Late Stone Age

They were introduced in the 1920s, as it became clear that the existing chronological system of Upper, Middle, and Lower Paleolithic was not a suitable correlate to the prehistoric past in Africa.

This definition has changed since its creation with the discovery of ostrich eggshell beads and bone harpoons in contexts which predate the LSA by tens of thousands of years.

These artifacts vary with time and location, unlike Middle Stone Age technology which appeared to have been relatively unchanged for several hundreds of thousands of years.

The LSA was associated with modern human behavior,[4] but this view was modified after discoveries in MSA sites such as Blombos Cave and Pinnacle Point.

This process happened at different rates across the continent, and that the term "LSA" is typically used by archaeologists today to refer primarily to stone tool-using hunter/gatherer populations in southern Africa.