Technological organization and residential behavior among early Homo sapiens in North Africa: The Aterian occupation of Bizmoune Cave, Morocco

Abstract

The Middle Stone Age of North Africa is tied to the emergence and evolution of early Homo sapiens and represents a pivotal period in the development of increasingly complex cultures. Within this framework, Aterian contexts provide some of the earliest evidence for technological and symbolic innovations, including the production of bone and ivory tools, pigment processing, and the use of perforated marine shells as personal ornaments. Lithic industries constitute a central component of this record and show significant variability in knapping methods and increased diversity of core-reduction strategies. Yet, despite their importance, the functional role of Aterian lithic industries, and their implications for settlement strategies and adaptative behaviors, remains poorly understood due to the scarcity and limited geographic distribution of use-wear studies. In this paper, we present the first use-wear analysis of the lithic assemblage from layer 4c of Bizmoune Cave (Atlantic Morocco), dated to 142–110 ka. This deposit contains abundant debris from Aterian occupation, including diverse lithic artefacts, faunal remains, ochre blocks, and some of the earliest evidence for the symbolic use of perforated marine shells in North Africa. This association provides a critical context for exploring the relationship between symbolic expression, technological organization, and subsistence behavior. Using an integrated technological and functional approach supported by an experimental reference collection, we reconstruct activity patterns across the assemblage. The results reveal a diversified spectrum of domestic and subsistence-related activities, including hide, plant working, and intensive wood processing, the latter representing the dominant functional signal. When integrated with typotechnological, faunal, raw material, and paleoenvironmental evidence, the functional data indicate repeated residential occupations involving varied activities rather than narrowly specialized task-specific visits. Taken together, these results point the importance of the Atlantic coast of Morocco within the Aterian settlement systems during late Marine Isotope Stage 6 and early Marine Isotope Stage 5 and provide new insights into how early H. sapiens populations organized technological practices, daily activities, and settlement dynamics during a critical phase of human evolutionary history marked by the emergence of one early symbolic behavior.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Human Evolution, 2026 · DOI ↗