Page 14 - Bulletin 2 1998

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sea-level of the Middle Pliocene. Nearby, at another quarry, fragmentary fossils, probably of

very late Pliocene or early Pleistocene age, include the one-toed horse (zebra?), which is
known to have entered Africa from Eurasia 2 million years ago. At Elandsfontein, near

Hopefield, some of the earlier remains are Early Pleistocene or earlier in age (1,7 mya –
800,000 years ago) and include the short-necked giraffe, a sabre-toothed cat, giant bushpig

and warthog-like pigs and a giant baboon, which became extinct about 1 mya. At Baard’s
Quarry, near Langebaanweg, and at Skurwerug, near Saldanha, isolated fossils from the Early

or Middle Pleistocene, include a skull of a giant pig such as mentioned previously.

The earliest evidence of human activity, in the form of hand axes and other tools used by

Early Stone Age (ESA) people, is found in deposits of probably one million years old.

Possible examples are from the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve and from the gravels in
Tokai and Constantia vineyards.

Middle Pleistocene Epoch (800,000 – 125,000 years ago)

But, in order to continue our story, we must move to the farm Elandsfontein near Hopefield,

where the wind exposed accumulations of fossilized bones and Stone Age artefacts, most of

which were laid down from 500 – 200,000 years ago and later, during the Upper Pleistocene
and Holocene. The fossils appear to have accumulated from a limited variety of habitats in

the vicinity of inland springs or pans and the variety of species found is, therefore, also
limited. In spite of this, the site is also a globally important source of information on our past.

Little detail is known of the vegetation, although pollens from a fossil hyaena scat (coprolite)

included a species of tree now only found some 500 km to the north. The presence in some

assemblages, where we know we are dealing with material deposited at the same time, of
mammalian species such as kudu and black rhinoceros indicate that there was probably more

bush than at present, while the grazers, such as white rhinoceros, wildebeest, hartebeest,

springbok, reed buck and zebras, indicate grassland. All the Elandsfontein species are African
types, and most are directly ancestral to modern ones. Few extinctions have taken place.