Cedarburg Workshop - Part Three - Mertenhof Rock Shelter

Cedarberg adventures continued...

On the way to Mertenhof

Remember I said my roommate was angry with me? Well here's how she let me know. Ok so as I said last week we were all meeting up at one of the chalets (the one all her friends were staying in) in order to drive to the venue each morning for breakfast. On the first day I do what is normal. Knock on her bedroom door, see that she is up, and chat a bit as we walk together to the meeting point. On the second day I am still getting ready when I hear the chalet door open and shut. I go out my room to find that she has just buggered off without so much as a good morning! What the heck? When I do make it to the meeting point it becomes clear she is shunning me! I am thinking you've got to be kidding me! How can anyone sulk this much over such a little thing? 
When I later try to talk to her about it in a nice way (maybe she is not a morning person, maybe Im over-reacting) she is all bubbly and aplogises for her behaviour the night before but continues to shun me! I really hate this kind of 2-faced behaviour! If you have a problem with me than come out and say so!

Anyway! By day 2 (Sunday) the Cedarberg had turned into a furnace. In the morning we undertook an excursion to Mertenhof Cave. On the way we stopped to admire the views. 

Compare this picture looking south at the Cedarberg
with the previous pictures looking north

What you can (not) see from these pictures is how the sandstones of the Cedarberg give way to the shales of the karoo. The importance of this point is in the availability of caves and rock shelters as well as material for making stone tools on the landscape. It partially explains why there is much more evidence for early man in the Cedarberg than in the Karoo.

Our (fearless) leader for the day's excursion was Alex Mackay, a postdoctoral fellow at UCT.

Alex Mackay pointing out the geology

John Parkington, adding his two cents in! Im starting to think that there
 isnt an archaeological site in the Western Cape that John has not worked on!

Our second stop on the way to the site was once again on the side of the road. From here we could see two caves in the valley yonder. Can you spot them?

The 2 dark spots on the rocks just above the bushes
 in the foreground.

The cave on the left is called Klipfonteinrand first identified (as having archaeological remains) many years ago and excavated by John it was recently re-excavated by Alex. 

Klipfonteinrand - Closeup

With so little time available for exploring we could not go to Klipfonteinrand as well, which is a pity.

I can certainly think of worse places to live than
this! Farm house at Mertenhof (team stays here
during excavations)

 We finally continued our journey, crossing into the Bedouw Valley to a farm called Mertenhof. Alex recently identified and excavated a new rock shelter on the farm to which he gave the same name.

Hiking up to Mertenhof

We parked the cars near the farm house and then hiked up to the shelter. Many people were in sandals, they would rather a snake bite or a busted ankle than the heat.

Simone giving us a pose 

The approach to Mertenhof

Many of these shelters have tricky or difficult approaches with climbing to get to them, maybe for safety purposes?

Can you feel the heat?

Entering the shelter.

Alex and his excavation team had only finished and closed up the shelter about 3 weeks before this visit. Excavations have to be protected between excursions. This is to preserve the material that is in the pits and has not been removed. It is also to preserve the vertical walls of the pits, to stop them slumping back into the deposit. This requires a lot of sandbags!

This is what a closed but active archaeological excavation looks like, all sandbags and tarpaulin.

This excavation needs to be particularly well covered as baboons are active in the area and a baboon in the pit can cause a tremendous amount of damage!

opening up the hole

View into the deposit

The deposits at Mertenhof cover a period from colonial times into the middle stone age.

Closeup of the deposit. The lables mark stratigraphic units
 or layers in the deposits. It helps the excavators and scientists orientate themselves.

It was amusing really. When we arrived at the site Alex rattled off the details of the middle stone age Mertenhof at the speed of light. It was only after we asked him to slow down and give us more details that we learned about the later parts of the deposit, including at least 2 later stone age burials! It was quite clear where his interests lay. Funny how one-tract-minded we can be.

Rock art on the shelter walls.

Tash showing us what dirty work archaeology it!

After lots of archaeology and bit of peace and tranquility it was time to pack up the excavation and head home. Messy, messy work which Tash can attest to!

The day's talks started with Alex and Alex (Mackay and Sumner, who is also a postdoc at UCT) showing us their work in Cedarberg. In the afternoon we had a fauna session which consisted of my supervisor and all his other students presenting their efforts at using different animals to reconstruct the palaeoenvironment. I was expressly told, when I asked my supervisor if I needed to present anything that I have no data and therefore was not allowed. I still find this instruction a little bogus as some of those that presented had no more to say than I do. Oh well its not like I was offering! 

That evening, with most people having already presented, including the student group I was with, the result was a pretty big party. There were some seriously blurry eyes the next morning! As to my roommate, our morning routine now became to not talk to each other! She has continued to give me the cold shoulder, even after we got back to Cape Town! I think on reflection that I may have made some remarks that she took offence to (like winding her up about not coming on some of the outings. I dont believe in missing outings cos one is too tired, hot, bored, jaded or overworked. That is the kind of attitude that misses out on life. This post would have been very short and uninteresting if I had missed out on the excursion just to finish my work or catch-up on sleep!). 

To be continued...