Brian Stewart

Research interests: Hunter-gatherer social and spatial organization; Middle and Later Stone Age Africa; evolution of adaptive plasticity; exchange networks; lithic and ceramic technologies; radiogenic isotope tracers; southern African foragers

Brian Stewart’s research focuses on the archaeology of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Africa, especially southern Africa. He is particularly interested in the evolution of the profound adaptive flexibility that is the hallmark of our species. Southern Africa is an ideal place to explore this because it has yielded some of the world’s earliest evidence for behavioral complexity on par with recent and extant human foragers. His current project, Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age (Project AMEMSA), investigates and compares human adaptive responses to two challenging landscapes in southern Africa: the Lesotho Highlands and the Namaqualand coastal desert. In both research areas he is conducting rockshelter excavations and open-air landscape archaeological and geomorphological surveys. The aim is to resolve when, why, and how humans learned to cope with challenging environments over the past ~300,000 years. By reconstructing the foraging strategies involved in learning to exploit such habitats within Africa, he hopes to better understand how our species was eventually able to colonize and rapidly adapt to the full range of global ecosystems.

Affiliation(s):

• U-M Museum of Anthropological Archaeology
• U-M Department of Anthropology
• U-M African Studies Center
• Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand

• Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age (Project AMEMSA)

• Social Network Mapping in Ancient Africa using Isotope Geochemistry

• Karoo Pans Palaeohydrology Prehistory (KP3) project

• SPANning the Atlantic: Human Palaeodemography in Southern Hemisphere Drylands

• Redating the Southern African Middle to Later Stone Age Transition

• Mapping Ancient Africa: Climate, Vegetation & Humans (a INQUA PALCOM/HABCOM Focus Group)

• Creating the 'Qing-Orpen Ecomuseum', a sustainable heritage venture in highland Lesotho

• Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art (Project MARA)