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<< Our Photo Pages >> Klasies River Caves - Cave or Rock Shelter in South Africa

Submitted by bat400 on Friday, 09 March 2012  Page Views: 12144

Natural PlacesSite Name: Klasies River Caves
Country: South Africa
NOTE: This site is 1117.476 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Port Elizabeth  Nearest Village: Humansdorf
Latitude: 34.106S  Longitude: 24.387060E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3
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Klasies River Caves - engraved ocher pebble
Klasies River Caves - engraved ocher pebble submitted by bat400 : Klasies River Caves - Ocher pebble with engraving. Image credit: Riaan Rifkin. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Caves in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.
The caves and rock shelters have revealed evidence of Human habitation from approximately 125,000 years ago. Roughly 75,000 years ago, the occupants performed a "spring cleaning" where the previous 50,000 years of debris was shoveled out of one of the caves and into exterior middens.

The excavation shows the Klasies River Mouth people subsisted on small game, fish and shellfish, plants and roots. Their technologies included Middle Stone Age stone artefact technology; cooking plants, corms, seal, penguins, and antelope meat on hearth fires; general organisation of the settlement; and land management by fire. They appear to have occupied the caves seasonally. There is some evidence of cannibalism.

While these people are described as anatomically modern, there is ongoing debate about when they were also behaviourally modern.[6] Marked differences exist between the Paleolithic stone technology used in the earliest layers, and the superior stone blades of the 70,000 year old Howiesons Poort period (using raw material from 20 kilometres inland.) A red ochre pebble about 3 inches long found in the caves was intentionally engraved with a series of lines, and may represent 100,000 year old decoration.

The caves are a South African Heritage site and on the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list.

Sources:
HJ Deacon, Guide to the Klasies River, 2001.
K. Kris Hurst, Klasies River Caves
Howiesons Poort/Stillbay Tradition of South Africa
.

Note: Stone Age Pebble Holds Mysterious Meaning, see comment.
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"Klasies River Caves" | Login/Create an Account | 1 comment
  
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Colorful pebble with sequence of lines -100,000 years old; oldest known abstract art? by bat400 on Thursday, 08 March 2012
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* The world's oldest known engraved object may be an ochre pebble from Klasies River Cave in South Africa.

* The 100,000-year-old ochre pebble features what researchers believe are at least 23 engraved lines.

* It's possible that the design was a symbol that communicated something meaningful to prehistoric humans.

The object, which will be described in the April issue of the Journal of Archaeology, dates back approximately 100,000 years ago and could also be the world’s oldest known abstract art. It was recovered from Klasies River Cave in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

“Associated human remains indicate that the engraved piece was certainly made by Homo sapiens,” co-author Riaan Rifkin of the University of Witwatersrand’s Institute for Human Evolution told Discovery News.

Rifkin and colleagues Francesco d’Errico and Renata Garcia Moreno performed extensive non-invasive analyses of the object. Methods like X-ray fluorescence and microscopic analysis enabled the researchers to examine every minute detail of the ochre pebble, which appears to have split off from a once larger piece.

The scientists conclude that humans intentionally made the sub-parallel linear incisions on the Middle Stone Age pebble. “Upon engraving the piece with a sharp lithic implement, it is likely to have produced a markedly bright and dark red-maroon powder,” Rifkin said. “The design may therefore have been strikingly visible shortly after it was produced.”

The Klasies River object measures close to 3 inches in length and contains a series of seven “deep broad engraved lines and several, about 16 or so, narrower and somewhat shallower linear features,” Rifkin said. “The fragment is a remnant of a formerly semi-circular ochre pebble that likely contained a much more extensive engraved design on its surface.”

Of particular interest now is whether or not the engraver made the design with symbolic intent. Use of symbols and meaningful images is thought to have been a significant breakthrough in human development. Language, math and countless other studies are tied to this basic skill, in addition to improved communication. To this day, art permits communication of identity and other things among diverse cultures.

For more, see news.discovery.com. Thanks to coldrum for the link.
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