Sites

Blombos Cave (BBC), situated near Still Bay in the southern Cape (34025’S, 21013’E), is some 100 m from the coast and 35 m above sea level. Professor Christopher Henshilwood, University of Bergen, Norway and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa discovered the site in 1991. Initial excavations were by him and Cedric Poggenpoel and later with a team of excavators. Under Henshilwood's direction the cave has been excavated from 1997 - 2009. Further excavations are planned for the future. The interior of the cave contains 55 sq. m of visible deposit with an estimated depth of ~ 4 -5 m at the front and ~ 3 m toward the rear. When excavations at BBC commenced in 1992 the cave entrance was almost totally sealed by dune sand, also, c. 20 cm of undisturbed aeolian sand overlay the surface of the Later Stone Age indicating no disturbance of the cave’s contents since the final Later Stone Age (LSA) occupation c. 290 years ago.