| Paternoster Midden | |
|---|---|
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| Location | Elands Bay, Western Cape |
| Coordinates | 32°48′16.6104″S17°54′2.4156″E / 32.804614000°S 17.900671000°E Coordinates: 32°48′16.6104″S17°54′2.4156″E / 32.804614000°S 17.900671000°E |
Paternoster Midden is a megamidden on the west coast of South Africa. This megamidden has particular value, as it is one of the few megamiddens in existence that has such a rich and diverse faunal and artefactual content.
Most of the shell middens along the west coast of the Western Cape are small in size, and their content consists mainly of large amounts of marine shells and only very modest amounts of fauna vertebrae and artefactual remains such as ostrich eggshell beads. [1]
Several middens have been found at Paternoster. One of these midden sites is known as PNNA, and is now referred to as "Paternoster Midden". This is a megamidden, with a unique content compared to other middens on the same coast. [2] Paternoster Midden is a large site, 350 metres (1,150 ft) long and 150 metres (490 ft) wide. It contains a large percentage of faunal remains made up of small animals such as tortoises, marine birds, snakes, and Cape fur seals, as well as small and large bovids, such as steenbok, grysbok, eland, buffalo and even an extra-large bovid with elephant remains. [1] The megamidden also contains cultural items which are rarely found in middens; ostrich eggshell beads (OES) are among the most notable of these finds. Other cultural items found were stone artefacts and unworked OES fragments that are likely to be the remnants of food or water containers. [3]
Paternoster Midden was declared a provincial heritage site by Heritage Western Cape on 9 April 2009, in terms of Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Act. [4] [5] This gives the site Grade II status, and provides the site with protection under South African heritage law.
Mussel Point is another megamidden that has recently been declared a provincial heritage site.
A midden is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics, and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation.
Sand on the Applecross Peninsula in Wester Ross, Scotland, is an archaeological site.
Blombos Cave is an archaeological site located in Blombos Private Nature Reserve, about 300 km east of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline, South Africa. The cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits currently dated at between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years Before Present (BP), and a Late Stone Age sequence dated at between 2000 and 300 years BP. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997, and is ongoing.
Chibuene is a Mozambican archaeological site, located five kilometres south of the coastal city of Vilanculos South Beach. The site was occupied during two distinct phases. The earlier phase of occupation dates to the late first millennium AD. The second phase dates from around 1450 and is contemporaneous with the Great Zimbabwe civilization in the African interior. During both phases of its development Chibuene was a trading settlement. Trade goods obtained from the site include glass beads, painted blue and white ceramics, and glass bottle fragments. The later phase of settlement has yielded remains of medieval structures as well as evidence of metallurgy. Crucibles have been found that were presumably used to melt gold obtained from trade with the Great Zimbabwe civilization. There is evidence that Chibuene traded extensively with the inland settlement of Manyikeni. Mozambique has jointly inscribed these two properties on their tentative version of the World Heritage List.
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Enkapune Ya Muto, also known as Twilight Cave, is a site spanning the late Middle Stone Age to the Late Stone Age on the Mau Escarpment of Kenya. This time span has allowed for further study of the transition from the Middle Stone Age to the Late Stone Age. Beads made of perforated ostrich egg shells found at the site have been dated to 40,000 years ago. The beads found at the site represent the early human use of personal ornaments.
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Diepkloof Rock Shelter is a rock shelter in Western Cape, South Africa in which has been found some of the earliest evidence of the human use of symbols, in the form of patterns engraved upon ostrich eggshell water containers. These date around 60,000 years ago.
The Strandlopers are a Khoikhoi-derived people who live by hunting and gathering food along the beaches of south-western Africa, originally from the Cape Colony to the Skeleton Coast.
Heritage Western Cape (HWC) is a provincial heritage resources authority established by the Minister of Cultural Affairs and Sport of the government of the Western Cape province in South Africa. It is a public entity set up under the terms of the National Heritage Resources Act. It is mandated to care for that part of South Africa's national estate that is of provincial and local significance in the Western Cape. It may delegate responsibility for heritage resources of local significance to competent municipal governments.
Nelson Bay Cave also known as Wagenaar's Cave is a Stone Age archaeological site located on the Robberg Peninsula and facing Nelson's Bay near Plettenberg Bay in South Africa, and showing evidence of human occupation as far back as 125,000 years ago.
Karim Sadr is an archaeologist contributing to research in southern Africa. He is the author of over 60 academic articles, a book and two edited volumes. While Sadr has contributed to the Kalahari Debate, his more recent work has focused on historical revision, re-examining the acquisition of domesticated animals and pottery in southern Africa by Hunter-gatherer. His work is reintroducing the term Neolithic back into southern African archaeological discourse from which it had previously been removed.
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Verlorenvlei Heritage Settlement is situated in the Piketberg District, South Africa. 32°19′ S 18° 23′ E. The settlement consists of surviving Langhius structures in what was once a thriving Hamlet on the shores of the Verlorenvlei. A remnant of this sort is unique and is the reason behind the site being declared a provincial heritage site.
Elands Bay Cave is located near the mouth of the Verlorenvlei estuary on the Atlantic coast of South Africa's Western Cape Province. The climate has continuously become drier since the habitation of hunter-gatherers in the Later Pleistocene. The archaeological remains recovered from previous excavations at Elands Bay Cave have been studied to help answer questions regarding the relationship of people and their landscape, the role of climate change that could have determined or influenced subsistence changes, and the impact of pastoralism and agriculture on hunter-gatherer communities.
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The Mlambalasi Rock Shelter is a historic site located in Iringa District of Iringa Region in southern Tanzania, 50 km away from Iringa City. Excavations in 2006 and 2010 by the Iringa Region Archaeological Project uncovered artifactual deposits from the Later Stone Age (LSA), the Iron Age, and the historic periods, as well as external artifacts from the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Direct dating on Achatina shell and ostrich eggshell beads indicates that the oldest human burials at Mlambalasi are from the terminal Pleistocene. Mlambalasi is characterized by interment LSA and Iron Age periods, as well as by cycles of use and abandonment.
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