Test excavations at deWittekrans shelter

Note: Mining operations on the property adjacent to the one on which the DeWittekrans Shelter is located has hastened my decision to excavate De Wittekrans Shelter. It is the second largest shelter in the great Lake Chrissie area.


My team intends to develop a finely resolved occupation sequence for northeastern South Africa with a specific focus on livelihoods and foodways. This includes the adoption of livestock by hunter-gatherers, the introduction of pastoralism in the region, and landscape scale vegetation continuities and change linked / due to the spread of livestock keeping into northeastern South Africa. The Lake Chrissie region is an important location in which to pursue the hunter-gatherers with sheep / pastoralist component of this broader regional economy. Our current excavations focus on Welgelegen Shelter.
We propose to compliment this data set with data from De Wittekrans shelter. Ouzman (2009) identified the art at De Wittekrans as that of Khoe speakers and thus the site forms an important node in the understanding of the regional economy and foodways.