Dalmanutha, Rosslands and Sunny Slopes Farms: Three New Faursmith Industry Sites in the Eastern Cape Province, Republic Of South Africa (Houston Archeological Society Reports) - Softcover

Examination of surface collections over the 1920’s and 1930’s led to the identification of the “Fauresmith Industry” over a large portion of South Africa including the Free State, Western Cape, Northern Cape and Guateng Provinces. As originally described, the Fauresmith Industry was characterized by small hand axes and occasional cleavers, prismatic blades, Levallois flakes and retouched points, convex-edged scrapers, gravers, burins and prepared cores; all of which were created using the Levallois or Levallois-like technology. This lithic assemblage represents a major change in technology from the traditional core tool, hand axe-driven Acheulean tradition which predominates over much of the Early Stone Age (ESA) in Africa. As such, the Fauresmith Industry was originally proposed to represent an intermediate culture between the Acheulean and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). However, since its initial discovery and description, the Fauresmith Industry has variously been referred to as “Terminal Acheulean” within the ESA, the final phase of the Acheulean, the first intermediate stage between the ESA and the MSA, the sub-continent equivalent to the Middle Paleolithic, or “clearly” Mousterian in age. Over the past 20 years the author has been allowed to explore on foot large portions of 21 farms across the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. These farms range from near the Eastern Cape-Free State border by Aliwal North to several areas in and around Burgersdorp (12 farms), three farms near Craddock, four farms in the general vicinity of Queenstown, and two location on the coast – one near Humansdorp and the other near East London. In 2013, at two locations near the town of Burgersdorp, large quantities of lithic tools were found exposed on the surface. The first location is near the small community of Dalmanutha (Dal-man-ootha in English; Dal-man-ita in Afrikaans), approximately 19 km (12 miles) northeast of Burgersdorp. The second location is on the Rosslands Farm located approximately 28 km (17 miles) south of Burgersdorp. At both locations, the artifact assemblage occurs on the surface with little to no stratigraphic depth. The artifact assemblages at both sites are identical to each other in terms of both toolstone composition and artifact assemblage which consists of prepared cores, prismatic blades, retouched Levallois points, scrapers of various types, small bifacial cutting tools, gravers, retouched flakes and hammerstones – all of which are characteristic of the transitional Fauresmith Industry. In 2017, a third location was discovered 4.4 km (2.7 miles) southeast of Dalmanutha on a property known as Sunny Slopes. This location proved to be a probable quarry site also of Fauresmith age. This paper thus serves to record all three sites, the first known locations of the Fauresmith Industry in the Eastern Cape Province, and analyzes a sample artifact assemblage from each with a focus on prismatic blade and Levallois-like point manufacture.