The Late Pleistocene and Holocene chronocultural and anthracological open-air sequence from Mukila (DRC).

Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene open-air archaeological sites have been assumed to be disturbed throughout Central Africa because key sites located on the Kalahari Sand Belt and excavated in the 1970s documented substantial artefact displacement. As a result, only cave sites have long been seen as suitable for presenting reliable vertical chrono-cultural sequences, and minimal effort was made to investigate open-air sites in Central Africa. This paper presents a multi-disciplinary approach combining archaeological, anthracological, and sediment granulometry data to test the vertical integrity of detailed excavations at the open-air site Mukila (DRC). Refitting analysis shows only minor vertical displacement of lithics (6306 artefacts), pottery (1095 sherds) and charcoal (447 fragments), along with a uniform soil particle size distribution throughout the profile. A chronology of 16 radiocarbon dates confirms a continuous age-depth relationship at the site. These data reveal a mostly intact stratigraphy spanning the last 40,000 years. We thus demonstrate that sites along the northern edges of the Kalahari Sand Belt do not per se show vertical disturbance of charcoal and artefact distribution despite uniform grain size distribution. We conclude that a multi-disciplinary approach is mandatory for studying the integrity of archaeological sequences from Central African open-air sites. • The site of Mukila covers 40 millennia and provides a rare glimpse into the lithic production in the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene south of the equatorial rainforest of Central Africa. • The integrity of open-air sites has never been proven by utilising extensive refitting of lithics in combination with anthracological analyses in that region. • We provide a robust protocol for a multi-disciplinary study of site integrity in open-air sites. • The latest Late Stone Age findings are crucial to further our understanding of these insufficiently studied communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]