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The catalogue
8 places to sift through. Narrow by kind, country, period or how firmly each one is established — contested and pseudoarchaeological claims are labelled here, never hidden.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Middle Stone Age (164–50 ka) · Early Homo sapiens coastal foragers
Pinnacle Point is the 164,000–50,000 BP sea-cliff cave complex (PP13B, PP5-6) 12 km E of Mossel Bay where Marean found earliest heat-treated silcrete (72 ka), bladelet microliths, marine shellfish…
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Middle Stone Age (120–55 ka) · Early Homo sapiens (MSA I–Howiesons Poort)
Klasies River Main site (KRM) is 5 caves/shelters on Tsitsikamma coast (34°06′29″S 24°23′24″E) with 120–55 ka MSA deposits containing anatomically modern human fossils (KRM 13400 mandible 115 ka),…
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Pliocene-Pleistocene (3.67–0.8 Ma Member 2–5) · Australopithecus africanus / early Homo / Paranthropus
Sterkfontein is the dolomitic limestone cave system 40 km NW of Johannesburg that yielded >500 hominin fossils including Mrs Ples (Australopithecus africanus 2.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock shelter
Middle Stone Age (77–38 ka) · Homo sapiens Still Bay–Howiesons Poort–Sibudan
Sibudu is the 55×18 m sandstone cliff shelter above Tongati River where Lyn Wadley found 77–38 ka MSA succession with earliest bow-and-arrow (64 ka quartz segments), earliest bedding (77 ka sedge…
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock shelter
Middle to Later Stone Age (227–44 ka to Iron Age) · Early Homo sapiens → San foragers
Border Cave is the 50×35 m west-facing shelter 600 m on Lebombo crest 365 m from Eswatini border with 227–44 ka continuous stratigraphy spanning ESA to Iron Age and early Homo sapiens fossils BC 1…
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Early Stone Age to Later Stone Age (2 Ma–14 ka) · Oldowan → Acheulean → MSA → LSA (Homo erectus to sapiens)
Wonderwerk Cave is the 140 m phreatic tube on Kuruman Hills with 2 Ma to 14 ka stratigraphy spanning Oldowan to Late Stone Age and earliest fire (1 Ma ash, burnt bone).
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Middle Pleistocene (335–236 ka Homo naledi deposition) · Homo naledi (small brain 460 cc)
Rising Star Cave system (20–30 m dolomite horizon, 3 km passages) yielded 1,550+ Homo naledi fossils (15 individuals) in Dinaledi Chamber (2013) and Lesedi Chamber (2015) by Berger.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock shelter
Middle Stone Age (130–45 ka, engraved eggs 60 ka) · Still Bay–Howiesons Poort Homo sapiens
Diepkloof Rock Shelter is the 25 m quartzite shelter above Verlorenvlei 15 km E of Elands Bay with 130–45 ka MSA stratigraphy and 270 fragments of engraved ostrich eggshell containers (60 ka…
