Heritage Cases

Previous work by G. Botha and A. Mazel has identified promising open-air deposits close to Nquthu at Jojosi for finding stratified Middle Stone Age deposits that are very rare and heavily understudied in KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa more generally. The open-air deposits consist of erosional gullies (dongas) that are geologically well-datable, located in the north-central interior of KZN. This region is dominated by grassland and savanna biomes different to the coastal and southern areas where most excavated MSA sites lie (e.g., the Indian Ocean Coastal Belt with denser, sub-tropical vegetation), providing another novelty to further human origins research in South Africa and KZN in particular. Previous unpublished work by A. Mazel shows that several of these dongas might feature MSA stone artifacts occurring in restricted horizons that today crop out of the deposits due to intense erosion. Not only does this make recovery of the artefacts possible, but ongoing erosion also actively destroys these deposits year by year. As such, Jojosi requires prompt field work to rescue its MSA stone tools while also allowing for relatively easy excavation, mapping and recovery of archaeological finds – also on the landscape. The geographical extent of MSA occurrences is currently unknown and requires further survey work to identify the most promising outcrops for excavation. Only excavation can provide the necessary contextual archaeological data for these MSA deposits. This work has the potential to shed new light on early Homo sapiens technology from a different context than caves or rockshelters and to show early modern humans settled in and adapted to open landscapes.