New high-resolution paleoecological records of Wonderwerk Cave and Klasies River during the late Pleistocene and Holocene Later Stone Age

01/07/2020 to 28/02/2022

This project from Dr. Sara Rhodes aims at producing diachronic terrestrial paleoenvironmental records of the Late Stone Age (LSA) period at Wonderwerk Cave and Klasies River Mouth (South Africa, 8,000 to 4,500 BP), by applying both traditional zooarchaeological methods and stable isotope analysis to faunal material. At both sites, a diachronic record of past landscape change and isolate shifts in vegetation, temperature and precipitation through time will be established. These two climatic sequences will illuminate the ecological context of a number of key LSA cultural developments within both coastal and interior biomes. Overall, this project will help resolve many outstanding questions surrounding the complexity of southern Africa’s LSA climate and vegetative dynamics and contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the variability of African biotic and anthropogenic response to local and global climatic events.