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| View over Swaziland from mouth of Border Cave |
Border Cave has a continuous stratigraphic (study of rock layers) record of human and pre-human occupation spanning about 200,000 years. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons together with stone tools and chipping debris were recovered. Dating by Carbon-14, amino acid racemisation and electron spin resonance places the oldest sedimentary ash at some 200,000 years.
Modern culture 44,000 years ago
An international team of researchers, including scientists from Wits University, have substantially increased the age at which we can trace the emergence of modern culture, all thanks to the San people of Africa.
The research by the team, consisting of scientists from South Africa, France, Italy, Norway, the USA and Britain, will be published in two articles online in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, today at 19:00 South African Standard Time.
The paper titled Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa was authored by Francesco d'Errico, Lucinda Backwell, Paola Villa, Ilaria Degano, Jeannette Lucejko, Marion Bamford, Thomas Higham, Maria Perla Colombini, and Peter Beaumont.
Doctor Backwell is a senior researcher in palaeoanthropology, and Professor Bamford a palaeobotanist at the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research at Wits University.
"The dating and analysis of archaeological material discovered at Border Cave in South Africa, has allowed us to demonstrate that many elements of material culture that characterise the lifestyle of San hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, were part of the culture and technology of the inhabitants of this site 44,000 years ago," says Backwell.
