Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age (or MSA) was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Later Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span, however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, "Homo neanderthalensis", than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic. The MSA is associated with both anatomically modern humans ("Homo sapiens") as well as archaic "Homo sapiens", sometimes referred to as "Homo helmei". Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa.
Jettenbach, Rhineland-Palatinate
Evidence of local inhabitants in and around Jettenbach includes almost every period back to the Stone Age. Of particular note is a settlement hub from the Middle Stone Age which was archaeologically surveyed and analysed over a several years. For centuries, Stone Age people camped along the ridge east of the “Witthau” forest. One archaeological find witnessing their presence, a small-bladed knife dates from the late Old Stone Age. At the same site, which was visited several times in the early 1990s, artefacts mainly from the Middle Stone Age were excavated. Only sporadic items were found to date from the New Stone Age.