Reconstructing the Amanzi Springs Acheulian Site, South Africa, 50 Years after Hilary Deacon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Amanzi Springs Acheulian site in South Africa was first excavated by Ray Inskeep and then Hilary Deacon for his Masters project in the 1960s. Deacon excavated two spring he designated Areas 1 and 2 and this work suggested that Amanzi Springs preserved stratified Acheulian bearing deposits, something rare in the South African archaeological record. The Amanzi Springs Archaeology Project (ASAP) began in 2015 nearly 50 years after Deacon, to clarify the stratigraphy of the two spring eyes, as well as open test excavations in a number of other springs at the site. To date, this work has established the presence of Middle Stone Age materials and that all archaeological deposits are associated with wood and organic remains. Furthermore, ASAP has used photogrammetry to digitize Deacon’s original excavations and incorporated co-ordinate data associated with artefacts he collected nearly 50 years earlier, which has produced a comprehensive GIS model for relating Deacon’s finds with stratigraphic sections. Lastly, preliminary excavations in Areas 1 and 2 have begun to clarify the stratified nature of Acheulian materials at the site and a comprehensive dating program of the spring eyes will produce ages for the Acheulian and Middle Stone Age occupations at Amanzi Springs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25559