The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and an international park shared with Botswana. It also includes the Augrabies Falls and the diamond mining regions in Kimberley and Alexander Bay.
Kuruman is a small town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is known for its scenery and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature that brings water from deep underground. The abundance of water produces an unexpected swathe of green amidst the barren plains and is known as the "Oasis of the Kalahari". It was at first a mission station of the London Missionary Society founded by Robert Moffat in 1821. It was also the place where David Livingstone arrived for his first position as a missionary in 1841. The Kuruman River, which is dry except for flash floods after heavy rain, is named after the town.
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African prehistory between the Early Stone Age and the Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50–25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550–500,000 years ago and as such some researchers consider this to be the beginnings of the MSA. The MSA is often mistakenly understood to be synonymous with the Middle Paleolithic of Europe, especially due to their roughly contemporaneous time span; however, the Middle Paleolithic of Europe represents an entirely different hominin population, Homo neanderthalensis, than the MSA of Africa, which did not have Neanderthal populations. Additionally, current archaeological research in Africa has yielded much evidence to suggest that modern human behavior and cognition was beginning to develop much earlier in Africa during the MSA than it was in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic. The MSA is associated with both anatomically modern humans as well as archaic Homo sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo helmei. Early physical evidence comes from the Gademotta Formation in Ethiopia, the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya and Kathu Pan in South Africa.
Hafting is a process by which an artifact, often made of bone, stone, or metal is attached to a haft. This makes the artifact more useful by allowing it to be launched by a bow (arrow), thrown by hand (spear), or used with more effective leverage (axe). When constructed properly, hafting can tremendously improve a weapon's damage and range. It is estimated that hafted weapons were most common during the Upper Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic. It was one of the first tools where hominins took separate elements and united them into a single tool. The development of hafting is considered by archaeologists to have been a significant milestone. It was not only an improvement in the technology at the time; it also showed the progression of the human mind toward a world of complex tool-making.
Wonderwerk Cave is an archaeological site, formed originally as an ancient solution cavity in dolomite rocks of the Kuruman Hills, situated between Danielskuil and Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. It is a National Heritage Site, managed as a satellite of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley. Geologically, hillside erosion exposed the northern end of the cavity, which extends horizontally for about 140 m (460 ft) into the base of a hill. Accumulated deposits inside the cave, up to 7 m (23 ft) in-depth, reflect natural sedimentation processes such as water and wind deposition as well as the activities of animals, birds, and human ancestors over some 2 million years. The site has been studied and excavated by archaeologists since the 1940s and research here generates important insights into human history in the subcontinent of Southern Africa. Evidence within Wonderwerk cave has been called the oldest controlled fire. Wonderwerk means "miracle" in the Afrikaans language.
The concept of the Northern Cape as a distinct geo-political region of South Africa coalesced in the 1940s when a "Northern Cape and Adjoining Areas Regional Development Association" was formed and the first map featuring the name "Northern Cape" was published. The geographic spread to which the term applied was not fixed until 1994, however, when it attained precise definition as the Northern Cape Province, one of South Africa's nine post-apartheid provinces. Since then there have been boundary adjustments to include parts of the former Bophuthatswana adjacent to Kuruman and Hartswater. Vryburg and Mafikeng, in the north eastern extremity of the former Cape Province - and hence regarded as part of the pre-1994 "Northern Cape" - are excluded, being part, now, of the North West Province in the North.
Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77000 years ago to 38000 years ago.
Kumba Iron Ore is an iron-ore mining company in South Africa. It is the fifth largest iron-ore producer in the world and the largest in Africa.
Dithakong is the name of a place east of Kuruman in the Northern Cape, South Africa, which had been a major destination for several of the earliest nineteenth century expeditions from the Cape to the interior of the subcontinent. In colonial literature the name is often rendered in such ways as Litakun, also Litakoo or Lattakoo.
Canteen Kopje is an archaeological site, formally protected as a grade 2 provincial heritage site, and approved in 2017 for re-grading to national status, situated outside Barkly West in the Northern Cape, South Africa. The place was previously known as Klipdrift, meaning stony drift, a translation from a still earlier !Ora name, !a |aub. Canteen Kopje is best known for its long and exceptionally rich Earlier Stone Age sequence, spanning circa >0.5 to 1.7 million years, occurring within gravels exposed in late nineteenth/early twentieth century mining pits. Also attracting attention are more recent archaeological levels in the overlying Hutton Sands, which contain material known as Fauresmith, Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age, and late Iron Age with evidence of protocolonial/colonial contact and interaction, probably, with nineteenth century diamond diggers.
The Transnet Freight Rail Class 15E of 2010 is a South African electric locomotive.
The South African Railways Class 34-000 of 1971 is a diesel-electric locomotive.
The South African Railways Class 34-400 of 1973 is a diesel-electric locomotive.
The South African Railways Class 34-500 of 1974 is a diesel-electric locomotive.
Dingleton is a town in Northern Cape, South Africa.
The Kathu Archaeological Complex is a cluster of significant archaeological, principally Stone Age, exposures situated in and near Kathu, a mining town in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. The sites include a suite of sinkhole exposures, the Kathu Pan sites, north west of the town, the immensely rich spread of artefacts at what is referred to as Kathu Townlands on the eastern side of Kathu, and surface and subsurface horizons including handaxes on farms further eastward. These are subject to on-going archaeological research.
The Sishen mine is a large iron mine located in central South Africa in Kathu, Northern Cape. Sishen represents one of the largest iron ore reserves in South Africa and in the world having estimated reserves of 2.43 billion tonnes of ore grading 58.6% iron metal.
Kathu Forest is an area of protected woodland in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. It is some 4000 hectares in extent and was proclaimed in an attempt to safeguard an unusually dense concentration of camel thorn trees.
Peter Bernhard Beaumont was a South African archaeologist noted for his excavation and finds at Wonderwerk Cave, Kathu, Canteen Kopje and Border Cave, all in South Africa. His work led to the conviction that, rather than trailing Europe and Asia, Southern Africa's Stone Age technology and culture had set the pace.
Witsand Nature Reserve is located in Northern Cape, South Africa, and covers 3,500 hectares. The reserve is 80 km southwest of Postmasburg and 59 km northeast of Groblershoop. The reserve is dominated by sand dunes on a plateau around 1,200 m above sea level. Singing sand can be found here, a phenomenon in which during the dry summer months, a roar can be heard while walking over the sands.
