A generic MSA: what problems will it solve and what problems will it create?

This paper argues against recognising a ‘generic Middle Stone Age (MSA)’ as a formal taxon for use in African prehistoric archaeology. Surveying 46 Eastern African MSA stone tool assemblages reveals wild mismatches between what an undifferentiated or ‘generic’ MSA is supposed to do and what it almost certainly will do. A generic MSA will reduce African prehistoric archaeology’s potential contribution to human origins research. If one were searching for a way in which to make Africa’s stone tool evidence irrelevant to human origins research, then one could hardly do better than to offer archaeologists a generic MSA to which to assign lithic assemblages. At the editors’ invitation, the paper also comments briefly on several of the other contributions to this special issue of Azania.