Revil Mason | |
---|---|
Born | Revil John Mason 10 February 1929 |
Died | 23 August 2020 91) | (aged
Education | St John's College |
Alma mater | University of the Witwatersrand University of Cape Town |
Spouse | Judith Mason |
Children | 2 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Archaeology |
Institutions | University of Witwatersrand |
Thesis | The prehistory of the Transvaal : a record of human activity (1958) |
Revil John Mason (10 February 1929 - 23 August 2020) was a South African archaeologist. [1] [2] He was Professor of Archaeology at the University of the Witwatersrand.
Mason was born in Johannesburg, grew up in Saxonwold and matriculated from St John's College. He attained a B.Comm degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and was awarded the Aitken medal for the best graduate in commerce as well as the Chamber of Industries medal and the Dean’s award. However after attending a lecture presented by the anthropologist Raymond Dart he became fascinated with archaeology and decided to study it at the University of Cape Town. He was awarded his doctorate in archaeology at the age of 28, with a thesis entitled "The prehistory of the Transvaal : a record of human activity." [1]
At the age of 24 he had successfully excavated Makapansgat and in so doing discerned three layers of the Stone Age within the excavation. He returned on occasion to St John's to present talks on new archaeological finds and led the St John's College Archaeology Club to excavate a Boer War site in the Magaliesberg. [1]
In 1954, at the age of 25, Mason climbed the Brandberg Mountain in Namibia searching for rock art created by the indigenous San people. He discovered abstract San rock art that became known as the Brandberg Picasso. [2]
Mason was appointed a professor by Wits as a successor to Clarence van Riet Lowe. In 1976 the university created the Archaeological Research Unit for Mason and his staff and appointed him Director, a post he held until his early retirement in 1989. [1]
During his career Mason excavated several significant sites including Melville Koppies, [1] Linksfield Ridge, [3] Bruma, [3] and Sterkfontein. [3] He discovered prehistoric iron furnaces and Tswana villages in Johannesburg and excavated a site in Broederstroom which dates back to 300 CE. [1] [3] Part of his life's work was the construction of an archaeological map of the North West and Gauteng provinces. This map is a direct contradiction of the myth perpetuated by the Apartheid government in which it was claimed that the southern portion of the African continent was uninhabited until the arrival of the Dutch settlers in 1652, the so-called "empty land" myth. [1]
He was married to Judith Mason, artist, and raised two daughters, Tamar (1966) and Petra (1970).
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The university has its roots in the mining industry, as do Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand in general. Founded in 1896 as the South African School of Mines in Kimberley, it is the third oldest South African university in continuous operation.
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.
Phillip Vallentine Tobias was a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was best known for his work at South Africa's hominid fossil sites. He was also an activist for the eradication of apartheid and gave numerous anti-apartheid speeches at protest rallies and also to academic audiences.
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil, often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He is noted for his studies of cave art in the Somme and Dordogne valleys as well as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, China with Teilhard de Chardin, Ethiopia, British Somali Coast Protectorate, and especially Southern Africa.
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James William Kitching was a South African vertebrate palaeontologist and regarded as one of the world’s greatest fossil finders.
The Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) is a paleontological, paleoanthropological and archeological research institute operated through the Faculty of Science of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Previously known as the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research (BPI) it was renamed the Evolutionary Studies Institute in 2013 to better showcase the scope of its research.
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Thomas N. Huffman was Professor Emeritus of archaeology in association with the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He specialised in pre-colonial farming societies in southern Africa. Huffman is most well known for his identification of the Central Cattle Pattern at Mapungubwe, a pre-colonial state in southern Africa. This, in turn he argued as the main influence in the formation of the Zimbabwe Pattern at Great Zimbabwe. Arguably his seminal contribution to the field was A Handbook to the Iron Age: The Archaeology of Pre-Colonial Farming Societies in Southern Africa (2007), which has contributed to the understanding of ceramic style analysis and culture history focusing on these groups.
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