Sites

The Borrow Pit SS-D_BP01 study site has largely been worked out, with little material for construction purposes
remaining. Pending further geotechnical test Eyethu may need to make use of the site. Excavation at the site yielded large sections, in excess of 1m high and mainly anthropogenically sterile, with a shallow approximate 7-10cm top cultural layer identifiable to the south-west of the site and with lithic artefacts still visible on the surface towards the east and south-west. Surface artefacts were visible on a small narrow strip along the south-western boundary of the site, but along the eastern strip small clusters of surface artefacts are primarily found eroding down erosion gullies and in churned dump material. A rough artefact density, gathered from the better context deposits towards the south-western strip approximates an artefact ration (artefacts: m²) of 8:1, implying original fairly high artefact densities. Typologically artefacts can be ascribed to the Middle Stone Age (MSA); a Voman (1984) MSA 2b – MSA3, with an admixture of macrolithic Later Stone Age (LSA) lithics. Types include cores, flakes, scrapers, a few flake-blade samples together with knapping debitage, comprising primarily of
waste flakes and chunks, in cased reshaped and re-used. Raw material used include primarily fine grained granite,
but also sandstone, jasperlite, baked shales and a number of siliceous and metamorphic stones, inferred to have
been sourced locally, perhaps directly from a former small outcrops at the site locale. The site has however largely
already been destroyed by former quarrying impact, with little of mitigatory value left. Anthropogenic sterile
surface areas along the south-eastern part of the study site indicate a former notably confined Stone Age knapping
site.