The archaeology of the lower Sundays River Valley, Eastern Cape province, South Africa: an assessment of Earlier Stone Age alluvial terrace sites
Date
2016-09-19
Authors
Lotter, Matt Geoffrey
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Abstract
The lower Sundays River Valley, within the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa,
has featured in a range of papers over the last century. A large portion of these
focuses on improving our understanding of a series of river terraces that border the
present channel. Earlier Stone Age (ESA) artefacts were first noted to occur in these
deposits in the 1950s, but since this initial research there has been no attempt to
investigate these further.
Our understanding of the Eastern Cape’s early archaeology is poor and this can be
attributed to a lack of research. Only a single ESA site, Amanzi Springs, has been
fully excavated for the entire province, and although the artefacts here provide some
indication as to what characterises this region’s early archaeology, the significance of
this site is limited by our inability to date it. Well-dated ESA sites are thus completely
absent in the Eastern Cape.
More recently, a study has provided a series of dates for the Sundays River terraces.
Most importantly, this research confirmed the presence of these ESA – more
specifically Acheulean – artefacts within three of these dated deposits, namely: Atmar
Farm dated to 0.65 ± 0.12 Ma (millions of years ago), Bernol Farm dated to 1.14 ±
0.2 Ma, and Penhill Farm date to <1.37 ± 0.16 Ma and more recently constrained by
this research to >0.485 ± 0.051 Ma. Accordingly, it has been the purpose of this
research to investigate these deposits through both survey and excavation, and to
provide details on this archaeology.
This research thus provides the first ever comprehensively described and dated ESA
sites for this region, and from this we can now begin to construct our understanding of
the local Acheulean Tradition. This research also provides a contextual assessment for
the formation of these deposits and what processes have influenced their formation
and modification. Furthermore, from the detailed analysis of the artefacts, we can
begin to understand the strategies employed in their production.
Our investigations have shown that largely different contextual conditions are present
at each of the three sites. This has had significant impacts on the integrity of these
assemblages, and the preservation and retention of assemblage components are highly
variable between them. All of the artefact assemblages show the following
characteristics: simple strategies in core reduction, low levels of reduction in both
cores and formal tools, simple and expedient production of retouched artefacts with
little emphasis on careful edge modification, and large cutting tools (LCTs) that are
flaked bifacially but have limited shaping overall.
For the first time in half a century our research now provides comparative material
from three dated sites that can be used to help understand variability in the local
Acheulean Tradition. This has important implications for not only the Eastern Cape,
but also to sites elsewhere in the interior.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy
Johannesburg, 2016