147
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_17
Chapter 17
The Echoes of Malhazine
17.1 Time-Out in Africa
It was the discovery a decade ago in a limestone cave near Mozambique’s Lake
Niassa that researchers found the earliest evidence yet for critical human inclusions
of cereal grains in their diets, dating back some 100,000 years.
1
Much as Morocco,
Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa have dominated most important discoveries pertaining to the earliest Homo sapiens, Mozambique has very much entered that geography of paleontological epiphany. Research just since 2014 has revealed some
“200 new Stone Age surface sites”
2
(Fig. 17.1).
Forgetting other crucial turning points in the brief human timeline, to date—such
as the earliest jewelry in the form of beads from approximately 110,000 years ago;
or the footprints of three humans descending a volcano in today’s Italy circa 325,000
BCE
3
—Mozambique entails an intertwining of all that is paradoxical in human
nature with a rash of ecological and political fall-out, consequences of recent tragedy stemming from so much late twentieth century political tumult and not a little
madness.
The end of the War of Independence in Mozambique against the Portuguese
(1964–1975) was followed by a brutal Civil War (1976–1992) between two political
foes, Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) and Renamo (Resistência
Nacional Moçambicana) that left most areas of abundant, indigenous wildlife utterly
1 See Julio Mercader et al. Mozambican grass seed consumption during the Middle Stone Age.
Science, December 18, 2009.
2 See, “Middle Stone Age Technologies in Mozambique: A Preliminary Study of the Niassa and
Massingir Regions,” in Journal of African Archaeology, Brill, Authors: Nuno Bicho, João
Cascalheira, Jonathan Haws and Célia Gonçalves, Online Publication Date: Aug 2018, Volume 16:
Issue 1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/21915784-20180006, https://brill.com/abstract/journals/
jaa/16/1/article-p60_3.xml, Accessed March 24, 2019.
3 See “Timeline: Human Evolution,” by John Pickrell, New Scientist, September 4, 2006, https://
www.newscientist.com/article/dn9989-timeline-human-evolution/. Accessed March 24th, 2019.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_17
Chapter 17
The Echoes of Malhazine
17.1 Time-Out in Africa
It was the discovery a decade ago in a limestone cave near Mozambique’s Lake
Niassa that researchers found the earliest evidence yet for critical human inclusions
of cereal grains in their diets, dating back some 100,000 years.
1
Much as Morocco,
Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa have dominated most important discoveries pertaining to the earliest Homo sapiens, Mozambique has very much entered that geography of paleontological epiphany. Research just since 2014 has revealed some
“200 new Stone Age surface sites”
2
(Fig. 17.1).
Forgetting other crucial turning points in the brief human timeline, to date—such
as the earliest jewelry in the form of beads from approximately 110,000 years ago;
or the footprints of three humans descending a volcano in today’s Italy circa 325,000
BCE
3
—Mozambique entails an intertwining of all that is paradoxical in human
nature with a rash of ecological and political fall-out, consequences of recent tragedy stemming from so much late twentieth century political tumult and not a little
madness.
The end of the War of Independence in Mozambique against the Portuguese
(1964–1975) was followed by a brutal Civil War (1976–1992) between two political
foes, Frelimo (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) and Renamo (Resistência
Nacional Moçambicana) that left most areas of abundant, indigenous wildlife utterly
1 See Julio Mercader et al. Mozambican grass seed consumption during the Middle Stone Age.
Science, December 18, 2009.
2 See, “Middle Stone Age Technologies in Mozambique: A Preliminary Study of the Niassa and
Massingir Regions,” in Journal of African Archaeology, Brill, Authors: Nuno Bicho, João
Cascalheira, Jonathan Haws and Célia Gonçalves, Online Publication Date: Aug 2018, Volume 16:
Issue 1, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/21915784-20180006, https://brill.com/abstract/journals/
jaa/16/1/article-p60_3.xml, Accessed March 24, 2019.
3 See “Timeline: Human Evolution,” by John Pickrell, New Scientist, September 4, 2006, https://
www.newscientist.com/article/dn9989-timeline-human-evolution/. Accessed March 24th, 2019.