Excavation of buried Late Acheulean (Mid-Quaternary) land surfaces at Duinefontein 2, Western Cape Province, South Africa

• Published in: Journal of archaeological science Vol. 30; no. 5; pp. 559 - 575
• Main Authors: Cruz-Uribe, Kathryn, Klein, Richard G, Avery, Graham, Avery, Margaret, Halkett, David, Hart, Timothy, Milo, Richard G, Garth Sampson, C, Volman, Thomas P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2003; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Acheulean; Africa; Duinefontein 2; Landscape archeology; Palaeolithic and epipalaeolithic; Paleoecology; Prehistory and protohistory; Southern and East Africa; Late Acheulian; Middle Palaeolithic; South Africa; Africa; Landscape archeology; Duinefontein 2; Paleoecology; Acheulean; Sedimentology; Geochronology; Animal bone; Geomorphology; Fauna; Carnivorous; Hyenidae; Ecology; Landscape archaeology; Paleoenvironment; Middle Pleistocene; Macrofauna; Marsh; Dating
• ISSN: 0305-4403; 1095-9238
• DOI: 10.1016/S0305-4403(02)00202-9

Duinefontein 2 (DFT2) preserves at least two buried land surfaces within a 10-m thick dune plume on the Atlantic Coast of South Africa, about 35 km north of Cape Town. Optically stimulated luminescence dating indicates that the sands enclosing the upper surface accumulated around 270 ky ago, while the sands between the two surfaces were accumulating about 290 ky ago. Excavation so far has focused on the upper buried surface, which is now exposed over 480 m 2. Historically, there was no body of fresh water nearby, and the surrounding vegetation was a variant of the regional fine-leafed shrub or fynbos. Pedogenic alteration of the sands and bones of water-loving mammals and amphibians indicate, however, that the bones and associated Acheulean artifacts accumulated near the edge of a large pond or marsh. In addition, the principal mammal species (buffalo, wildebeest, and kudu) imply a sharply different regional vegetation in which grass and broad-leafed bush were much more common. The artifacts are distributed across the upper buried surface in no apparent pattern, but the large mammal bones tend to occur as clusters of skulls, vertebrae, ribs, and other axial elements, often in near anatomical order. Limb bones are mostly missing, and the clusters appear to mark carcasses from which the limb bones were selectively removed. The bones rarely show marks from stone tools, but marks from carnivore teeth are common. Together with numerous hyena coprolites, the abundant tooth marks suggest that hyenas and perhaps other carnivores were largely responsible for carcass disarticulation. The human role appears to have been insignificant, which suggests that local Acheulean people obtained few large mammals, whether by hunting or scavenging. Among the small number of other Acheulean ‘carcass’ sites for which bone damage observations are available, the best-documented sites suggest the same limited human ability to acquire large mammals, but many additional sites will be necessary to determine if this was the Acheulean norm. Greatly expanded excavation of the lower buried surface at DFT2 can provide an additional, high-quality data point.