Kathu is a town in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and the iron ore capital of the

Northern Cape The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes ...

province. Its name means "town under the trees", after the Camel Thorn forest it is situated in. The phrase "the town under the trees" was coined by an engineer working in the town in the early-1990s as part of a tourist marketing drive, together with the accompanying graphic. It was intended to be a marketing slogan. The meaning of the word "Kathu" has anecdotically been attributed to a porridge brewed by the local population from the powder found in the pods of the Camel Thorn trees. Kathu was founded in the late-1960s or early-1970s. Kathu is situated between Upington and Vryburg with about a 2-hour drive to each. Kimberley is a 3-hour drive away, while Kuruman is only 20 minutes away.

Camel thorn tree forest

The Camel Thorn tre
Acacia erioloba
forest is one of only two in the world with the other being between Mariental and Rehoboth i
Namibia
Its unique nature was recognized in the early-1920s when it was declared a State Forest. In 1995 it was registered as a Natural Heritage Site. The Kathu Forest is approximately 4000 hectares in size and these Camel thorns trees provide support for large Sociable Weaver’s nests and are used by many other bird and animal species. In fact surveys has shown a moderate to high diversity in animal and plant species, including severa
Red Data
endemic and protected species in and around the forest. Bigger trees in the forest are reckoned to be older than 300 years.

Mining

The town and the accompanying industrial area of Sishen came into being because of

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

activity in the

Kalahari The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...

— it has one of the five largest open-cast iron ore mining operations in the world. The primary drilling and 'load and haul' mining equipment used by the mine include giant ore trucks that bear about 260 ton of ore with each load. Mining shovels used to load these trucks can weigh in excess of 800 tons and drilling equipment include drills that can drill up to 400 mm holes for blasting purposes. Some of the world's longest ore trains travel through harsh territory on the Sishen-Saldanha railway to offload their cargo at

Saldanha Bay Saldanha Bay () is a natural harbour on the south-western coast of South Africa. The town that developed on the northern shore of the bay, also called Saldanha, Western Cape, Saldanha, was incorporated with five other towns into the Saldanha Bay ...

. Kumba Iron Ore is the principal mine operator in Kathu.

Recreation

Kathu has a golf course and a small, well-stocked game reserve also adjoins the town. The town has a well established sporting complex including tennis courts, swimming pool and a golf course. One of the tennis courts is named after veteran tennis player Herta Hegewisch.

Kathu Archaeological Site Complex

Significant Stone Age sites occur in and around Kathu and on adjacent farms. These are subject to on-going archaeological research. The importance of the Kathu Pan site was highlighted in the November 16, 2012 issue of the journal ''Science'' in which Jayne Wilkins and colleagues reveal evidence of 500 000 year-old stone points (excavated by Peter Beaumont in 1979-1982), argued to be the earliest stone-tipped spears yet found. This conclusion, based partly on study of use wear, is taken to indicate that human ancestors used stone-tipped weapons for hunting 200 000 years earlier than previously thought. Wilkins is quoted as saying that the find does more than simply extend the prehistory of stone-tipped spears – it puts those first spears firmly in the hands of ''

Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' is a species of archaic human from the Middle Pleistocene of Europe and Africa, as well as potentially Asia depending on the taxonomic convention used. The species-level classification of ''Homo'' during the Middle Pleis ...

''. "Modern foragers use such tools to take down large game as part of cooperative, strategic hunts. Perhaps our ancestor did so too." Kathu Townlands, one of the richest early prehistoric archaeological sites at Kathu, has produced tens of thousands of Earlier Stone Age artifacts, including hand axes and other tools and estimated to be between 700,000 and one million years old. It is situated between the Kuruman Hills to the east and the Langberge mountains to the west. These discovery was made in 2013 by archaeologists from the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, in collaboration with the

McGregor Museum The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a multidisciplinary museum which serves Kimberley and the Northern Cape, established in 1907. Overview Housed at first in a purp ...

References

External links

Official website (Afrikaans)

Official website

{{Authority control Populated places in the Gamagara Local Municipality Mining communities in South Africa