Page 60 - Research & Innovation Report 2020
P. 60
SCIENCE
middle to late Pleistocene era, approximately 158 000 to 70 000
years ago.
“We know people were doing ‘palaeoart’ engravings in this area,” Astonishing finds by
says De Vynck, “For example, at the world-renowned Blombos
Cave, about 30km to the west of the triangles site, Professor dozens of researchers
Christopher Henshilwood has made a series of finds since the
1990s, including engraved ochre and drawings dated to 77 000 and With a multi- and transdisciplinary international
73 000 years ago respectively, and other finds such as deliberately collaboration with researchers from over 40
perforated shells used to make necklaces, as well as bone awls and universities in Africa, America and Europe, the
a paint processing kit all made by hominins.” ACCP team has made numerous astonishing
finds from the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, a submerged
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Possibly the oldest examples of cognitively modern human beings landscape spanning 85 000 km , lying off the
are at Pinnacle Point Cave near Mossel Bay. Here Dr Curtis Marean, southern Cape coastline. Humans roamed this
honorary professor at Nelson Mandela University and international landscape, exposed when ice ages caused sea
director of the ACCP, and his team have evidence that humans levels to drop, from at least 164 000 years ago.
started to forage from the sea 164 000 years ago.
In May 2020 the journal Quaternary Science
Reviews published a special edition called The
Marean explains that the vast deposits of discarded shells in Palaeo-Agulhas Plain: a lost world and extinct
middens in the cave indicate that humans of that time had been ecosystem. It includes 23 papers from global
harvesting shellfish in the intertidal zone, which is only viable for contributors, many being ACCP authors and co-
shellfish harvesting during a limited period around the spring tide. authors.
This evidence of early humans’ knowledge of the lunar cycles,
combined with the nutritional benefits of shellfish for brain growth “It is a beautiful example of research between
and fertility may well indicate that the revolution in humanity’s the disciplines as it includes, amongst others,
cognitive development started on the shores of southern Africa. ethnobotany, ichnology (the study of tracks and
traces), geology, human behavioural ecology,
Helm, C. W., H. C. Cawthra, J. C. De Vynck, C. J. Helm, R. Rust and W. Stear, palaeobotany, archaeology, ethnography, and
2021. ‘Large geometric patterns from the Middle Stone Age in aeolianites on the
Cape south coast, South Africa’, Rock Art Research 38 (1) pp 10–22. experimental archaeology,” says De Vynck. “It
features research we have undertaken over the
past ten years, which has had a profound impact.
We are openly sharing what we know as it is an
asset to the South African and world community.”
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