The data recovered from the site have three-fold importance.

• Firstly, the systematic study shows that earlier characterisations of Canteen Kopje require revision. Much has been written on the site to support a number of interpretations of the pattern of Earlier Stone Age occupation in South Africa, often validated by reference to the first hand observations of archaeologists such as Breuil, van Riet Lowe and Goodwin. But these were based on subjective impressions, surface collections, and the amassing of typologically significant pieces following the ethos of the day – giving rise to artificially exaggerated perceptions of the frequencies of bifaces, cleavers and Victoria West cores. The recent work makes it abundantly clear that the older interpretations need revising. Therefore the first important result of these excavations is that they set the record straight.
• Secondly, as a systematic study, the new data can be incorporated into modern syntheses of the Lower and Middle Pleistocene of South Africa, and can contribute to understandings of the Acheulean. In turn, a balanced interpretation will improve the site’s tourist and heritage potential and allow it to take its place as one of the significant archaeological sites in South Africa.
• Thirdly, the excavations revealed new and hitherto unsuspected deposits, indicating a more complex deposition history. The excavations have also revealed aspects of the occupation of the site by hominids that were previously unknown, and the potential of the site to contribute to more detailed contextual understandings of hominid behaviour in Lower and Middle Pleistocene times has been significantly increased.

Hominids during Acheulean times appear to have been attracted to the site by an ideal combination of nearby permanent water and abutting hillsides with an abundance of fresh exposures and loose cobbles and boulders of andesite, for knapping. A predominance, amongst stone cores, of andesite boulder cores in Strata 2a and 2b Upper may be an indication that Canteen Kopje was, at that time, primarily a big flake producing workshop site. This activity was evidently carried on over a considerable time, while the absence of large numbers of flake tools and large cutting tools such as handaxes and cleavers implies that secondary manufacturing activities may have been carried out away from the immediate vicinity of the site. AThis, in itself, implies a perceived landscape structure in terms of differences in locality; one which had temporal depth@ (McNabb in Beaumont & McNabb 2000).

However, some flake tools do occur on site, implying that activities other than primary manufacture did take place there. It is possible; too, that some of the non-prepared core forms may have been used as tools. Stratigraphic evidence suggests that the two unprovenanced giant handaxes from Canteen Kopje come from the base of Stratum 2a.

Of note is the occurrence of Levallois prepared core technology in both Strata 2a and 2b Upper, while Victoria West cores – now documented for the first time in a stratified context – are confined to Stratum 2a. Cores of neither Levallois nor Victoria West type have been noted in 2b Lower.

Fauresmith material – also rare in stratified contexts – was found in the lower levels of the Hutton Sands and to a depth of 0.3 m in Stratum 2a in Area 1. Associated with it was a cache of specularite nodules and blades made from banded ironstone – the nearest sources for these raw materials being in the Postmasburg area, some 200 km to the west. It is suggested that a Fauresmith activity locale was at or near the excavated trench in Area 1.

As regards dating, assemblages with Victoria West cores at Kathu Pan 1, and Wonderwerk, are linked to faunas that include Elephas recki recki (an extinct elephant) and/or Hipparion (an extinct horse). The last certain occurrence of these species at dated East African localities are earlier than 800 000 years ago. Could the levels containing these stone tools at Canteen Kopje be of comparable antiquity?

One of the problems that remain to be explained, and which has relevance to the age of the sequence, is the dramatic shift at Canteen Kopje from a predominance of colluvial accumulation to a final mode in which aeolian action deposited the Hutton Sands. One plausible palaeoenvironmental mechanism in this regard could be the replacement of short climate cycles by larger 100 000 year fluctuations that began at about 900 000 years ago.

If this dating evidence proves to be viable, it is possible that the mass of absolutely fresh and seemingly in situ knapping debris in the upper 2.4 m of Stratum 2b Lower could well range back to about 1 million years, while the base of the sequence, a further 3.2 m down, could lie in the 1.2 million year range.

Whatever the eventual results of current efforts to date the site (palaeomagnetic dating is in progress), there appears to be fairly firm evidence for “Mode 2 technology with prepared core elements” in the subcontinent substantially earlier than the 350 000 – 250 000 year range proposed by Foley and Lahr (1997).

The sheer extent and richness of Canteen Kopje is a significant feature – not altogether unusual at a regional level – but more so in the Old World: it is not yet clearly understood what these large accumulations (read higher population densities) during handaxe times in Southern Africa may mean.

The recommencement of medium-scale diamond mining adjacent to the site has serious implications. The excavations of Area 2 – which had preserved an undisturbed sequence of deposits – have since been destroyed; and the last of the pristine deposits may soon be irretrievably lost. It is hoped that our findings will help secure what remains of Canteen Kopje. We acknowledge the role of the National Monuments Council in halting mining on the declared portion, and the assistance of the Department of Minerals and Energy and the KWAGGA Kimberley Mining Multi-stakeholder Forum. In particular we are grateful to the community of Barkly West for their resolve to have the site preserved, researched and developed.

HERITAGE CONSERVATION AND ALLUVIAL DIAMOND MINING AT CANTEEN KOPJE, BARKLY WEST: A CHALLENGE FOR PUBLIC ARCHAEOLOGY

David Morris

(An earlier version of this article appeared in WAC News : The World Archaeological Congress Newsletter ISSN 1326-9402, 1997 Volume 5, Number 1 : SOUTHERN AFRICA FOCUS, Sven Ouzman, Guest Editor)

Our archaeological heritage is fragile enough without the impacts of development. In the past, South Africa’s National Monuments Act was interpreted such that mining and agriculture – the activities that most heavily impact archaeological sites – were exempt from certain critical provisions. The result has been, in MacIntosh’s apt phrase, an ongoing “haemorrhaging of Africa’s past”. The new realities of development in South Africa highlight the need for public archaeology to promote heritage awareness and conservation at community level.

Some of the issues of conservation versus development were thrown into sharp relief early in 1997 at a site near Barkly West in the Northern Cape Province when the Provincial Minister of Agriculture and Land Reform officially declared open an alluvial diamond mining site for the African United Small Miners Association. The Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs issued permits whose only requirement in terms of heritage sites was a statement by the applicants as to whether they knew of any archaeological or cultural resources that would be impacted. In fact, the mining site was immediately alongside the declared national monument of Canteen Kopje where rich and well-preserved early Acheulean units, perhaps more than a million years old, have been documented. Prospecting pits dug by the miners indicated that the archaeological site extended into the mining area.

Access to mining permits, long denied to black miners, had been broadened in the 1990s, and pressure was soon exerted for re-opening the Canteen Kopje diggings. Mining permits continued to be issued for dozens of similar locales along the Vaal River and elsewhere, many of which have high negative impacts on archaeological sites. Sites in the Windsorton area, documented partially by van Riet Lowe and others in the early twentieth century, have been devastated.

In the case of Canteen Kopje, the then National Monuments Council was able successfully to assert a new reading of the old Act – namely that, while key provisions did not apply to the removal of archaeological material during mining, it did not exempt mining from requiring a permit to disturb, damage, excavate or alter the site. The miners applied for permits, which were granted with provisos concerning archaeological documentation and salvage. Happily, the old exemptions in the National Monuments Act no longer apply: heritage impact assessments and, where necessary, permits, are required for mining in terms of the National

Heritage Resources Act which passed into law in 1999. But issues of implementation and compliance are still with us.

The Canteen Kopje case was widely reported in the press. The Provincial Minister of Agriculture and Land Reform and the miners felt that it was possible to rehabilitate the site after extracting the diamonds – that the project would provide jobs for 200 miners and generate funds to conserve the site and establish an open-air museum. In response, the National Monuments Council pointed out that the mining process would totally destroy the archaeological aspect of the site.

At issue are conflicting perceptions of the nature and value of archaeological resources; a conflict heightened by the lure of diamonds to an underdeveloped community. Yet many community members were supportive of efforts to conserve and develop the site as a tourism and educational facility with long-term spin-offs for the people of Barkly West. Mining of the site, after all, would be of finite duration, and the benefits limited.

Even this partial support for conservation would almost certainly not have existed at all had the archaeologists involved not participated in community consultation from 1995, and the community formed a provisional local heritage committee (with small miner representation). An (unsuccessful) application for Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) funding for developing the site emerged from these meetings. One of the RDP principles was “to link culture firmly to areas of national priority … to ensure that culture is entrenched as a fundamental component of development”.

Subsequently both medium-scale miners and the Department of Mineral and Energy expressed regret that mining around Canteen Kopje had taken place, as it yielded only a limited return. Small-scale diggers had left the area in a mess, which medium-scale miners were called in to rehabilitate (Terlien & Miller 2000:94-95). Some of the region’s richest archaeological heritage was destroyed in the process. Small-scale miners may still regard the declared area as a good opportunity for future mining (Terlien & Miller 2000:94).

The Canteen Kopje experience has highlighted some of the needs for public archaeology development in South Africa. Communities such as those at Barkly West lack background knowledge to most of the heritage sites in their environment. High levels of unemployment within such a community do not augur well for conservation when these same heritage sites also happen to contain diamonds. The concept of ‘developer pays’ is rather meaningless where the ‘developer’ starts from a position of poverty. Conveying the message that heritage sites are unique, non-renewable and can be of long-term benefit and meaning (in often intangible ways) to local people is perhaps one of the most difficult challenges that public archaeology in situations such as these will have to meet.

References

Morris, D. 1997. Heritage conservation, small-scale mining and the role of public archaeology. WAC News : The World Archaeological Congress Newsletter ISSN 1326-9402, 1997 Volume 5, Number 1.

Terlien, D. & Miller, D. 2000. Small-scale diamond mining in the Barkly West Area. Unpublished report, University of Cape Town.

References

Beaumont, P. & McNabb, J. 2000. Report for the National Monuments Council of South Africa on excavations by Peter Beaumont at Canteen Koppie, Barkly West, Northern Cape Province, South Africa. Unpublished report, with supplement by Peter Beaumont.

Beaumont, P. & McNabb, J. 2001. Canteen Kopje: The recent excavations. The Digging Stick 17(3): 3-7.

Foley, R. & Lahr, M.M. 1997. Mode 3 technologies and the evolution of modern humans. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7:3-36.

• • McGregor Museum, PO Box 316, Kimberley, 8300. Email
  • Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton. Email

Additional References:

Beaumont, P.B. 1990. Canteen Koppie. In Beaumont, P.B. & Morris, D. 1990. Guide to archaeological sites in the Northern Cape. Kimberley: McGregor Museum.

Clark, J.D. 1959. The prehistory of southern Africa. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Wells, L.H. 1948. The Canteen Kopje Skull. South African Science 1(8):156-157.