SA’s ‘rock libraries’ gain world acclaim

John Parkington, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at UCT, explains details of the Diepkloof rock shelter heritage site during a 2019 site visit. Photo: John Yeld

• Three sites of habitation by humans in South Africa more than 100,000 years ago have been given UNESCO World Heritage status.
• Two of the sites are in the Western Cape, and one is in KwaZulu-Natal.
• The sites contribute to our understanding of how modern human behaviour has evolved.

It’s now widely accepted that, after several million years of tangled hominid evolution, fully modern humans started emerging from the crucible of southern Africa about 170,000 years ago.

Evidence for how and why this development of the human race unfolded here has been found in caves, overhangs and rock shelters throughout the region, particularly in the Western Cape.

Now, three such sites have been collectively inscribed as a new UNESCO World Heritage Site, emphasising the global significance of these Stone Age habitations.

Their composite heritage status was confirmed at the UNESCO World Heritage Committee session in New Delhi, India, on 26 July.

Named The Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour: The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa, the newly proclaimed composite World Heritage Site has three elements: the Diepkloof Rock Shelter near Elands Bay on the West Coast; the Pinnacle Point coastal caves site complex at Mossel Bay; and Sibhudu Cave, near Tongaat in KwaZulu-Natal.

The inscription on UNESCO’s World Heritage List states the sites contribute “to the understanding of the origin of behaviourally modern humans, their cognitive abilities and cultures, and the climatic transitions that they survived …”

The sites provide “the most varied and best-preserved record known of the development of modern human behaviour, reaching back as far as 162,000 years”, says UNESCO in the inscription.

“Symbolic thought and advanced technologies are exemplified by evidence of ochre processing, engraved patterns, decorative beads, decorated eggshells, advanced projectile weapons and techniques for toolmaking, and microliths [small stone tools like arrowheads].”

UNESCO says the new heritage site will help protect the many invaluable artefacts that almost certainly still remain buried within these rock shelters, and which can provide further insight into the story of modern human evolution.

Rock art motifs on one of the walls of the Diepkloof rock shelter. Photo: John Yeld

A rock shelter carved by geological forces over countless centuries into a 100m high cliff overlooking the shores of Verlorenvlei near Elands Bay on the West Coast, Diepkloof has been protected as a Provincial Heritage Site since 2015.

But its significance was recognised much earlier when Emeritus Professor John Parkington from the University of Cape Town’s Archaeology Department, and his research colleague Cedric Poggenpoel, opened the earliest excavations in the shelter in 1973.

A key figure in unravelling how modern humans evolved in the Western Cape, Parkington describes sites like Diepkloof as “archives of information about our species”, and likens archaeological evidence found here to “textbooks”. He cautions that damaging these shelters in any way is “like setting fire to books in a library”.

Since the pioneering work of Parkington and Poggenpoel, Diepkloof has drawn researchers from France, Sweden, the USA, Canada, Australia and Germany.

Their extensive archaeological excavations have revealed non-continuous human occupations of this shelter between about 110,000 to 40,000 years ago – the Middle to Late Pleistocene period – and also during the past two millennia.

This former period is extremely significant in the story of human development. For while anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) have been present in Africa for at least 300,000 years, archeologists have found that artefacts from only around 170,000 years ago provide evidence of what they describe as fully modern human behaviour, such as abstract thinking, technological innovation, and planning and strategising.

The evidence at Diepkloof includes: the early appearance of more refined stone tools that were modified by the use of fire between about 100,000 and 74,000 years ago; an exceptional collection of more than 400 pieces of meticulously engraved ostrich shell, dating from 65,000 to 55,000 years ago that are among the earliest known examples of storage and transport vessels; and the use of glue.

Engraved ostrich eggshell fragments from around 60,000 years ago found in the Diepkloof Rock Shelter. Archaeologists believe the fragments probably originate from eggs used as storage containers. Photo: Pierre-Jean Texier

Parkington welcomes Diepkloof’s inscription as a World Heritage Site: “There’s an opportunity now to talk about the research that we’ve done there, and why it has been significant, and what having found these kinds of materials at Diepkloof from 60,000, 80,000, or 100,000 years ago actually means for everyone in the world.

“It’s been great to be able to participate in that, and it’s nice to think that maybe more people will now understand the significance of Diepkloof and Sibhudu and other sites.”

However, Parkington said he did not expect that the World Heritage Site status would have direct benefits for further scientific investigation, and warned it could potentially even have some negative consequences and additional costs if it attracted large numbers of visitors who would require effective management and facilities.

The drive for inscription had been led by Heritage Western Cape and the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs Sport.

“The next step for us archaeologists is to prepare some materials in the site for public viewing so that when people do get there, they will have an experience that is worth the long journey.”

Diepkloof is on private property, and is open to the public only through pre-arranged small tour groups booked at the Elands Bay Museum. Contact Tania Le Roux 060 925-7476 or Museum 072 447-4936.

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