Someone in the Kalahari collected crystals 105,000 years ago

A shelter in South Africa’s Kalahari documents the innovative behaviors of the first humans who lived there 105,000 years ago. We report the new evidence today in Nature.

The Rockshelter site is at Ga-Mohana Hill – a striking feature that stands proudly above a vast savannah landscape.

Many residents of nearby towns consider Ga-Mohana to be a spiritual place, linked to the stories of a great water serpent. Some members of the community use the area for prayer and rituals. The hill is associated with mystery, fear and secrecy.

Now our findings reveal how important this place was even 105,000 years ago, documenting a long history of its spiritual significance. Our research also challenges a dominant narrative that the Kalahari region is peripheral in debates about the origins of humans.

We know our species, homo sapiens, emerged for the first time in Africa. Evidence for the complex behaviors that define us has mostly been found at coastal sites in South Africa, supporting the idea that our origins were linked to coastal resources.

This view should now be revised.

(Author provided)

Above: The Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter is located near the town of Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa.

A crystal clear discovery

We found 22 white, well-formed calcite crystals brought to the site 105,000 years ago. We determined this using a method called “optically stimulated luminescence”, which dates the sediment from which the crystals were extracted.

Our analysis indicates that the crystals were not introduced into the deposits through natural processes, but rather represent a small cache of deliberately collected objects.

Crystals found across the planet and from several periods of time have previously been linked to spiritual belief and ritual in humans. This includes in southern Africa.

People on the similarity of coastal sites started collecting non-food seashells around the same time (but not earlier) – perhaps for similar reasons.

One of 22 calcite crystals mined from 105,000-year-old deposits. (Author provided)

Egg Quote Technology

Ostrich eggshells can make excellent water storage containers and were used as such in southern Africa during the Pleistocene and Holocene. At coastal sites, the first evidence for this technology dates back approximately 105,000 years.

At Ga-Mohana Hill, we found fragments of ostrich eggshell that show all signs of being collected by humans, based on their strong association with artifacts (including bones of animals marked after being slaughtered) and evidence of having been burned. These fragments can be the remains of the first containers.

(Author provided)

Above: 105,000-year-old ostrich eggshell fragments (left). Modern example of an ostrich eggshell canteen (right).

This suggests that the early humans of the Kalahari were no less innovative than those living on the coast.

A global effort

International and interdisciplinary collaboration makes the best research and the authorship of our article includes researchers from eight institutions across Australia, South Africa, Canada, Austria and the United Kingdom.

Local South African collaborators have a particularly crucial role. For example, Robyn Pickering, Jessica von der Meden, and Wendy Khumalo of the University of Cape Town provided important paleoenvironmental context for archeology.

By dating the tuff deposits around Ga-Mohana Hill, they showed that water was more abundant 105,000 years ago when the first humans used the rock shelter.

The water serpent

Many who visit Ga-Mohana Hill today for ritual practice see it as part of a network of places related to the Great Water Serpent (Nnoga ya metsi), a capricious and shape-changing being. Many of these spiritual places are also associated with water.

Places such as Ga-Mohana Hill and their associated histories remain among the most enduring intangible cultural objects of the past, connecting modern indigenous South Africans to earlier communities.

These enduring beliefs establish an important sense of direction in a country that has been spatially disoriented by colonial disturbances.

An illustrative representation of the Great Water Serpent by Sechaba Maape. (Maape community)

Respectful research benefits everyone

Those who visit the site today for ritual purposes rely on its association with fear to launch them into desired ritual states. The remoteness of the site contributes greatly to this.

Recognizing this importance, we have adjusted our project methods so as not to undermine the practices held there. For example, after each excavation season, the areas we are working on are completely backfilled and covered with sediment.

This way, we can carefully retrieve our sections later, but leave almost no visible traces of our work. We have not erected any signage or structures, nor left any significant permanent modifications.

Community engagement continues as we consider ways to integrate the cultural and archaeological values ​​of Ga-Mohana Hill. We are working to further develop an approach that has a positive impact on local communities, while reflecting on what these communities teach us – especially in regards to respect and rituals.

From an archaeological perspective, we believe that this approach will help ensure that Ga-Mohana Hill can continue to offer new and valuable information on the evolution of the homo sapiens in the Kalahari.

Jayne Wilkins, ARC DECRA Researcher, Griffith University and Sechaba Maape, Senior Lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.