Page 21 - Bulletin 2 1998

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Excavations at Oudepost, a Dutch garrison post at Stofbergsfontein, Langebaan Lagoon,

which was later subjected to an attack by Khoisan people, revealed a mixture of European
and Khoisan artefacts, and symbolizes the contact process and resistance to it by Khoisan

people.

In addition to their effect on local people, the settlers’ use of guns and horses led to local and
real extinctions of fauna. While the herder strategy of burning the veld to improve grazing

may have contributed to the reduction of some wetlands, more-settled farming practices that

intensified this are considered to have led to the local extinction of the Wattled crane.
th
Hunting led to the extinction of the blue antelope and of the quagga in the 19 century. The
blue antelope, a grazer, which had been widespread and common in faunal samples from the

Middle Pleistocene to the last Glacial, was already restricted to a small area near Swellendam
and may have been an easy candidate, brought to a critical level by environmental factors,

reduced further by competition with Khoekhoe stock for limited grazing and a coup de gras
administered by the settlers.

References

Hendey, Q. B. (1982) Langebaanweg: a Record of Past Life. Cape Town: South African
Museum.

Hunter, C. (1987) Ancient tracks on Table Mountain. Sagittarius 2(4): 2-3. (South African
Museum).

Klein, R. G. (1975) Palaeoanthropological implications of the non-archaeological bone
assemblage from Swartklip 1, southwestern Cape Province, South Africa. Quaternary
Research, 5: 275-288.

Klein, R. G. & Cruz-Uribe, K. (1991) The bovids from Elandsfontein, South Africa, and their
implications for the age, palaeoenvironment, and origins of the site. The African
Archaeological Review, 9: 21-79.