Archaeological Investigations at the Saldanha Skull Site in South Africa

Abstract

'Elandsfontein' farm is situated on the extensive Sandveld which lies on part of the coastal plain north of Darling and extends as far as Saldanha Bay. It is in the district of Hopefield, 60 miles NNW. of Cape Town in the Cape Province of South Africa. The low annual rainfall of the Sandveld, about 13 inches a year, encourages little more than sparse grazing for sheep and goats, as well as for cattle in the wet winter season. 'Elandsfontein' is particularly impoverished as some two square miles of the farm have been transformed by erosion into a sandy desert; once the thin bush is removed the sand is subject to the full force of the strong winds which frequently blow over this part of the Cape. Series of barchan dunes have formed, some to a height of 50 feet and more, roughly at right angles to the prevailing south-east (summer) and north-west (winter) winds (PI. 1). The stronger summer winds have caused the sands to advance in a generally northward direction. Through the planting of conifer wind-breaks, the vegetation is regaining a grip, particularly around the southern edge of the site, but the local soil conservation authorities watch the area with anxiety. Between the dunes are scoured areas of the original Sandveld, eroded to two distinct deflation levels ('plains') because of the presence in the subsoil of an upper ferruginous formation and a lower one of calcareous concretions. It is on the latter that most of the thousands of mineralized Middle to Upper Pleistocene animal bones, for which the site is famous Plate 1. Part of the dune area at 'Elandsfontein'. In the foreground can be seen two deflation surfaces: the upper darker one, in process of excavation, forms a plain covered by small, sintery pellets of ferricrete and produces very few artefacts and fossil bones, although Middle Stone Age Still Bay points are said to have come from it. The figure stands on the lower plain of sandy, calcareous concretions, the Jevel at which the great majority of the discoveries at 'Elandsfontein' have been made. In the background is a major dune front. 63 S. Afr. Archaeol. Bull. 25: 63-74.