Eland Cave Faunal Material Dating

Proposed AMS C14 dating of faunal material from Eland Cave. Dating of the sheep/goat bones from Mazel’s Eland Cave test excavation in 1980, which have been identified by Klein (1980), and confirmed by Antonites (2019), provides the opportunity to further shed light on the possibility of a pastoralist presence, even if only ephemeral, in the eastern part of southern Africa around 2000 years ago. If these bones or at least some of them are dated back to around 2000 years ago this will provide strong evidence of the presence of pastoralists in eastern South Africa at the beginning of the first millennium AD and substantially change our understanding of the peopling of this region.