Byneskranskop is an archaeological site in present-day
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...
where the coastal plain meets the southern
Cape Fold Belt
The Cape Fold Belt is a fold and thrust belt of late Paleozoic age, which affected the sequence of sedimentary rock layers of the Cape Supergroup in the southwestern corner of South Africa. It was originally continuous with the Ventana Moun ...
.
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
human remains have been discovered in caves at the site. Carbon dating of the remains indicates the bodies date from 3,000 to 2,000 years BCE.
Remains of tortoises at this site and a dig at
Die Kelders, have been used to assess a correlation between tortoise size and human population, with a decrease in tortoise sizes as the human population grows.
166,000 stone artefacts were recovered from the site during the first dig. These were dated as far back as 12,000 years BCE.
Pottery sherds were limited to the period of 250 years BCE or later.
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References
Stone Age Africa
Archaeological sites in South Africa
Archaeological sites of Southern Africa
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