Beginning about 125,000 years ago, a handful of our human ancestors lived in a handful of caves on the Tsitsikamma coast of South Africa, near the small stream called Klasies River. The site located at the very southern tip of Africa provides evidence of the behavior of Homo sapiens at our very earliest moments of existence, and a slightly uncomfortable peek into our distant past.
People who lived in caves were modern humans who lived by recognizably human methods, hunting game and gathering plant foods. Evidence for our other hominid ancestors--Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, for example--suggests that they primarily scavenged other animal's kills; the Homo sapiens of Klasies River caves knew how to hunt. The Klasies River people dined on shellfish, antelope, seals, penguins, and some unidentified plant foods, roasting them in hearths built for the purpose. The caves were not permanent residences for the humans who inhabited them, as best as we can tell; they only stayed for a few weeks, then moved along to the next hunting stand. Stone tools and flakes made from beach cobbles were recovered from the earliest levels of the site. .
The Middle Stone Age Howieson's Poort lithic technology is nearly unique for its time; similar tool types are not found anywhere else until the much later Late Stone Age assemblages. While archaeologists and paleontologists continue to debate whether modern humans are descended only from the Homo sapiens populations from Africa, or from a combination of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal, the Klasies River cave populations are still our ancestors, and are still representatives of the earliest known modern humans on the planet. .
Early modern humans in North Africa and south of the Sahara are.
associated with the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age. A comparative study between key sites from both regions will be conducted to test whether the differences are valid.
