Wonderwerk Cave, located in the Northern Cape Province between the towns of Danielskuil and Kuruman provides the oldest known human occupation of a cave with strata reaching back almost two million years.  Excavations by the late Peter Beaumont exposed a sequence of Oldowan, Acheulean, Fauresmith, and Middle Stone Age contexts underlying a significant Later Stone Age component (excavated by Francis and Anne Thackeray).  This talk will present some of the key results from the last ten years of research by the Wonderwerk Cave Research Project including the early evidence for the use of fire, the use of ochre and specularite as far back as 500,000 years ago, and the development of a long term climate record for the last two million years for the interior of South Africa. 

 

Research at Wonderwerk Cave is carried out with support of funding from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Paleontological Scientific trust in collaboration with the McGregor Museum Kimberley.