PREHISTORY OF THE MATJES RIVER ROCK SHELTER

With 59 figures and 7 plates.

Memoir No. 1

143 pages, light brown cloth hard covers with the title to the front board. 

Matjes River rock shelter is a Provincial Heritage Site situated above the west bank at the mouth of the Matjes River, a small stream about 2 km east of Keurboomstrand in the Bitou Municipality in the Western Cape Province. Between 2000 and 12 000 years ago, long before European settlers came to South Africa, the shelter was used intermittently as a home by thousands of generations of San people who left their rubbish behind. By analysing the stone and bone tools, food remains such as shells and bones, and ornaments such as beads and pendants, as well as the bones of people buried there, archaeologists have been able to reconstruct information about the lifestyle of these Stone Age hunter-gatherers. The shelter is on private property and it was declared a national monument in 1953 under the Historical Monuments Act of 1934, and in 2000 became a Provincial Heritage Site when the National Heritage Resources Act (No. 25 of 1999) replaced the National Monuments Act (No. 29 of 1969). 

https://www.archaeology.org.za/news/202205/stabilisation-deposits-and-maintenance-work-matjes-river-rock-shelter