On the Edge of the Kalahari: New Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Deposits at Olieboomspoort, South Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Olieboomspoort is one of the few rockshelters in South Africa documenting phases of use going back to the Acheulean and up until the very end of the Later Stone Age. Previous work has focused on the recent phases, consistent with traces left by the last hunter-gatherers present in the area. Little is known about the earlier phases of occupations of the shelter, predominantly associated with the Middle Stone Age (MSA). For a start, the chronology of the MSA units is unknown. The MSA material is dominated by lithic artifacts excavated from two test-trenches respectively in 1954 and in 1998. This was attributed to the somewhat ill-defined Pietersburg industry and still awaits full techno-typological analysis. Finally, the depositional and postdepositional context of the archaeological finds remains unclear. In 2018, we started a new field project, with the following aims: (1) to provide a clearer chronological context for the MSA layers, (2) to clarify the stratigraphy and site formation processes, and (3) to technologically reevaluate the lithic assemblage. Here, we provide some background on the site alongside preliminary results on the archaeological (lithic artifacts) and organic (faunal remains, pollen, and phytoliths) content of the deposits and on-site formation processes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32050