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Excavation of Woodstock Rock Shelter, Waterberg

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ProposalDescription: 

Excavation of Woodstock Rock Shelter, Waterberg, Limpopo Province is intended to explore the occupation hiatus between the Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age/Iron Age on the plateau. The site has Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age lithics on the surface in the dripline, as well as some Iron Age ceramics. The test excavation will open two square metres to see whether the sequence follows that in other Waterberg sites.

Expanded_Motivation: 

MOTIVATION TO EXCAVATE LATER AND MIDDLE STONE AGE OCCUPATION IN WOODSTOCK ROCK SHELTER, LIMPOPO PROVINCE WOODSTOCK ROCK SHELTER Woodstock Rock Shelter is located on the farm Woodstock 161 KQ (24o 02’ 52” South; 27o 48’ 15” East). Woodstock 161 KQ is a portion of Kaingo Nature Reserve in the Bulge Rivier District, Limpopo Province. Woodstock Rock Shelter has formed on the side of a steep cliff overlooking the Mokolo River. The floor of the rock shelter has some Later Stone Age lithics and a variety of ceramic sherds, including Bambata sherds. Some Middle Stone Age lithics were also observed on the dripline. The depth of deposit is estimated to be less than 50 centimetres. The sediment is dry and appears relatively undisturbed. The shelter offers several opportunities. First, there is potential to date the presence of Bambata pottery on the plateau. Secondly, the site offers an opportunity to date Middle Stone Age occupation in the Waterberg and to establish, once more, whether a gap in occupation exists between Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age/Iron Age on the high plateau. If a gap does exist at this site, it may be possible to establish its chronological extent. The site may also offer some potential to reconstruct Waterberg environment during the hiatus between the Middle Stone Age and the Later Stone Age because several hyrax middens are present on the cliff face and it may be possible to date these and examine their phytolith record to establish a vegetation record. Sediment cores will be taken for optically stimulated luminescence dating from the Middle Stone Age layers, charcoal samples will be dated from the Later Stone Age layers, and micromorphology blocks will be made for thin sections to study site formation processes. Charcoal will also be identified to ascertain taxa collected for firewood. The hillside on which the shelter is situated has diverse flora that will be recorded during the excavation period so that the modern and ancient vegetation records can be compared. The cliff forming Woodstock Rock Shelter has rock paintings on it. Most are faded and some have been scraped, perhaps in recent years to use the ochre for ‘muti’. A high ledge on the western part of the cliff has well-preserved paintings of mountain reedbuck. A test excavation of two square metres will be made in the middle of the shelter, from the back wall to the drip line. Geotextile will be placed on the floor of the shelter during excavation so that dust from walking does not affect the surviving paintings. The screening will take place at a distance so that dust does not enter the shelter. After the excavation, the trench will be rehabilitated with the sieved soil from the excavation placed in biodegradable hessian sacks. The sacks will then be hidden with sieved soil, raked over. Research question The earliest archaeological sites presently known on the Waterberg plateau contain Middle Stone Age cultural material in rock shelters and in the open. Only one shelter site on the plateau, Red Balloon, has dated Middle Stone Age occupations and it is important to obtain a better chronology. The Middle Stone Age sites are unlikely to be older than 300 000 years ago or younger than 30 000 years ago because this is the span of Middle Stone Age ages elsewhere in South Africa. Assuming that some of the plateau Middle Stone Age sites were as young as 30 000 years ago, there is a curious ±28 000 year old gap in occupation of the Waterberg plateau. Later Stone Age occupation on the plateau dates only to the last 1000 years, based on the preliminary work by van der Ryst (1998). Recent excavations on Kaingo Nature Reserve in a small rock shelter have yielded a radiocarbon date of 1860 BP, which extends van der Ryst’s chronology slightly, but Middle Stone Age occupations directly underlie this Later Stone Age occupation so the hiatus has again been demonstrated. We can speculate that the plateau was abandoned for environmental reasons that remain obscure until dates and environmental proxies become available. Understanding the hiatus in occupation and obtaining dates for the sequence is a major research objective. First, however, we need to be sure that a hiatus does exist in a number of sites, and this can only be discovered through the dating of several archaeological sites. The demographic movement into the Waterberg in the last 2000 years ago is unprecedented elsewhere in South Africa. Hunter-gatherers and farmers appear to have arrived on the plateau simultaneously as part of a symbiotic relationship that lasted for several hundred years.

ApplicationDate: 

Thursday, June 16, 2022 - 18:23

CaseID: 

18820

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Images
View of Woodstock unexcavated rock shelter floor
 
 

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