Heritage Cases

This project consists of a team of highly experienced and senior research academics in a unique collaboration to expand on research conducted by Larbey and other team members (Larbey et al., 2019). That research identified some of the earliest cooking of starchy plants by early modern humans. We now seek to understand plant food processing, any plants used as medicine, and the possibility of plant fibres being used as string. Research from Klasies River has established that humans who occupied these caves and rock shelters had complex cognitive abilities, and were capable of complex, multi-step processing for lithics (Wurz, 2008; 2012; 2013; 2018). This research has never been done before in a single project that uses multi-disciplinary methods to achieve a better understanding of the importance of plants in early hunter-gatherers. We will analyse use-wear on the grindstones using a range of non-intrusive spectroscopy and scans and FTIR analysis for the sediments; We will use compound microscopes and scanning electron microscopes to analyse charred botanical remains from the sediments and will also analyse phytoliths from the site. 1. Grindstone Analysis The export of three grindstones from Cave 1A, Howiesons Poort Levels (65-55 kya) for FTIR/Micro-FTIR analyses, non-invasive scanning, plus residue and use-wear analyses, to understand how the grindstones were used and what materials were ground on them. The grindstones will not be damaged/destroyed and not all of the residues will be removed allowing for future research. It is proposed that the stones be couriered direct to Prof. Laura Longo at Ca’Foscari University of Venice, where Dr Cynthia Larbey and Dr Susan Mentzer will also conduct the analyses. The stones will be returned to the University of Witwatersrand. 2. Archaeobotany Sediment Samples 2.1 Sediment samples from Cave 1B, Cave 1 and off-site. 2.2 Sediment samples taken from hearths in the SBLS levels of Cave 1 in 2022. 2.3 Sediment samples to be taken from Cave 1, from the SBLS/LBS shell midden sequences. These sediment samples will be taken to the University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom for botanical analyses of charred plant macro-fossils and preserved phytolith micro-fossils that allow research into plant uses into Middle Stone Age diet, medicines and plant raw materials. We will be using compound and scanning electron microscopes, and Raman spectroscopy. The methods used and aims of the project are detailed in the Research Proposal. Team Profiles Professor Sarah Wurz is the world renown director of the Klasies River site, having pioneered the understanding of stone tools and their changes as an adaptive response to ecological change at Klasies (Wurz, 1999, Wurz, 2008; Wurz, 2012; Wurz, 2013). Under her leadership, there is significantly better knowledge about the dates of this globally important site and about the anatomy and cognitive behaviour of early modern humans (Wurz et al. 2018). Prof. Wurz has supported new techniques and experimental archaeology that has cast new light on our understanding of the control of fire , the plant environment of Klasies River, the plant diet of its hunter-gatherers, the complex geology, and the use of micro-fauna to re-create ecology and environments. Here she directs a new, advanced phase of plant-based research. Professor Karen Hardy is an outstanding archaeological scientist who pioneered the analysis of dental calculus, a method that not only allows us to understand better the environment in which these people most recently lived, but also the micro-biome of their mouth and gut, often represented in dental calculus (Hardy et al., 2009; 2012; 2016). Professor Hardy now leads a major project (the Power of Plants Project) that researches plants in pre-agrarian contexts, helping to change narratives about diet, raw materials and medicine (Hardy 2007; 2008; 2016; 2018; 2022). She has also extensively researched the shell middens of Senegal, which are relevant to the work proposed by this project in Klasies River (Bailey, Hardy & Camara, 2013; Hardy et al., 2016; Camara et al., 2017; Hardy, 2017). Dr Cynthia Larbey is a University of Cambridge trained archaeobotanist, holding a BA Hons, MPhil (Distinction) and a PhD from Cambridge and has held the Cambridge Renfrew Post-Doctoral Fellowship. She completed her PhD research on Klasies River in 2018. Her research used new techniques that recovered the earliest known evidence of early humans cooking and consuming starchy plants at 120 kya (Larbey et al., 2019), and also established that starchy plants were a regular feature of the early human diet. With further unpublished evidence from her previous research, she returns now, as part of Professor Hardy’s project, to continue her research into processed plant foods diet, but also to search for plants as raw materials, such as fibres used in nets to carry shell fish to the cave. Professor Laura Longo, Associate Professor of Prehistory and Protohistory, at the Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy and a member of the Power of Plants Project, is a specialist in use-wear traces, functional analysis, and use-related biogenic residue analysis; having developed many of the methods used in the laboratory today (Longo et al., 2021a; Longo et al., 2021b). Her career has included posts such as Museum Curator in the Prehistory Department of the Natural History Museum, and Scientific Co-ordinator for the Museums in Florence (archaeological sites and art museums). Dr Susan Mentzer is a geoarchaeologist with the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Dr Mentzer specialises in micromorphological analysis of sediment produced by humans and animals, with particular interest in micro-analytical approaches such as micro-FTIR and micro-XRF. She has extensive experience across Africa and with Klasies River in particular, with a thorough comprehension of the sediments throughout the Main Site (Mentzer & Wurz, 2019; Larbey et al., 2019; Morrissey, Mentzer & Wurz, 2022). Klasies River Main Site, Humansdorp, Eastern Cape Province.