Shipton, CeriRoberts, PatrickArcher, WillArmitage, Simon J.Bita, CaesarBlinkhorn, JamesCourtney-Mustaphi, ColinCrowther, AlisonCurtis, RichardD'Errico, FrancescoDouka, KaterinaFaulkner, PatrickGroucutt, Huw S.Helm, RichardHerries, Andy I. RJembe, SeverinusPrendergast, Mary E.Rowson, BenTengeza, AminiTibesasa, RuthWhite, Tom S.Petraglia, Michael D.Boivin, Nicole2018-09-072018-09-072018-05-09Shipton, C., Roberts, P., Archer, W. et al. 2018, '78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later Stone Age innovation in an East African tropical forest', Nature Communications, vol. 9, art. no. 1832, pp. 1-8.2041-1723 (online)10.1038/s41467-018-04057-3http://hdl.handle.net/2263/66482The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a nonunilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.enOpen Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Middle to Later Stone Age transitionArcheological recordPanga ya SaidiCoastal forestKenyaEast African tropical forestLate PleistoceneArticle