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On visits to the caves we have seen the
beautiful African Black Oystercatcher on numerous occasions.
The African black Oystercatcher is South
Africa's second rarest coastal breeding bird. The total population
is less than 5 000 birds. Their glossy black plumage, bright red
eyes, beak and legs, and plaintive call make them a distinctive and
very appealing species.
African black Oystercatchers occur along
the coast and off-shore islands from Namibia to the Eastern Cape.
They are usually found on sandy or rocky shores, and less frequently
on coastal vleis and lagoons.
Oystercatchers almost always occur in
pairs or small groups. The breeding season is from September to
March. They nest on exposed sand, rocks, next to dried kelp or among
stones. Usually two eggs are laid, of a greenish or buff stony
colour with dark brown spots, which provides an effective camouflage
against predators.
The name Oystercatcher is misleading as
they feed mainly on mussels, limpets, whelks, crustaceans and
various worms, rarely if ever taking oysters.
Lionel Paeper |
Klipgat
& Duiwelsgat Caves in De Kelders
This is a copy of a
local news paper report by Dr. Graham Avery
This is not the Lady Ann
Barnard Cave, which is located under the old De Kelders Hotel but an
excavation in the Walker Bay Nature reserve in a complex of open
caves.
The cave was originally a
subterranean solution cavity, like the Cango Caves, that formed in the
Bredasdorp Group Limestone millions of years ago. Much later, a rising
sea level cut an opening into this and the remnants from the roof and
sides of the present cave.
The bottom of the cave is Table Mountain Sandstone onto which the
dunes that subsequently forms the limestone were originally deposited.
The cave extend into the cave bottom and were encountered some 5m
below the top of the archaeological deposits. The cave, also know as
the Klipgat Cave, was first excavated in 1969 by the late Frank
Schweitzer of the South African Museum.
Frank Schweitzer found the
first evidence that later stone age sheep-keeping Khoikhoi
pastoralists were already living in the Western Cape 1600 to 2000
years ago. He also discovered 2000 year-old-pieces of pots that the
Khoikhoi or their San-Hunter gatherer antecedents had discarded
amongst the stone and bone artifacts and ornaments and remains of the
shellfish, fish and other animals they had eaten in their cave
campsite.
In still deeper deposits, he uncovered the artifacts and beautifully
preserved bone food remains left there by Middle Stone age (MSA)
people some 40 000 to 80 000 years ago and some human teeth. This
reveals the even greater importance of the site as a source of
information on early human (Homo Sapiens) physical, technological,
cultural and socio-economic development.
In 1992, a joint venture led by Fred Grine (State University of New
York at Stony Brook), Richard Klein (Stanford University), Curtis
Marean (State University of New York at Stony Brook) and Gram Avery
(South African), funded by the National Science foundation in the
United States of America, was established to extend the original
excavation in order to:
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Enlarge the artifact and bone samples.
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Use
new methods to date the deposits more accurately.
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Find
better-preserved remains of the early humans that would enable
physical anthropologists to gain a better idea of their
anatomical features.
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Find
evidence for the development of human behaviour.
The MSA human remains from
De Kelders are among the earliest in the world belonging to
anatomically modern-looking Homo Sapiens (our own species, which has
existed from at least 130 000 years ago). Such early remains have been
found in only three South African sites, and in the Middle East. This
evidence contributes to knowledge of our relationship to the
Neanderthals-Homo Sapiens.
Neanderthalensis of Europe
and the Middle East, who were their contemporaries and to the theory
that modern people originated in Africa before dispersing around the
world. Very recent research has indicated that the Neanderthals were
not related to us at all, but had a separate origin, living parallel
with modern Homo Sapiens until about 35 000 years ago when they
disappeared.
Information on the
behaviour of the De Kelders Stone Age people, gleaned through studies
of the technological, cultural and subsistence practices deduced form
the artifact and bone samples and the evidence from fire places, will
also help us to understand how they made their tools, obtained and
prepared their food and some aspects of their social lives.
Modern-looking people behaved in a "modern" way at an early stage or
whether that level of intellectual expression developed only 50 000 to
40 000 years ago, as some archaeological evidence suggests. Remains of
the animals they ate and the bones of mice, shrews and bats left by
barn owls that roosted in the cave also provide us with information
about the climatic, vegetation and sea-level settings that the people
had to cope with.
We know the coast was a least 10km out in Walker Bay, which was high
and dry during a period of lower sea level in the last glacial (Ice
Age) and that there was a river or wetlands out there. At times,
during this period, the climate was wetter or drier, which changed the
vegetation and the variety of foods and raw materials available to the
people.
Remeber to wear good walking shoes
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