Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:30:39.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Human Skeletal Remains from the Southern Cape Province and Their Bearing on the Stone Age Prehistory of South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

G. P. Rightmire
G. P. Rightmire*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York 13901 USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Substantial numbers of human skeletons have been recovered from caves and shelters of the southern Cape Province, South Africa, and these constitute a valuable source of information about evolutionary change and population movement during Upper Pleistocene and Holocene times. A few fragments from Klasies River Mouth and Die Kelders are firmly associated with Middle Stone Age cultural assemblages, but most of the material is probably linked with the Later Stone Age Albany and Wilton industries. Unfortunately the largest collections of relatively well-preserved remains have come from earlier excavations (Matjes River Shelter, Oakhurst), and the stratigraphic provenance of these burials is frequently in doubt. Other skeletal samples are small, and paleodemographic approaches are diffcult to apply. However, Bushman- or Hottentot-like individuals can certainly be identified, and this is important to the questions of Bushman antiquity or origins. Other problems concerning early Cape populations can also be examined, and this work on the human skeletons should complement ongoing cave sediment and other geological studies, faunal and plant analyses, and archaeological investigations of associated cultural remains.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , March 1978 , pp. 219 - 230
Copyright
University of Washington

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.)

References

Angel, J.L., 1969. The bases of paleodemography. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 30, 427 437.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Armelagos, G.J., 1969. Disease in ancient Egypt. Science. 163, 255 259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bada, J.L., Deems, L., 1975. Accuracy of dates beyond the 14C dating limit using the aspartic acid racemisation reaction. Nature (London). 255, 218 219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butzer, K.W., 1973. Geology of Nelson Bay Cave, Robberg, South Africa. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 28, 97 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dart, R.A., 1933. Fossil man and contemporary faunas in southern Africa. Report of the XVI International Geological Congress. Washington 1249 1270.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., 1969. Melkhoutboom Cave, Alexandria District, Cape Province: A report on the 1967 investigation. Annals of the Cape Provincial Museums. 6, 141 164.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., 1976 Where Hunters Gathered: A Study of Holocene Stone Age People in the Eastern Cape. South African Archeological Society Monograph Series No. 1.Google Scholar
Deacon, H.J., Brooker, M., 1976. The Holocene and Upper Pleistocene sequence in the southern Cape. Annals of the South African Museum. 71, 203 214.Google Scholar
Deacon, J., 1972. Wilton: An assessment after fifty years. Jouth African Archaeological Bulletin. 27, 10 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drennan, M.R., 1938. Archaeology of the Oakhurst Shelter, George. Part III. The cave dwellers. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 25, 259 293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyer, T.F., 1933. The archaeology of the Matjes River Rock Shelter. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 21, 187 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fagan, B.M., 1960. The Glentyre Shelter and Oakhurst re-examined. South African Archeological Bulletin. 15, 80 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairhall, A.W., Young, A.W., 1973. Methodology of radiocarbon dating and radiocarbon dates from Nelson Bay Cave. South African Archeological Bulletin. 28, 90 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H., 1938. Archaeology of the Oakhurst Shelter, George. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 25, 229 258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, A.J.H., Archaeology of the Oakhurst Shelter, George. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 25, 303 324.Google Scholar
Green, S., Green, S., Armelagos, G.J., 1974. Settlement and mortality of the Christian Site (1050–1300 A.D.) of Meinarti (Sudan). Journal of Human Evolution. 3, 297 311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harpending, H.C., Jenkins, T., 1973. Genetic distance amoung southern African populations. Crawford, M., Workman, P.L., Method and Theory in Anthropological Genetics. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 177 199.Google Scholar
Hewitt, J., 1921. On several implements and ormaments from Strandlooper sites in the eastern Province. South African Journal of Science. 18, 454 467.Google Scholar
Hewitt, J., 1931. Artefacts from Melkhoutboom. South African Journal of Science. 28, 540 548.Google Scholar
Jolly, K., 1947. Preliminary note on new excavation at Skildergat, Fish Hoek. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 2, 11 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jolly, K., 1948. The development of the Cape Middle Stone Age in the Skildergat cave, Fish Hoek. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 3, 106 107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keith, A., 1933. A descriptive account of the human skulls from Matjes River Cave, Cape Province. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 21, 151 158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1972. The late Quaternary mammalian fauna of Nelson Bay Cave (Cape Province, South Africa): Its implications for megafaunal extinctions and environmental and cultural change. Quaternary Research. 2, 135 142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1973. Geological antiquity of Rhodesian man. Nature (London). 244, 311 312.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, R.G., 1974. A provisional statement on terminal Pleistocene mammalian extinctions in the Cape Biotic Zone (Southern Cape Province, South Africa). South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series. 2, 39 45.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G., 1974. Environment and subsistence of prehistoric man in the southern Cape Province, South Africa. World Archaeology. 5, 249 284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, R.G., 1975. Middle Stone Age man-animal relationships in southern Africa: Evidence from Die Kelders and Klasies River Mouth. Science. 190, 265 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Louw, J.T., 1960 Prehistory of the Matjes River Rock Shelter. National Museum, Bloemfontein. Google Scholar
Meiring, A.J.D., 1937. The “Wilton” skulls of the Matjes River Shelter. Soölogiese Novorsing van die Nasionale Museum, Bloemfontein. 1, 51 79.Google Scholar
Parkington, J.E., Poggenpoel, C., 1971. Excavations at DeHangen, 1968. South African Archeological Bulletin. 26, 3 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkington, J.E., Poggenpoel, C., 1971. A Late Stone Age burial from Clanwilliam. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 26, 82 84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Protsch, R., 1974. The Fish Hoek hominid: Another member of basic Homo sapiens afer . Anthropologischer Anzeiger. 34, 241 249.Google Scholar
Protsch, R., 1975. The absolute dating of Upper Pleistocene SubSaharan fossil hominids and their place in human evolution. Journal of Human Evolution. 4, 297 322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rightmire, G.P., 1970. Iron Age skulls from southern Africa re-assessed by multiple discriminant analysis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 33, 147 167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rightmire, G.P., 1975. Problems in the study of later Pleistocene man in Africa. American Anthropologist. 77, 28 52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweitzer, F.R., 1970. A preliminary report of excavations of a cave at Die Kelders. South African Archaeological Bulletin. 25, 136 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, R., Smith, P., 1969. Some human remains associated with the Middle Stone Age deposits at Klasies River, South Africa. (Abstract). American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 31, 256.Google Scholar
Tankard, A.J., Schweitzer, F.R., 1974. The geology of Die Kelders Cave and Environs: A palaeoenvironmental study. South African Journal of Science. 70, 365 369.Google Scholar
Wymer, J.J., Singer, R., 1972. Middle Stone Age occupational settlements on the Tzitzikama coast, eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Ucko, P.J., Tringham, R., Dimbleby, G.W., Man, Settlement and Urbanism. Duckworth, London, 207 210.Google Scholar