9/2/064/0037

Much of the contents of the caves dates to the Middle Stone Age. The analysis of its stone artefacts assemblage helped to confirm the presence of a particular type of stone artefacts in the local area, namely, the Mossel Bay industry. This stone tool technology is characterized by triangular points with a central ridge and a short step thinning flake on the dorsal surface and below a facetted platform. In their travels around the early 1800s, Barrow and Lichtenstein offered different explanations about the origin of shell heaps visible on the surface of this cave at that time, which contributed to the formative years of archaeological research along the south coast of South Africa. George Leith's excavations in the late 1800s provided incontrovertible evidence that shells, along with hearths, artefacts, bones and burials were the product of human occupation by indigenous Khoesan people.