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A reinvestigation of Holley Shelter

CaseViews

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ProposalDescription: 

Testing Holley Shelter for intact archaeological deposits. Small scale excavation in order to document the stratigraphy and to gain absolute chronometric ages. Verification of previous results based on Gordon Crambs old collection from the 1950s (Bader et al. 2015). KwaZulu-Natal.

Expanded_Motivation: 

I herewith submit my application the get permit to excavate at the archaeological site Holley Shelter situated on the land of Fountainhill Estate in uMshwati district, KwaZulu-Natal. In 2015 I published the archaeological material excavated at the site in the 1950s by Gordon Cramb and now stored at the KZN Museum Pietermaritzburg. I was able to detect 3 different occupational horizons at Holley Shelter, all associated with the Middle Stone Age (MSA). For more detailed information please find the article attached, which was published in 2015 in the Southern African Archaeological Bulletin. Despite the excellent preservation conditions and interesting observations at the archaeological material, until today there are no absolute chronometric ages for Holley Shelter available. In my paper from 2015 I suggested that the site might date to the late Marine Isotope Stage 3 but this was purely based on typological comparison. In order to get a better understanding of the stratigraphy and the real age of Holley Shelter I now intend to re-excavate the site on a small scale. I firstly plan to identify the old trenches by Gordon Cramb, to remove loose dirt and rubble and subsequently clean the section profiles. The entire site, including the trenches and profiles will be documented in a 3-dimensional way using structure from motion. Thus, a 3D Model of the site can be generated and provided to Amafa. Subsequently I will define 1 or 2 square meters of intact sediment and excavate from top to bedrock using state of the art archaeological methods. Excavation will proceed in ca. 1-2 cm spits that follow the natural slope of layers identified. All artefacts and ecofacts will be systematically collected using the Tübingen system of excavation used in the last years at other sites such as Sibhudu and Umbeli Belli. Artifacts larger and particularly significant finds will be pieceplotted individually using a Leica Total Station. Features will be identified and excavated with great care, and all buckets of sediment will be screened through 10 and 1 mm mesh in order to document even the smallest finds such as botanic seeds. The main goal of the excavations is to generate an assemblage from controlled excavations linked to absolute chronometric ages. Therefore, we will use C14 on charcoal and Optically Stimulated Luminescence on Quartz grains from the sediment. The archaeological, zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical assemblages will be analyzed while we are in South Africa. The results will be published in international and open access journals.

ApplicationDate: 

Tuesday, June 8, 2021 - 15:41

CaseID: 

16602

OtherReferences: 

ReferenceList: 

CitationReferenceType
Bader, G. D., Will, M. & Conard, N. J. 2015. The lithic technology of Holley Shelter, KwaZulu-Natal and its place within the MSA of southern Africa. The South African Archaeological Bulletin, 70, 149-165.
Images
location of the site
Holley Shelter
Holley Shelter
3D model of Crambs trench
 
 

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