The earliest phases of occupation at Klasies River Main Site, southern Cape coast, South Africa

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Early human adaptation on the African coasts: Comparing northwest Morocco and the Cape of South Africa" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Klasies River main, a well-known site in South African Middle Stone Age research, contributed significantly to palaeoanthropological evidence on early humans, and to knowledge of early human behaviour and palaeoenvironments. The earliest layers in Cave 1 at Klasies River is known as the MSA l period and is represented in the Witness Baulk by the Light Brown Sand (LBS) and Silty Black Sands (SBLS) members. Recent dating on the overlying MSA ll layers of the Witness Baulk revealed that the MSA l must be older than 110 000 years ago. One hypothesis is that the MSA l may relate to the earliest part of MIS 5 into MIS 6. There is renewed interest into this period at the coastal sites in South Africa, as it has become evident that coastal occupation on both the West and South coast may be earlier than previously thought. The MSA l archaeological evidence at Klasies River consists of well-preserved bone, especially in the LBS member, ashes of intact and dumped hearths, ochre and shellfish and lithics. In this presentation changing palaeoenvironments and subsistence behaviours, and evidence for complexity and innovation in domestic and technological practices in the MSA l will be discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Early human adaptation on the African coasts: Comparing northwest Morocco and the Cape of South Africa

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 50703