THE LATE QUATERNARY OF THE LESOTHO HIGHLANDS, SOUTHERN AFRICA - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS AND FUTURE POTENTIAL OF ONGOING RESEARCH AT SEHONGHONG SHELTER

Previous archaeological and palaeoenvironmental work relating to the l ate Quaternary of the Lesotho highlands, southern Africa, is reviewed. Emphasis is placed upon the region's importance for the investigation of late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer settlement-subsistence systems an d of the transition from Middle (MSA) to Later Stone Age (LSA) technol ogies. The paper then reports on the re-excavation of Sehonghong rock- shelter in 1992 and provides an improved radiocarbon chronology for th e site and initial results of the analysis of the late Pleistocene and Holocene assemblages recovered. Of particular importance is the ident ification of assemblages transitional between MSA and LSA stoneworking techniques, but a re-assessment of the existing industrial subdivisio ns of the Later Stone Age of southern Africa may also be supported by the Sehonghong sequence. The palaeoenvironmental potential of the exte nsive faunal and botanical assemblages recovered is stressed, especial ly given the limited extent of previous palaeoenvironmental work in Le sotho. The importance of the Lesotho highlands for investigating diffe rences in site use and subsistence strategies through the late Pleisto cene and the Holocene is emphasized, within an overall aim of testing previously proposed models of resource exploitation under glacial and interglacial conditions. Copyright (C) 1996 INQUA/Elsevier Science Ltd