TUESDAY 10 JULY: 18:00 for 18:30 at the SA Astronomical Observatory auditorium: Lita Webley:  “Spoegrivier Cave, Namaqualand: a re-assessment of its archaeology”.  

 

Excavations at Spoegrivier Cave some twenty years ago uncovered fragmentary sheep remains which were dated to 2100 years ago. These were the earliest dates for domestic stock in a Later Stone Age context at that time, and the results were cited in many publications. However, there have been a number of new studies which have been published in the last twenty years, and which have critically examined the introduction of pastoralism to South Africa. In this talk, I re-examine the archaeology of Spoegrivier Cave in the light of the ongoing debate about the introduction of pastoralism.