Cave of Hearths dating

The Cave of Hearths (CoH), located in the Makapan Valley in the Limpopo Province close to the modern town of Mokopane, has long been an influential site to trace the evolution of hominins in southern Africa (Mason 1969; 1988, McNabb and Sinclair 2009). Apart from some earlier investigations, excavations were initiated in the 1940s and continued into the 1950s (Mason 1969). The CoH yielded in situ Acheulian (Early Stone Age; ESA) occupation in Beds 1 to 3, which dates to between 780 000 and 500 000 years ago (Herries and Latham 2009). The CoH also has an extensive Middle Stone Age (MSA) occupation, found in Beds 4 to 9, as well as ephemeral Later Stone Age (LSA) and recent Iron Age/historical occupations. Mason (1969) divided the MSA beds at the CoH, based on lithics, as follows: Bed 4 – Early Pietersburg Culture, Bed 5 – Middle Pietersburg Culture, and Beds 6-9 – Later Pietersburg Culture. The presence of lithics from the Pietersburg Industry places the MSA at the CoH in the MSA I and II, dating to between 128 000 and 75 000 (Wurz 2013). Following the excavations from several decades ago, the large mammal fauna was identified by Cooke (1969, 1988). More recently, the taphonomy of the ESA Beds 1-3 was studied (Ogola 2003, 2009). Carnivore chew marks, rodent gnaw marks (mostly by porcupines) and butchery evidence by people have been noted on the large mammal remains (Cooke 1969, 1988), suggesting a complex accumulation history for the fauna. More recently, some aspects of the MSA fauna have been restudied by students that I am supervising (Khoaele 2021, Maloka in preparation, Masekwa 2021). These recent studies are part of my research agenda to reinvestigate the fauna from the CoH. Moreover, these three recent studies are already confirmed a complex history of bone accumulation at the CoH. At the time of Cooke’s (1969) study, an understanding of taphonomy was in its infancy. It was only in the following decades that the seminal work by Brain (1981) was able to distinguish between those faunal assemblages accumulated by hominins, hyenas, leopards, porcupines and birds of prey. This area of taphonomy has remained an important avenue of research in South Africa (e.g. Cruz-Uribe 1991, Hutson and Cain 2008). It is evident that a re-analyses of the CoH fauna has great potential.