Kubu Island (Ga'nnyo) is a dry

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

rock

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

located in the

Makgadikgadi Pan The Makgadikgadi Pan ( Tswana pronunciation ), a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadi ...

area of

Botswana Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label= Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalaha ...

. The island is located a few kilometers away from

Orapa Orapa is a town located in the Central District of Botswana. It is the site of the Orapa diamond mine, the largest diamond-producing mine in the world, and is considered to be the diamond capital of the country. Nearby is another kimberlite min ...

and

Letlhakane Letlhakane is a village in the Central District of Botswana. Letlhakane is the headquarters of the Boteti sub-district. It is located south of Mmatshumo and the population of the village was 22,911 in 2011 census. Within 15–20 km of L ...

mining towns and can be accessed through Mmatshumo in the

Boteti The Boteti River (also Botletle RiverHelgren, David M. (1984) "Historical Geomorphology and Geoarchaeology in the Southwestern Makgadikgadi Basin, Botswana" ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'' 74(2): pp. 298–307, page 298

district. The entire island is a national monument, and is considered a sacred site by the indigenous people of the area. It is accessible by four wheel drive vehicles and has basic camping facilities. The campsite is run for the benefit of the local population. ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'' presenter

Jeremy Clarkson Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes '' Top Gear'' and '' The Grand Tour'' alongside R ...

described the island as "just about the most astonishing place I've ever been" on the Botswana Special episode.

Natural history

The

is a large salt pan in northern

, the largest salt flat complex in the world. These salt pans cover approximately 16,000 km² and form the bed of the ancient

Lake Makgadikgadi Lake Makgadikgadi ( tn, Letsha la Makgadikgadi, label=Setswana, ) was a paleolake that existed in what is now the Kalahari Desert in Botswana from 2,000,000 years BP to 10,000 years BP. It may have once covered an area of from and was 30 m de ...

that began evaporating millennia ago.

Archaeological heritage

The name ''Kubu'' means either "large rock" in the

Kalanga language Kalanga, or ''TjiKalanga'' (in Zimbabwe), is a Bantu language spoken by the Kalanga people in Botswana and Zimbabwe. It has an extensive phoneme inventory, which includes palatalised, velarised, aspirated and breathy-voiced consonants, as ...

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

Tswana Tswana may refer to: * Tswana people, the Bantu speaking people in Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and other Southern Africa regions * Tswana language, the language spoken by the (Ba)Tswana people * Bophuthatswana, the former ba ...

. Local Khoe people call the site Ga'nnyo. Archaeological recovery in the Makgadikgadi has revealed the presence of prehistoric humans through abundant finds of stone tools; some of these tools have been dated sufficiently early to establish their origin as earlier than the era of ''Homo sapiens''.C. Michael Hogan. 2008 Kubu Island also contains dry stone wall, which is up to 1.25 m high, and 344 circular stone cairns.

References

* C. Michael Hogan. 2008. ''Makgadikgadi'', The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnha

* Kingsley Holgate. 2006. ''Africa. In the Footsteps of the Great Explorers''. Struik publishers,
restricted online version (google books)

Kubu Island in Botswana Travel Guide

History of Kubu Island. 2009

Line notes

Islands of Botswana Makgadikgadi Pan {{Botswana-geo-stub