Duinefontein 1 and 2 are early prehistoric
archaeological site
An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...
s near
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
in
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
They have produced
Acheulean
Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...
stone tools and animal bones dating between 200,000 and 400,000 years ago. It was not a settlement site, but instead seems to have been a waterside location where animals could be hunted or scavenged when they died by hominids. The hominids used the tools to butcher the animals, although many of the animal bones from the site represent killings by other carnivores.
One
context
Context may refer to:
* Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary
Computing
* Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...
, from Duinefontein 2, dated by
optically stimulated luminescence dating
Luminescence dating refers to a group of methods of determining how long ago mineral grains were last exposed to sunlight or sufficient heating. It is useful to geologists and archaeologists who want to know when such an event occurred. It uses va ...
to 270,000 BP contained
ochre that must have been introduced to the site by people and which may have been used as body adornment. If so, it would represent some of the earliest evidence of an aesthetic sensibility in early peoples.
Sources
* Cruz-Uribe, K et al., 2003, Excavation of buried late Acheulean (mid-Quaternary) land surfaces at Duinefontein 2, West Cape Province, South Africa, Journal of Archaeological Science 30, 559–75, qtd in Scarre, C (ed.) (2005). The Human Past, London: Thames and Hudson. .
Archaeological sites in South Africa
Pleistocene
Archaeological sites of Southern Africa
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