Cave of Hearths

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South African Archaeological Society

The Cave of HearthsAuthor(s): C. van Riet LoweSource: The South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 33 (Mar., 1954), pp. 25-29Published by: South African Archaeological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3886792 .

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An ancient cave with an immensescientific utureisintroduced o us by the Directorof theArchaeologicalSurvey.THE CAVE OF HEARTHS

By C. VAN RiEr LOWEBy the timeman'sskills haddeveloped ufficientlyo have enabledhimto makebifacedhand-axesof Acheul-type-possiblya few hundred housandyearsago-he had spreadalloverAfricaand across he Mediterraneanassages nto mostof Europewestof the Danube;he had crossed nto Asia Minorand Arabia,and proceeding astwardsvia Iraq, IranandBaluchistanhad reachedalmosteverycornerof India and passedslightlybeyondinto theFar East.There s no evidence hat he trekkednorthof the greatAsiaticmountains: the HinduKushandHimalayas.He seems o haveremainedouthof themand to havebeenas at homein Indiaas he was in westernEuropeand in SouthAfricawherehe flourished xceedingly.Although millions of hand-axesand artefactsthat accompanythem have been foundthroughouthis vastportionof the OldWorld,only one humanskullthat canwithcertainty

be assigned o hand-axeor earlierStoneAge timeshasyet beenfound. Thismeansthat weknownothingaboutman'sphysicalappearancehroughouthe first our-fifths f hisexistence.The only skullthat can be associatedwith the Hand-axeCulturebelongsto the last fifth. Itwas found with Acheul-typehand-axes n terracedgravelsof the Thamesat SwanscombenEngland.As this skullis of the modern,Neanthropicor sapienttype of man and thereforequite distinct from the Palaeanthropicr Neanderthal ypes that appearfor the firsttimewith latercultures,t is mostdesirable hatmorehumanremainsof hand-axeor earlierStoneAge times should be recovered.There is a greatgap between he earliestknownhumansand the pre-humanman-likeapesor Australopithecines,f whomwe now knowso much,thatprecededhemby severalhundreds f thousandsof years.This is one of the reasonswhy the systematic xplorationof sealed iving-sitesof hand-axetimes s so importantor, rightlyor wrongly,we believe hatsuchsites aremore ikely toyield humanskeletalmaterial hanareanyothers.By living-site s meant a site on which prehistoricmen not only madetheirstone andother tools and weapons,but wheretheyalso prepared nd ate theirfood. In otherwords,it is a habitation ite that includes aunaland otherremainsas well as artefacts.Suchsitesare of two maintypes: (1) exposedor opensites,originally stablished n theopenveld,and(2) protectedor partiallyenclosed ites in rock-shelters nd caves. Eithermay be sealedbyoverlyingdeposits,but thesealing n anenclosed iteis generallyikelyto havepreservedmorebelow t thanthatin an opensite.Good examplesof sealed open-airsites have been partiallyexplored in the famousOlduvaiGorgein Tanganyika ndin the equally amousOlorgesailie reain the GreatRiftValley n Kenya. Boththeseareashaveyieldeda richfauna n associationwith anabundanceof hand-axesof different ulturaland geological evels. Anothersplendidopen-airsite thathasyieldedan abundance f hand-axes s wellas a richfaunaanda humankull s at Elands-fontein near Hopefield n the Cape. Mr. Goodwindescribed his in BulletinNo. 30, vol.VIII. Unfortunatelyhe site has beenmarredby the additionof laterculturalelementsandwe cannotsay with certaintywhether he skull (which s verysimilar o that of RhodesianMan, i.e. Neanderthaloid) elongsto hand-axeor later times. Fortunately,however,theexploration f the area s beingcontinuedandwe mayyet hopefor an answer.Examplesof enclosedand sealed living-sitesof hand-axetimes are excessivelyrare.Onlythreehave been recorded n all Africa: one at Montagu n the Cape,anotherin the

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Plate 1. The excavations romabove,showing dumpand basecamp


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WonderworkCavenearKuruman, lso in the Cape,and the third n the Cave of Hearthsonthe farmMakapansgat earPotgietersrusn northernTransvaal.The MontaguandWonderworkCaveshaveonlybeenpartially xploredandneitherhasthusfaryielded he remains f man. TheCaveof Hearthss nowbeingsystematicallyxploredand becauseof its extentmayat any timeyieldsuch remains. If it does, it will be the firsttimein the historyof anthropologicalesearch hatsuch remains hallhavebeen foundwithhand-axes n a well-sealedcave site. The extentand wealth(in both culturaland faunalremains) f the Caveof Hearthsmake t especiallymportant.Witha generousgrant romtheWenner-GrenoundationorAnthropologicalResearchin New York,systematic,arge-scale nd long-term xcavationswerestarted n this caveon15 April 1953.Between hat date and 10 June,a thousandtons of rock-fallwereremovedbeforethedeep-buriedccupational ebriswas reached.Betweenmid-June ndmid-October1953,whenthe firstseason'sworkwasreluctantly rought o a close, upwards f twohundredtons of occupational ebris, iberally tuddedwithnearly800tons of largeandsmallrocks hathad fallen fromthe roof of the cavebefore t finallycollapsed,weresystematicallyxcavatedto a maximum depth of 33 ft. (c. 10 in.) over an area of about 1,500 sq. ft. (c. 140 sq. m.).These large-scale nd costly excavationshave revealedno less than twelveprehistoriccultural evels that rangefrom the AfricanAcheulianor Hand-axeCultureof the EarlierStoneAge at the base reached, hroughall the divisions of the PietersburgCultureofthe MiddleStoneAge, to the climaxof the LaterStoneAgenearthetop-with protohistoric(South AfricanMetalAge)and historic Pioneer) emains n the uppermost18 in. (0.5 m.) ofdisturbed urface oil.Thematerial ecoveredncludes ensof thousandsof artefacts nda richfaunaof all themajordivisions of the StoneAge from hand-axe imes onwards. It has throwna flood oflight on the developmentof prehistorichumanskills and associated aunaof Middle andUpperPleistocene imes. The mainsequenceof events s splendidly evealed n an uncom-monlycomprehensivetratigraphyichly nterleavedwith an abundanceof hearthswith solittle disturbancen the majordeposits hatthe wholerecallsa greatbook of history. Manyof the pages are unfortunatelymissing, othersare soiled and severalhave been torn anddisplaced,butsufficientemains orone to beableto reconstructeveralof themost mportantandspectacularhaptersof prehistoric uman imes.Butfor a crushedandbroken ragment f aninfant's aw, humanremainshaveunfortu-natelyso far eludedus. Thefragmentwasfoundin one of the hand-axeevelsandappears,according o ProfessorRaymondA. Dart,to be related o palaeanthropicman. Be this as itmay,the work is not yet half done and will be resumedwithaddedvigourandoptimism nApril1954.Withinthe rangeof C 14 tests, charcoalsrecoveredromhearthsat various evelswillenable us for the firsttime to get someideaof the absolutechronologyof theselevels. Thisby itselfwill be a greatstepforward.As therearesignsthatdeposits n the form of well-cementedossil-bearing reccias hatunderlie hedrip-stone r stalagmite t themaximumdepthreachedmaycontainprehominidor euhominid emains,or faunaassociatedwiththem,we maylook forward o the ultimateestablishmentf a time-scalehatmay be found to extend romthedaysof theman-likeapesorAustralopithecinest theend of the Plioceneor duringEarlyPleistoceneimes,throughagreatdealof the Stone Age duringMiddleand UpperPleistocene imes to the Present.Thisremainsone of themajoraims of theundertaking; heotherbeing herecovery f identifiablehumanskeletalmaterialof hand-axe imes.Six other caves in the immediatevicinity of the Cave of Hearthsawait systematicexploration.Theyareall in the MakapanValleyon thefarmMakapansgat.Thesecaves,inthe order in which they occur as one enters the valley, are known as Peppercorn ndBuffalo on the left, and Limeworks,Hyaena, Hearths, Makapan and Rainbowon the right.

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Plate II. General view of portion of excavations. The dark line below S marks the original surface of thedeposits. The wall underconstructionn the foreground s designed o protecta portion of the basal(hand-axe)hearthas a witness-section. Photo W Lizamore.I2S


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Peppercorn and Buffalo have yielded a rich fauna, but no implements; Limeworks hasyielded Australopithecine man-like apes and a rich fauna, but no implements other thanpossibly utilized fragmentsof bone. Hyaena has yielded fauna; Rainbowgood implements ofthe Pietersburg Culture and fauna, but it, with the others, awaits systematic exploration.As the bone-bearing breccias in the Hyaena Cave, which is immediately alongside theCave of Hearthss,appear to continue under the drip-stone that forms the well-marked floorof the Cave of Hearths at the maximum depth reached in the latter, it is possible that thisgroup of caves will in the course of time enable us to reconstructa chronology that may takeus from the end of the Pliocene through the entire Pleistocene to the Present: from Australo-pithecine times to those of the Pioneers.The types of climate that prevailedduringthe Earlier,Middle and Later Stone Ages willbe checked against the geological recordsrevealed in over fifty important open sitesthat have yielded a similar cultural sequence(in part or in whole) in the area.For those who are interested in history,it is felt that this brief note should be con-cluded by recordingthe fact that the MakapanCave and the farm on which it is were namedafter the notorious Chief Makapan who livedin the area a hundred years ago. It was withinthe largest cave of all that he and most of histribe were annihilated during the punitiveexpedition that followed their brutalmassacreof those European men, women and childrenwho were exploring the area for settlement in1854.As the burgher expedition closed in onMakapanand his warriors,many hundredsoftribesmen took refuge in the largest of thecaves-now known as the Historic or Maka-pan Cave. The burgherscould neither drivethem out (even smoke failed) nor persuadethem to come out. Nor could the burghersget in, for the tribesmen had barricadedthetwo entrances. The place was thereforebesiegedand, excluding a handul of tribesmenwho escaped under cover of darkness during

A cleaverwellembedded n thebrecciaover the basal(hand-axe)hearth.Photo: W. Lizamore.the three weeks that followed, the besieged were annihilated and the strength of the tribebroken.It was duringthis siege that a young veldkornet, Paul Kruger, who later became Presidentof the South African Republic, distinguished himself as a soldier. His total disregard for hisown safety and great personal gallantry when he faced the tribesmen to rescue a woundedcomrade who had fallen in front of the main entrance, would undoubtedly have earned thehighest military award for him had such award been available at the time. The comrade wasCommandant-General Piet Potgieter, after whom the district and near-by town were laternamed.

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Cave of Hearths