Rising Star Expedition and Graduation

We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news!

Mike, Aurora and me after graduation! Mike and Aurora are in red robes and silly hats cos they are PhD graduates

I returned to Joburg for a few days this week in order to attend the graduation event for my Masters degree. Now this is the third (and will not even be the last) graduation I have attended. And part of you kinda thinks do I really need to go through this whole thing again? But I must say it really is worth it. It does feel so good to walk up on stage and get your certificate. The other plus side was that there were many people from my old department, many of my friends that were graduating at the same event, so in the end it was the best graduation that I have ever attended! After the event, everyone including the head of the department went for drinks in the local pub. Tonight Mike is throwing a party to celebrate, a costume party with a 1990's theme. Should be interesting!

In other news, yesterday Aurora and I went to go see the excavations at the new rising star site that has been plastered all over the web and the news. If you have not been following then go to the National Geographic website for more info. To give you give you the short version. Local cavers (spelunkers) were exploring in a cave when they found what they thought were bones. They showed pictures of the remains to a local palaeontologist who recognised their potential importance. Thus Rising Star was born.

Looking through excavated sediments for small bones

 
Arriving in an empty field where a couple of ponies are grazing you will find a surprising security contingent and a tented emcampment. You may even find a couple archaeologists sitting in the shade having a lunchtime beer and talking.

Rising Star Camp

 
Take a wander up the hill, past outcrops of dolomitic rocks and you will find the command center (a larger tent) sitting next to the entrance to the cave. In there you will find banks of computers showing live camera feeds from inside the cave and others showing digital scanns and projections of the underground site. And most importantly, you will find presiding over his dominion, the modern "Indiana Jones" of archaeology Prof L.R. Berger!

The command center and the cave entrance

You have to hand it to him, there is a man that knows how to publicise palaeoanthropology and archaeology, how to bring them to the people. You may not like his methods, but you have to admire his style!

The entrance to the cave

 In the science tent we were introduced to the 600+ remains recovered from the site so far. Of particular interest  is the fact that with the exception of a couple of owl bones and some small rodent incisors all 600 remains are from hominids. As to which hominid, it is unclear at this stage. 

I dont envy these guys, it was sweltering inside the tent!

  The almost complete lack of faunal (animal) remains is extremely curious. Rising star is positioned close to other famous localities like Swartkrans, Sterkfontein and Kromdraai, all of which are rich in fauna. Indeed its impossible at this time to guess at the processes that could have accumulated so many hominid remains in such a deep cave without accumulating anything else. By the way Rising star has produced more hominids in two weeks than Sterkfontein has produced in over 50 years of excavations!

Safes bulging with fossils! How cool?

 
Many different individuals are represented by the bones, ranging from old to young. The recovery of a 'population' together on one site, is both almost unheard of and extremely exciting. It can fundamentally affect our understanding of the species represented by the deposit. 

Some postcranial remains. There is much dentition and even parts of the cranium have been discovered!

 
One of the biggest difficulties  facing the site is dating. And it is currently impossible to even estimate the date of the site.

It was good fun to go see this exciting new development in palaeonanthropology and I look forward to the results of the work with interest. 

Anyway we will return to normal programming shortly...

Cedarburg Workshop - Part Two - Hollow Rock Shelter

Continuing with our Cedarberg Exploration...

On our way to Hollow Rock Shelter

Every morning during the conference the group ( of 30+ archaeologists) would first go out on a quick trip to visit a local archaeological site of some significance, we would then be back and covered in sweat by 11am to start the morning talks, followed by lunch followed by a nap - aka the afternoon talks- in almost 40°C heat it was nearly impossible to stay awake sometimes. We had an evening talk after dinner on only the first day. Thereafter time was our own.

View across the farm on which Traveller's Rest is located

I will pause here to say that all these pictures (except from the last day) are courtesy of my office mate Emily, who is just back from England. Emily was in the final hair-tearing-out stages of finishing her Masters when I arrived in Cape Town. She has now started a PhD in Cambridge but is back here for a few months collecting data and doing her field work in the Cedarburg, nice for some. I realised sitting at my computer on the day of departure (sending off funding applications) that I had forgotten my camera! When I moaned about this Emily kindly loaned me one of her brand new cameras that she had gotten specifically for field work. Without her this blog would be a lot shorter and more boring!

The entrance to Hollow Rock Shelter. Emily (okay half of Emily)
 is on the left taking a picture with her other camera.

Day 1 (Saturday) saw us take a short drive followed by something of a boulder-strewn scrambled up a mountain to an archaeological locality called Hollow Rock Shelter.

The shelter is hidden under one the big boulders
 on the top of the hill

Boulder scramble

Almost there!

 As you can see from the images the shelter is a hollow space below a massive boulder with several runnels and entrances.

Looking through the entrance into the shelter

 A person has to craw to enter the space and its only 2 m at its highest point.

Close quarters inside the shelter

 In the 'roof' slightly to one side is a natural chimney, below which charcoal remains from ancient fires were discovered during excavations. 

The chimney

Taking a picture of someone taking a picture, but it
gives you an idea of  the relative position of the
 chimney over the fire pit (area where charcoal was recovered).

Hollow Rock Shelter was first discovered in the early 1990's. It was excavated by Lars Larson, among others. Lars himself was there to tell us about the site along with John Parkington, the head of the UCT archaeology department, who also played a role in the discovery and analysis of this site.

Lars Larson

 Hollow Rock Shelter is a Middle Stone Age site dated to around 80 000 - 72 000 years before present.

Nick Conard, Emily and Jess admiring some
 lithics (stone tools) in the shelter

The shelter contains numerous  projectile points and bifaces (stone tools) from the Still Bay Industry (The middle stone age can be broken into a number of archaeological 'industries' defined on a mixture of stone tools and other artifacts. These industries represent both a transition in time as well as a general sophistication of artifacts). 

Stone tools found in the shelter (I may get killed for saying
 this but I still think they are dreadfully dull!)

Stone tools found inside the shelter were better made than stone tools that were found on the rocky apron outside the cave entrance and Lars suggested that this might be the result of a teaching area. That the 'master' would sit inside the shelter and the students would practice outside.

Lithics found scattered on the hill top

Exploring the area around the shelter, there are many stone tools from early man scattered all around the rocks here. It became a standing joke cos I would be checking out the view and kept sitting on artifacts not noticing they were there! (Who cares about stone tools anyway?).

Typical archaeologists looking at the ground!

Enthusiasts even found time for a little rock climbing.

Jason showing us how its done!

A willing pupil

In time we returned to camp to start the first day's talks. 
The morning's talks were given by the Tubingen (Germany) contingent lead by Nick Conard on sites like Geelbek, Anyskop and Hoedjiespunt.

Some members of the German group and Cuan (UCT with the hat)
who happened to be in the wrong photo at the wrong time!

After lunch was a series of extremely fascinating  talks on Diepkloof Rock Shelter (pictures of this to follow) and Elands Bay Cave. Which were presented by the French and the remaining German contingents. 

Nap Time - Watching presentations and then having discussion sessions
afterwards. It was fascinating but often hard to stay awake in the heat.

Here is Guillaume Porraz (eye candy) telling us about Diepkloof 

My other office mate Katharine then had a give an evening talk before we could all relax and take it easy.

Archaeology students doing what we do best
(thats me on the right)

The adventures didnt end there though. Having retired early the night before I was now ready to stay up late talking rubbish (archaeology). The person I was sharing a chalet with (who will remain nameless in case she ever discovers this blog) went to bed earlier than me. When I eventually got back to my chalet it was to find that she had, for reasons that I will never be able to fathom, locked the door to the chalet - I was now locked out. This is a problem. So I start pounding on the door. After a good long while there is finally stirring from inside. This person snaps open the door, glares at me and proceeds to explain to me very angrily that she was sleeping (as in, how dare I wake her up!). I am thinking No-sh*t-Sherlock I would never have guessed that! Having said her piece she then stalks off back to bed, leaving me still standing on the doorstep. In her defense I dont think she was even properly awake, but what an attitude! Fortunately I was merry enough at this point to think all this rather funny. She apparently did not, as she continued to sulk with me for the rest of the trip apparently over waking her up in the middle of the night! When it was her own fault! Sigh some people! Soo all in all a great first day!
To be continued...

Cedarburg Workshop Part One - Pakhuis Pass.

Hi All
Last weekend's workshop was such a good trip that it has taken me till after this weekend to get over it!
I am going to split-up my reminiscence of the trip into a few blog posts, if only not to bore you into tears! here is the first part.

No, on a serious(-ish) note it was a great trip and I am glad I went on it. So we departed on Friday the 1 Nov and headed north up the west coast (some 40 km or so inland thereof) into the Cedarburg Mountains.

We traveled through a number of small towns, Citrusdal (named that for the local produce) and on to Clanwilliam before climbing the Pakhuis Pass - which is beautiful. Before finally arriving at a small resort in the mountains called Traveller's Rest. All the pictures shown here are views going over the pass and were taken on my phone.

We arrived at Traveller's Rest in time to get settled in and have a few drinks before dinner (the food was rather good). We were staying in small and somewhat rustic chalets some distance from the eating and conference location. It was amazing how quiet it was. I was knackered after a long week and killed out early.

Although it was something of a challenge trying to find my chalet by starlight that evening, as we had not though to leave any lights on and there is no light pollution (or cell phone reception) out there! It did mean seeing some of the most beautiful starry skies I have seen in a long time. Wish we had taken more time to enjoy the stars, but all us city slickers didnt think of that!

The workshop was attended by archaeologists (Both VIP's and UIP [Unimportant persons]) from all around the globe including South Africa; Borbeaux, France; Tubigen, Germany; Canda; America and Sweden.