Page 16 - Bulletin 2 1998

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Late Pleistocene (125,000 – 10,000 years ago)

Between 125,000 and about 90,000 years ago, the sea level was up to 8 m above its present

level during the last Interglacial (warmer periods like the present.) Thereafter it receded
slowly to 130 m below present in a series of fluctuations with the onset of the Last Glacial

until the glacial peak at between 18 and 20,000 years ago. By 12,000 years ago the coast and
climatic and environmental conditions were again much the same as now. This would have

had the effect of first inundating large areas of the present False Bay coast, currently

occupied by houses, then ‘emptying’ False Bay to create a wide coastal plain, and
subsequently ‘re-filling’ it. (Fig. 1.4.)

Throughout this time, people undoubtedly continued to come and go and many of the glacial
period living areas have been covered by the sea. The human footprints at Langebaan

Lagoon, dated to some 117,000 years ago, are aligned with a trajectory that would have
carried the person over the present lagoon level. (Fig. 1.5.) This means that the dune down

which the person was walking extended into a much drier lagoon (if it existed at that point)
during a period of lowered sea level. We have no idea of the human demography at the time,

except that groups were probably sparsely distributed over areas which provided an adequate

suite of resources and that the overall population was relatively small. Presumably mobility
led to contact and enabled a healthy gene pool to be maintained.

Peer’s and Tunnel Caves, in Fish Hoek, and the Trappies Kop caves are the best-known sites

in the area. However, although they have yielded important MSA artefacts, the preservation
of faunal remains was minimal. Faunal remains from MSA sites, such as Die Kelders (85,000

to 40,000 years ago), occupied by anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens, and brown

hyaena den accumulations, eg. Swartklip (85,000 to 100,000 years ago), with the sea at 40 to
60 m below its present level, provide the best local evidence. In the Saldanha area,

Hoedjiespunt 1, and Sea Harvest have yielded MSA artefacts with faunal remains at least

75,000 years old and, together with Die Kelders Cave, provide the earliest evidence for the
use of shellfish in the region. These sites include a wide range of animals, many of which

were recorded in the area in historical times. Others, however, were only able to move into