<< Our Photo Pages >> Klasies River Caves - Cave or Rock Shelter in South Africa
Submitted by bat400 on Friday, 09 March 2012 Page Views: 12398
Natural PlacesSite Name: Klasies River CavesCountry: South Africa
NOTE: This site is 2982.427 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:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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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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