Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T03:20:08.164Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Excavations at Matupi cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Francis Van Noten
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The Matupi cave is one of the 40 caves within the Mount Hoyo limestone massif, a touristic site in Ituri, Zaïre. The author recognized its archaeological possibilities in February 1973 during a prospection tour in the northern part of the country. This expedition had been organized by the Institut des Musées nationaux du ZaYre in collaboration with the Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale at Tervuren, Belgium. Upon the visit to the cave a I sq m trial trench was excavated. More extended excavations (10 sq m) took place during January-March 1974. The excavations were carried out in spits of 5 cm on a I m grid system. Matupi is a large cave with an ideal living room at its entrance (c. 7 m high, c. 8 m deep and c. 5 m wide).

Type
Articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 51 , Issue 201 , March 1977 , pp. 35 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1977 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Six years ago we published a brief note by Francis Van Noten on the excavations at Munyama cave discovered by himself and Professor Nenquin. We here print Professor Von Noten's preliminary report on the Matupi cave, Zaïre. He thinks the matter is of world-wide interest as the microlithic industry and the bored stone fragment are, as far as is known, the oldest ever dated. Professor Van Noten is head of the section Prehistory-Archaeology in the Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale at Tervuren, Belgium, and lecturer in Palaeoethnography, Catholic University, Leiden.

References

Beaumont, P. B. and Vogel, J. C. 1972. On a new radiocarbon chronology for Africa south of the equator. Part 2, African Studies, XXXI, 3, 155’82.Google Scholar
Cahen, D. New excavations at the Gombe (ex-Kalina) Point Kinshasa, Zaire (in preparation) Google Scholar
Fagan, B. M. and Van Noten, F.L. 1971 The hunter gatherers of Gwisho, Musée royal de l’Arnque centrale, Tervuren, Annales VILI, Sc. hum., 74.Google Scholar
Valcke, J. 1974. De Late Steentijd van de Munyamagrot op het eiland Buvuma in het Victorianyansameer (Uganda) (B.A. thesis, University of Ghent.)Google Scholar
Van Noten, F. 1971 : Excavations at Munyama cave, Antiquity, XLV, 56–8.Google Scholar