🇿🇦 South Africa · Rock art
Drakensberg uKhahlamba Rock Art
Later Stone Age ~4000 BP–1800 CE · San (Bushman) hunter-gatherer
35,000 San paintings in 600 Drakensberg shelters - shamanic eland dance archive.
🇿🇦 South Africa · Cave
Rising Star Cave — Homo Naledi Chamber
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
Border Cave — Early Homo Sapiens 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
Sterkfontein Caves — Cradle of Humankind
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 · Cave
Pinnacle Point Caves — Early Modern Human Site
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 · Ancient city
Thulamela
Zimbabwe–Khami Tradition (Late Iron Age 1250–1700 CE) · Shona-Venda (Lemba/Vhangona) / Tsonga hinterland
5 ha hilltop Mapungubwe-descendant gold citadel with Queen's grave (gold bangles, Chinese porcelain) controlling Levuhbu–Indian Ocean ivory route.