Motsetsi Cave (also known as Motsetse) is a fossil-bearing

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...

filled cavity located about east of the well known South African

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...

-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and

Kromdraai Kromdraai Conservancy is a protected conservation park located to the south-west of Gauteng province in north-east South Africa. It is in the Muldersdrift area not far from Krugersdorp. Etymology Its name is derived from Afrikaans meaning "Cro ...

and about north-northwest of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

. Motsetsi has been declared a South African National Heritage Site.

History of investigations

Motsetsi has been investigated since its discovery by Lee Berger in 1999. Since then a series of part-time excavations have recovered tens of thousands of fossils. Excavations have been conducted at Motsetse by the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

and at times in conjunction with Peter Schmid of the

University of Zurich The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...

. Only a very small part of this site has been excavated.

Recovered fossils

Of the many thousands of fossils recovered from Motsetsi, no hominid fossils have yet been found. Many very fine fossils of other animals, however, have been discovered including the remains of very well preserved ''

Dinofelis ''Dinofelis'' is a genus of extinct sabre-toothed cats belonging to the tribe Metailurini or possibly Smilodontini. They were widespread in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America at least 5 million to about 1.2 million years ago (Early Pliocene t ...

'' fossils – a type of false saber-toothed cat.

Geology

Motsetse is a series of breccia-filled dolomitic caves that formed in a fissure along a geological fault.

Age of the deposits

Motsetsi has been dated to 1.0 to 1.6 million years old based on the animals recovered.

References

{{Greater Johannesburg Archaeological sites in South Africa Caves of South Africa Landforms of Gauteng Limestone caves Pleistocene paleontological sites of Africa South African heritage sites Archaeological sites of Southern Africa