Antonieta Jerardino

Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene

Genetic and anatomical evidence suggests that Homo sapiens arose in Africa between 200 and 100 thousand years (kyr) ago, and recent evidence indicates symbolic behaviour may have appeared ∼135–75 kyr ago. From 195–130 kyr ago, the world was in a fluctuating but predominantly glacial stage (marine isotope stage MIS6); much of Africa was cooler and drier, and dated archaeological sites are rare. Here we show that by ∼164 kyr ago (±12 kyr) at Pinnacle Point (on the south coast of South Africa) humans expanded their diet to include marine resources, perhaps as a response to these harsh environmental conditions. The earliest previous evidence for human use of marine resources and coastal habitats was dated to ∼125 kyr ago. Coincident with this diet and habitat expansion is an early use and modification of pigment, probably for symbolic behaviour, as well as the production of bladelet stone tool technology, previously dated to post-70 kyr ago. Shellfish may have been crucial to the survival of these early humans as they expanded their home ranges to include coastlines and followed the shifting position of the coast when sea level fluctuated over the length of MIS6.

The Problem with Density Values in Archaeological Analysis: A Case Study from Tortoise Cave, Western Cape, South Africa

This paper attempts to explain the generating factors behind density values of materials recovered from prehistoric archaeological excavations. Various categories of archaeological remains from Tortoise Cave were analysed for this purpose. Densities offer limited interpretative power when rates of deposition in smallscale excavations are unknown and only poor chronological control is available. It is suggested that, when evaluated interactively, three parameters (area of settlement, rates of accumulation of unfinished ostrich eggshell beads and jinished beads and pendants, as well as rates of accumulation of domestic debris) can provide useful insights as to how densities were generated in archaeological contexts. Each indicator can provide meaningful estimates of the relative size of visiting groups, rime spent at the site and intensity of site occupation. *Received August 1994, revised January 1995

Excavations at Melkbosstrand: Variability among herder sites on Table Bay, South Africa

During an archaeological impact assessment in 1997, three shell middens were identified along a dune ridge 1.5 km from the shore at Melkbosstrand, about 22 km north of central Cape Town. They were subsequently excavated and yielded evidence of occupation beginning c. AD 700. Remains consisted mostly of shell and bone, with a very informal stone artefact assemblage. All three sites yielded ceramics and sheep bone; at one site sheep was the animal most frequently identified to species level. On the edge of one midden, a stone hearth 1.8 m in diameter was uncovered. This site cluster was almost certainly occupied by herders and, as such, constitutes the closest herder sites to Cape Town investigated to date.

Archaeological Reconnaissance for Middle Stone Age Sites Along the Pondoland Coast, South Africa

Part of the phytolith analysis was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (HAR2010-15967 to Albert). The field survey was funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society / Waitt Foundation (W160-11 to Fisher)

Excavations at a hunter-gatherer site known as 'Grootrif G' shell midden, Lamberts Bay, Western Cape Province

INTRODUCTION Since excavations at Elands Bay Cave thirty years ago, a small number of nearby sites were excavated in the late 1970s and early 1980s in order to provide complementary observations to those made from this large shelter (Horwitz 1979; Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1987; Manhire 1987; Noli 1988; Parkington & Poggenpoel 1987; Robey 1987). In the midst of these studies, Parkington et al. (1986) explored the nature of the impact of pastoralism on local hunter-gatherer populations by attempting to integrate various lines of evidence, a topic revived later with a rock art perspective and additional quantified data by Yates et al. (1994). A synthesis of the local cultural sequence was proposed by Parkington et al. (1988), in which various issues requiring further research were also highlighted. Some of these issues were taken up by further studies focusing on sites located to the north (Lamberts Bay) and south of Elands Bay and by refining the chronology of already excavated sites (Wahl 1994; Jerardino 1995a, 1996, 1998; Jerardino & Yates 1996, 1997; Jerardino et al., in press). While much of the published observations of this latter research have helped to reconstruct and re-model the local cultural sequence between 8000 and 2000 BP, the same measure of understanding is not yet available for the pottery period (last 2000 years). Instead, separate and sitespecific observations remain either unpublished or not fully integrated into one cultural sequence (Horwitz 1979; Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1987; Robey 1987; Noli 1988; Wahl 1994; Jerardino 1998). Moreover, emphasis on the analysis of spatial patterns and ceramic stylistic changes at Dunefield Midden has, unwittingly, channelled research efforts away from establishing a cultural sequence for the pottery period (Parkington et al. 1992; Kent 1998; Orton 2002; Stewart 2006). Clearly, quantified data pertaining to the last two millennia in the study area are in need of being updated and synthesized. Although this is a task beyond the purpose of this paper, a productive approach for now is to build a good empirical basis for the pottery period. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to report on the findings at ‘Grootrif G’ (GFG), a site with late-pottery period occupation in the Lamberts Bay area, and to discuss these in the light of available contemporary observations. Excavations were initially undertaken at GFG with the aim of rescuing material eroding from exposed sections. In later years it also became evident that excavations at GFG could also increase the number of observations for the pottery period in the northern-most part of the study area, as what is known about the pottery period has been derived almost entirely from sites located to the south around Elands Bay.

Opportunistic Subsistence Strategies among Late Holocene Coastal Hunter-Gatherers, Elands Bay, South Africa

ABSTRACT Hunting and gathering was practiced for many hundreds of thousands of years in South Africas Western Cape region, until ceramics and a stock-keeping economy first appeared c. 2,000 years ago, and in the Elands Bay and Lamberts Bay areas 200 years later. Subsistence and settlement patterns in this part of the West Coast of South Africa changed dramatically after this date, but the nature of interactions between indigenous groups engaging with these two types of subsistence practices is still poorly understood. The cultural-contact scenarios so far proposed view this interaction as basically competitive, with forager groups living at the margins of herder society and compelled to change their subsistence and settlement choices by focusing on small food parcels and having to move to less accessible areas. Observations from Borrow Pit Midden and other sites in the study area do not support this scenario. Instead, their records suggest flexible adaptive responses among foragers when at coastal and pericoastal locations. Overall, an opportunistic subsistence strategy was practiced mostly within the immediate surrounding environment of camps with high mobility, characterizing forager settlement. The components of a new cultural-contact model are emerging, but much remains to be done before it is established on a reliable empirical foundation.

Simon Se Klip at Steenbokfontein: the settlement pattern of a built pastoralist encampment on the West Coast of South Africa

A major topic in southern African archaeology, particularly in the western Cape, concerns the differentiation of herder from hunter gatherer signatures. Argument has largelyfocused on the interpreta tion of direct evidence, in theform of remainsfrom domestic animals, and more indirect evidence, in theform of cultural markers derived from the typology of stone implements and ceramics, and average size of ostrich eggshell beads. Current views suggest a spectrum from hunter-gatherers to hunter-gatherers with sheep to herders andfinally to pastoralists, the latter having both a strong economic and cosmolog ical involvement with livestock. However, the assignment of individ ual sites and assemblages, particularly small ones, to these categories can be elusive. Simon Se Klip provides an alternative source of evidence relevant to this issue, namely settlement pattern. This is the first time in the western Cape that the use of stone as a building mate rial has enabled the virtually complete reconstruction of a precolonial settlement. The first millennium builders were able to provide con trolled access and secure penningfor their livestock by taking advan tage of natural topographicalfeatures of the site and augmenting these with rather minimal stone walling. Domestic areas were also partly defined by linear arrangements of rocks. The pattern demonstrates that livestock were a central concern for this pastoralist community.

Site Distribution and Chronology at Soutpansklipheuwel, a Rocky Outcrop on the West Coast of South Africa

ABSTRACT Archaeological research along the West Coast of South Africa has unveiled a diversity of Holocene adaptive strategies as shown by the different type, size, composition, and distribution of sites and their faunal and artifactual contents. Some differences and similarities are apparent between the northerly semi-desert of Namaqualand and the more central Lamberts Bay and Elands Bay areas. On first impression, this archaeological variability seems related to environmental gradients, human demographics, related divergent economic developments, and perhaps to different contexts for cultural contact between indigenous populations. However, differences between Namaqualand and the central parts of the West Coast need to be assessed more closely in order to understand the influence of environmental and cultural/behavioral variables that could have shaped them and their geographic interaction. Sampling of locations near Lamberts Bay and the southern parts of Namaqualand has become vital. Here we present first observations on a survey and broad chronology at one such locality, namely Soutpansklipheuwel outcrop. First results reveal a millennia-long history of occupation. Possible shared attributes that respond to biogeographic and cultural variables are outlined.