Wonderwerk cave

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Wonderwerk cave

BW

Location: Kuruman , South Africa
Geographic
location:
27 ° 50 ′ 46 ″  S , 23 ° 33 ′ 19 ″  E Coordinates: 27 ° 50 ′ 46 ″  S , 23 ° 33 ′ 19 ″  E
Wonderwerk Cave (North Cape)
Wonderwerk cave
Particularities: archaeological site

The Wonderwerk Cave is an archaeological site in the South African province of North Cape , around 45 kilometers south of Kuruman , on the east side of the Kuruman Hills . In the large cave, artifacts have been found in numerous layers of the soil , including stone tools from the Early Stone Age , the Middle Stone Age and the Late Stone Age , which suggest a settlement from the Old Pleistocene to the Holocene .

The Wonderwerk Cave is around 140 meters long and has a floor area of ​​around 2400 square meters. It extends almost horizontally into the surrounding rock of Precambrian dolomite , from which it was washed out. The up to six meters thick deposits above the rock are possibly up to two million years old.

The Wonderwerk Cave was first examined archaeologically in the early 1940s after stone tools were discovered while excavating bat guano . From the 1970s, first Karl W. Butzer and then Peter B. Beaumont (McGregor Museum, Kimberley ) explored the cave.

Based on the fossil teeth of herbivores recovered in the cave , which perished in it around two million years ago, the paleoclimate of this era could be identified as much more humid than anywhere in Africa today.

In addition to the numerous stone tools found, remains of burned bones and parts of plants were repeatedly discovered, which were interpreted as evidence of a very early mastery of fire - a million years ago - by the former residents.

There are also some Stone Age cave paintings near the opening, but they have recently been damaged by graffiti from visitors.

See also

Web links

  • eurekalert.org of April 2, 2012: Scientists find evidence that human ancestors used fire one million years ago. (with pictures)
  • McGregor Museum Kimberley : Information about the excavations (PDF, English; 191 kB)
  • McGregor Museum Kimberley : Visitor information about the Wonderwerk Cave (PDF, English; 127 kB)
  • scinexx.de of December 23, 2008: "Humans lived in caves two million years ago."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter B. Beaumont, and John C. Vogel: On a timescale for the past million years of human history in central South Africa. In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 102, 2006, pp. 217–228, full text (PDF; 1.2 MB)
  2. Michael Chazan et al .: Radiometric dating of the Earlier Stone Age sequence in Excavation I at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa: preliminary results. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 55, No. 1, 2008, pp. 1-11, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.01.004
  3. ^ Barend Daniel Malan, Herbert Basil Sutton Cooke: A preliminary account of the Wonderwerk Cave, Kuruman district. In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 37, 1941, pp. 300-312
  4. ^ Barend Daniel Malan, Lawrence Herbert Wells: A further report on the Wonderwerk Cave, Kuruman. In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 40, 1943, pp. 258-270
  5. ^ Karl W. Butzer et al .: The geo-archeaological sequence of Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Abstract of paper presented to the Society of Africanist Archaeologists in America. Calgary, April 1979
  6. Michaela Ecker, James S. Brink, Lloyd Rossouw, Michael Chazan, Liora K. Horwitz and Julia A. Lee-Thorp: The palaeoecological context of the Oldowan – Acheulean in southern Africa. In: Nature Ecology & Evolution. Online publication from May 21, 2018, doi: 10.1038 / s41559-018-0560-0
    Prehistoric teeth dating back 2 million years reveal details on ancient Africa's climate. On: eurekalert.org from May 28, 2018
  7. Peter B. Beaumont: The Edge: More on Fire-Making by about 1.7 Million Years Ago at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. In: Current Anthropology Volume 52, No. 4, 2011, pp. 585-595
  8. Francesco Berna et al .: Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa. In: PNAS . Volume 109, No. 20, 2012, pp. E1215-E1220, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1117620109
  9. nature.com of April 2, 2012: Million-year-old ash hints at origins of cooking. South African cave yields earliest evidence for human use of fire.
    Richard G. Roberts and Michael I. Bird: Evolutionary anthropology: Homo 'incendius' . In: Nature . Volume 485, 2012, pp. 586-587, doi: 10.1038 / nature11195