Motsetsi Cave (also known as Motsetse) is a fossil-bearing

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

filled cavity located about east of the well known South African

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...

-bearing sites of

Sterkfontein Sterkfontein (Afrikaans for ''Strong Spring'') is a set of limestone caves of special interest in paleoanthropology located in Gauteng province, about northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Muldersdrift area close to the town of K ...

and

Kromdraai Kromdraai Conservancy is a protected conservation park located to the south-west of Gauteng province in north-east South Africa. It is in the Muldersdrift area not far from Krugersdorp. Etymology Its name is derived from Afrikaans meaning "Cr ...

and about north-northwest of

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

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 ...

. Motsetsi has been declared a South African National Heritage Site.

History of investigations

Motsetsi has been investigated since its discovery by Lee Berger in 1999. Since then a series of part-time excavations have recovered tens of thousands of fossils. Excavations have been conducted at Motsetse by the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

and at times in conjunction with Peter Schmid of the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

. Only a very small part of this site has been excavated.

Recovered fossils

Of the many thousands of fossils recovered from Motsetsi, no hominid fossils have yet been found. Many very fine fossils of other animals, however, have been discovered including the remains of very well preserved ''

Dinofelis ''Dinofelis'' is an extinct genus of machairodontine (sabre-toothed cat), usually classified in the tribe Metailurini. It was widespread in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America from 5 million to about 1.2 million years ago (early Pliocene to ...

'' fossils – a type of false saber-toothed cat.

Geology

Motsetse is a series of breccia-filled dolomitic caves that formed in a fissure along a geological fault.

Age of the deposits

Motsetsi has been dated to 1.0 to 1.6 million years old based on the animals recovered.

References

{{Greater Johannesburg, natural Archaeological sites in South Africa Caves of South Africa Landforms of Gauteng Limestone caves Pleistocene paleontological sites of Africa South African heritage sites Archaeological sites of Southern Africa Cradle of Humankind