<< Our Photo Pages >> Bantu stone circles - Standing Stones in South Africa
Submitted by bat400 on Sunday, 19 April 2009 Page Views: 23737
Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Bantu stone circles Alternative Name: Adam's Calendar, Johan Heine Stone Calendar, Bantu Kraals, Adams CalendarCountry: South Africa Type: Standing Stones
Nearest Town: Nelspruit Nearest Village: Kaapsehoop
Latitude: 25.6317S Longitude: 30.760025E
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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Standing Stones in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. A collection of standing stones on the edge of an escarpment near Kaapsehoope, South Africa. This grouping was identified by Johan Heine, a pilot and firefighter, as stone circle with multiple astronomical alignments.
When historians first stumbled upon these structures they assumed that they were cattle kraal left behind by the Bantu people as they moved south and settled the land from around the 13th century. This idea today seems unlikely as a definitive answer, as there are several thousand similar ruins spread over tens of thousands of miles. The design of the structures is unlike any other Bantu cattle-kraal designs, which are usually made of thorny shrubs, with a single entrance/exit for the cattle. The complexity, design and high number, offer the possibility that these are the remains of a lost 'cultural activity' hitherto unaccounted for in the region.
Some of the stones definitely appear to have been shaped; others are quite natural.
The controversial aspect of the site lies in the extent to which all the alignments identified are intentional, and the great age attributed to the site by Heine and amateur astronomer Bill Hollenbach: 75,000 to 250,000 years old.
Amanda Esterhuysen, Wits University academic (geography, archaeology and environmental sciences) is among several professionals who acknowledge an ancient heritage of this site and many stone enclosures of Mpumalanga Province, but who find no agreement with the methods Heine and Hollenbach used to "date" this and other sites.
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