Professor Jim Enloe and graduate fellow Teddy Marks from the University of Iowa Department of Anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will present “Middle and Late Stone Age in Arid Southern Africa: Excavations at Erb Tanks, Namibia” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21, in the Biosphere Discovery Hub of the UI Museum of Natural History.

The talk, free and open to the public, is the first installment of the spring UI Explorers Seminar series, presented by UI Pentacrest Museums and the UI Museum of Natural History.

Erb Tanks Rockshelter is a Middle and Late Stone Age site located in the Central Namib Desert of Namibia. This site is the only stratified site from the Central Namib to be successfully dated to the Middle Stone Age. In 2012, Enloe and Marks reported on their excavations, incorporated new recording techniques, and increased their artifact sample to include nearly 13,000 objects. This new data combined with the upper layers at the site appear to show occupation of the site near the time of the Last Glacial Maximum and human occupation of the Namib.

While analysis of all recovered artifacts is incomplete, their results tentatively point to the possibility of continuity between the Middle and Late Stone Age in Southwestern Africa. Erb Tanks is forcing scientists to question previous models that argue for regional depopulation and cultural discontinuity between the Middle and Late Stone Age.

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all UI-sponsored events. For more information on the UI Pentacrest Museums and the UI Museum of Natural History, visit www.uiowa.edu/mnh or call 319-335-0606.