyses were performed in a phased procedure involving two separate analysts, which allowed the engagement between two separate lines of functional evidence. Thanks to the excellent preservation at Sibudu Cave, a wide range of animal, plant and mineral residues were observed in direct relation with diagnostic wear patterns. The combination of technological, wear and residue evidence allowed us to confirm that the serration was manufactured with bone compressors and that the serrated points were mounted with a composite adhesive as the tips of projectiles used in hunting activities. The suite of technological and functional data pushes back the evidence for the use of pressure flaking during the MSA and highlights the diversity of the technical innovations adopted by southern African MSA populations. We suggest the serrated points from the stratigraphic units Adam to Darya of Sibudu illustrate one important technological adaptation of the southern African MSA and provide another example of the variability of MSA bifacial technologies. International audience

International audience; To explain cultural and technological innovations in the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa, scholars invoke several factors. A major question in this research theme is whether MSA technocomplexes are adapted to a particular set of environmental conditions and subsistence strategies or, on the contrary, to a wide range of different foraging behaviours. While faunal studies provide key information for addressing these factors, most analyses do not assess intra-technocomplex variability of faunal exploitation (i.e. variability within MSA phases). In this study, we assess the spatial variability of the Still Bay fauna in one phase (M1) of the Blombos Cave sequence. Analyses of taxonomic composition, tapho-nomic alterations and combustion patterns reveal important faunal variability both across space (lateral variation in the post-depositional history of the deposits, spatial organisation of combustion features) and over time (fine-scale diachronic changes throughout a single phase). Our results show how grouping material prior to zooarchaeological interpretations (e.g. by layer or phase) can induce a loss of information. Finally, we discuss how multiple independent subdivisions of archaeological sequences can improve our understanding of both the timing of different changes (for example in technology, culture, subsistence, environment) and how they may be interrelated .

Usual questions that may require analytical work in rock art relate to investigations that seek correlations between archaeological deposits and the rock wall and human activities within the site, the relationships between sites (material sourcing, landscape use), dating (direct or relative chronology), and conservation studies (nature and causes of alterations). From early works to recent research in archaeology, South Africand France have had many fruitful interactions (e.g. Breuil 1930; Clottes 1996; Henshilwood 2002; Parkington 2005; Hœrlé 2007; Tournié 2010). Today, under the aegis of two international and interdisciplinary programmes linking South Africand France - GDRI-STAR "Science, Technologies, Art Rupestre" and ARCUS le-de-France/South Africa "Rock Art" - the aim, among other topics, is to foster the use of materials microanalytical tools in rock art studies. GDRI-STAR is an international research network gathering together teams of South African and French researchers from backgrounds as diverse as archaeology, linguistics, conservation, materialscience and geosciences, with a common interest in rock art studies. GDRI-STAR is jointly funded by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). The ARCUS le-deFrance/South Africa "Rock Art" project aims at fostering research in the field of rock art by bringing together a cluster of analytical laboratories and archaeological teams in Région le-de-France, France, and leading South African academic centres. It is funded by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the le-de-France provincial council, and managed through the CNRS and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).