Heritage Cases

As part of our ongoing exploration programme we have discovered a fossil bearing hominid site on the Rising Star property adjacent to the Rising Star underground system. The site has been labelled on maps provided to SAHRA and the Management Authority as Site 105. The cave system is not thought to be contiguous with the Rising Star system even though it is situated only 110 meters from the most southerly aspects of the Rising Star cave system. Given the Covid lockdown conditions, I am unable to operate normally at sites that do not have Covid safe infrastructure. The Rising Star site has Covid safe facilities to work from and thus I wish to begin work on the 105 site to understand the context of the hominid finds, there taxonomy, establish their chronological age and to establish if possible an associated fauna. As most of the hominids recognised to date have been found ex-situ in miners dumps, I would also wish to establish the in-situ deposits from which they originate. I therefore wish to apply for a permit to conduct palaeontological, archaeological and geological work at the 105 site in order to map the site, extract fossils for preparation, examine and move miners dumps, collect rock samples for geochronological work and improve the structural integrity of the site which was destabilised by early 20th century mining activities. The proposed activities are as follows: 1) Create high resolution maps of the cave system, fossiliferous and non-fossiliferous infills and miners dumps. 2) Create a plan of movement of miners rubble and a sustainable storage system. 3) Map and then collect ex-situ fossil bearing material for preparation in order to undertake analyses. 4) Move and sort miners rubble. 5) Prepare selected ex-situ material. 6) Conduct in-situ sampling for the recovery of additional fossils and rock samples to compare with ex-situ material in order to establish their in-situ point of origins. 7) Under supervision of qualified engineers, stabilise unstable parts of the cave system and create safe access and egress routes. All procedures will follow the system of cataloguing and excavation protocols applied to our work at Malapa and Rising Star. Fossils will be held in the collections of the University of the Witwatersrand and curatorial procedures will follow those established for Rising Star and Malapa. Preparation will be conducted in spaces created specifically for this purpose and will include both digital and manual preparation following best practice. I have set aside funds adequate to conduct the work, prepare the material, study the material and curate and store the material.