The Sangoan is the name given by

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

s to a

Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός '' palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

tool manufacturing style which may have developed from the earlier

Acheulian Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

types. In addition to the Acheulian

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone A ...

s, bone and

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on ...

picks were also used. Sangoan toolkits were used especially for grubbing. The Sangoan period is broadly analogous to the

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...

culture in Europe and is dated to about 130,000 to 10,000 years ago. It is named after the site of Sango Bay in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The ...

where it was first discerned in 1920. Although Desmond Clark considered the complex to be tied to the tropical forest, the peoples who used Sangoan tools were hunting and gathering cultures, also known as the Sangoan, occupied

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...

in areas where annual rainfall now is less than 40 inches (1016 mm) and Central African areas whose rainfall is above 2000 mm from the beginning of the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...

period. The Sangoan industry was distributed broadly from present day Botswana to Ethiopia and from Uganda to Angola and Gabon. In the Kalahari Desert, many

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

s have been recovered by

s dating at least as early as the period of the Sangoan culture. It also went as far north as the forested regions of the Congo. Confusion exists within literature as to whether to call this early percussion-made bifacial complex, with certain writers stating the term Lupembum, or the term Sangoan.S. McBrearty, Recent research in western Kenya and its implications for the status of the Sangoan industry. in Cultural Beginnings: Approaches to Understanding Early Hominid Lifeways in the African Savanna. Monograph 19. 1991, pp. 159-176. There are two complexes: Sangoan, with mainly percussion technique and no formal projectivel points, and Lupemban, with indirect or direct pressure flaking and formal projectile points.

Notes

References

* C. Michael Hogan. 2008
"Makgadikgadi"
at Burnham, A. (editor) ''The Megalithic Portal'' * Robert Linville Hoover. 1974. ''A review of the Sangoan industrial complex in Africa'', 76 pages * D.W. Phillipson. 2005. ''African archaeology'', page 81 of 389 pages * J. Janmart. 1953. ''The Kalahari Sands of the Lunda (N.-E. Angola), their earlier redistributions and the Sangoan culture'', 64 p. {{Africa-archaeology-stub Paleolithic cultures of Africa Archaeology of Central Africa Archaeology of Southern Africa Archaeology of Eastern Africa