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Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern among Holocene HunterGatherers in SouthernmostAfrica
Author(s): Judith SealySource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 47, No. 4 (August 2006), pp. 569-595Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/504163 .
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Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006 569
Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern amongHolocene Hunter-Gatherers in Southernmost
Africa
by Judith Sealy
Integration of new biological information (stable isotope analyses of archaeological human skeletons)
with the archaeological sequence of southernmost Africa and with wider sociocultural studies of
hunters and gatherers shows that between 4,500 and 2,000 BP coastal hunter-gatherers buried on
the Robberg Peninsula and adjacent Plettenberg Bay ate large quantities of high-trophic-level marine
protein. This contrasts with more mixed diets reflected in skeletons from Matjes River Rock Shelter,
only 14 km along the shore. Assuming that the burials represent the populations that inhabited thesites, such clear economic separation could have come about only if these were two separate groups
of people who lived in clearly demarcated, mutually exclusive territories. Such a settlement pattern
directly contradicts ethnographic studies of southern African hunter-gatherers, all derived from inland
areas. Later Stone Age material culture, including the assemblages from these sites, shows many
similarities to that of twentieth-century Kalahari foragers, but settlement pattern and social orga-
nization were sometimes very different.
Reconstructions of archaeological hunting and gathering so-
cieties in southern Africa have, not surprisingly, drawn heavily
on the rich ethnographies of foragers in the sub-continent.
The issue of the applicability of ethnography to the study of
prehistoric societies is universal among archaeologists. Theproblem is particularly acute in the study of hunter-gatherers,
because although recent (ethnohistoric) accounts of hunting
and gathering people are undoubtedly valuable as sources of
insight into this way of life, our documentary record is partial
and skewed. It has long been recognized that recent hunter-
gatherer communities are a particular sub-set of those that
existed before the advent of farming and that they may have
been organized in different ways (Deetz 1968; Hodder 1986;
Schrire 1984; Wobst 1978; Woodburn 1980). It is, however,
much easier to recognize similarities between ancient and
modern societies than it is to detect differences. By combining
multiple lines of evidence, we may hope to achieve more
nuanced reconstructions of past societies.Among hunter-gatherers, peoples relationship to the land
is a central aspect of life. There is a long history of anthro-
pological interest in these relationships, including access to
land, how this is shared with others, its role in establishing
Judith Sealy is Associate Professor in the Department of Archae-
ology of the University of Cape Town (Private Bag, Rondebosch,
Cape Town 17701, South Africa [[email protected]]). This paper
was submitted 23 VI 05 and accepted 6 XII 05.
identity, kinship, and much more. In the wake of the Man
the Hunter conference, hunter-gatherers came to be seen as
generalized foragers in a picture informed, to a considerable
extent, by studies of the Kalahari San. Lee and DeVore (1968)
listed five features of generalized foragers: egalitarianism, lowpopulation density, lack of territoriality, minimal food storage,
and constantly shifting band composition. This picture has
shaped the study of hunters and gatherers worldwide, par-
ticularly in southern Africa, where the origins of many items
of twentieth-century Kalahari San material culture can be
traced in archaeological sites: ostrich-eggshell beads and water
containers, digging sticks, and light-draw bows, probablywith
poisoned arrows, among others. Researchers have also in-
ferred shared belief systems, with the result that nineteenth-
and twentieth-century San people from the Kalahari and ad-
jacent areas have provided the key to understanding Later
Stone Age rock paintings in a tradition several thousands of
years old. These links are not at issue. It is, however, unclearto what extent features such as land use, settlement patterns,
and exchange systems (for example) may have varied across
space and through time. This paper is an attempt to explore
some of these issues in a manner informed but not con-
strained by the rich literature on hunters and gatherers, par-
ticularly that from southern Africa.
Below, I reconstruct the likely settlement pattern and social
organization of Late Holocene hunter-gatherers along the
coast of southernmost Africa on the basis of differences in
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570 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
bone chemistry in archaeological human skeletons. Land use
and band and individual mobility are major themes in hunter-
gatherer anthropology. Most researchers agree that mobility
depended upon the abundance and distribution of resources
in the environment (Binford 2001; Donald and Mitchell 1994;
Hitchcock 1982; Kelly 1983). Of course, this is not the whole
story: there are social as well as economic dimensions tomobility and settlement. Nevertheless, foragers in areas where
resources are sparsely distributed tended to be very mobile:
Kalahari San moved 613 times per year over distances of up
to 350 miles, in contrast to communities in North Pacific
coastal areas, which moved (on average) 2.3 times per year
over a mean distance of 30 miles (Binford 2001, table 8.04
[Kalahari figures exclude the Nharo]).1 These contrasting ex-
amples fit well with Robert Kellys view of residential mobility
as a way to position consumers relative to the locations of
food resources (1983, 294). Rich resources alone did not
necessarily produce settled communities, however; many re-
searchers argue that this required constraints on mobility due
to factors such as increasing population density (Binford 1968;Cohen 1977; Flannery 1973; Hitchcock 1982; Keeley 1988;
Kelly 1992, 1995; Price and Brown 1985).
Where coastal populations were concerned, the richness
and reliability of marine foods meant that there was less need
to be mobile (Bailey and Milner 2002; Bailey and Parkington
1988; Binford 1968; Cohen 1977). Population densities were
higher among coastal hunter-gatherers than in inland com-
munities and often accompanied by greater territoriality,
competition for resources, and conflict (Yesner 1980). Jordan
and Shennan (2003) describe the remarkable situation in
northern North America at the time of European contact,
where between 64 and 80 distinct languages were spoken in
California alone, compared with only 18 the Great Basin andPlateau. Concentrated, highly productive, and reliable re-
sources along the coast led to more settled communities with
localized ownership of resources. We do not have comparable
data for South Africa, because by the time that indigenous
languages first began to be documented coastal hunter-gath-
erers had often long since been displaced by food producers.
Archaeological indicators of mobility/sedentism are aften
equivocal, and even in well-studied areas such as the Cali-
fornia coast it has proved difficult to establish just how mobile
or otherwise archaeological communities were (Jones 2002).
For the Northwest Coast of North America, one research goal
is to document the origins of sedentary, complex hunter-
gatherer lifestyles, and the appearance of large shell middens
has often been taken as an indication of the start of semi- to
fully sedentary coastal settlement (Ames 1994). In contrast,
in South Africa, archaeologists have expected that hunter-
gatherers with clear commonalities with Kalahari foragers
would be mobile, and coastal shell middens have usually been
1. Kalahari data for seven groups, excluding the Nharo. Figures for
the North Pacific are means of data for 29 groups.
seen as one component of a more varied occupation pattern
(H. Deacon 1969, 1970; Inskeep 1987; Parkington 1972, 1976,
2001; Parkington et al. 1988). More recent archaeological
work has explored the possibility that, at least in the second
half of the Holocene, some communities became more settled
(Binneman 1995; Hall 1990; Jerardino Wiesenborn 1996; Ma-
zel 1989a, 1989b). Ambrose and Lorenz (1990) consideredthe likely archaeological expression of different types of social
and territorial organization for both Holocene and Pleistocene
hunter-gatherers in southern Africa.
Interpreting the Southern African Later Stone Age
Artefact-making traditions have been interpreted in different
ways over the past few decades. In the 1960s and 1970s, stone
tools were often considered in relation to the ecological set-
tings in which people found themselves, and possible cor-
relations were sought between artefact styles and subsistence
behaviours. In the past couple of decades the tendency has
been to think of stone tools also as markers of social networks.The Wilton stone-artefact-making tradition (J. Deacon 1972;
Goodwin and van Riet Lowe 1929) was widespread in South
Africa during the mid-Holocene, apart from the interior basin
of the country (J. Deacon 1974). The Wilton is not a ho-
mogeneous entity (cf. Parkington 1980; changes over time
indicated in table 1), but these assemblages are linked in that
they all have highly standardized microlithic stone artefacts,
incorporating a range of retouched formal tools. This stan-
dardization has been taken to indicate links between mid-
Holocene populations over large areas of the landscape, at
least to the extent that people subscribed to shared norms of
artefact manufacture. These assemblages are very different
from those found in earlier and later sites.Archaeologists working in southern Africa have tried to
draw on anthropological studies among the Kalahari San to
understand Later Stone Age societies. Since relatively few of
these studies have focused on material culture, those few have
tended to be especially influential, despite the variation doc-
umented among different San groups in different areas (Bar-
nard 1992). Thus Lyn Wadley has suggested that Wilton
segments (crescent-shaped backed stone microliths) and os-
trich-eggshell beads might have been part of xaro-type2 ex-
change networks in the Later Stone Age similar to those doc-
umented by Polly Wiessner among the Juhoansi (Wiessner
1983, 1994, 1997). Wadley (1987, 1989) has sought to identify
aggregation- and dispersal-phase camps among Later StoneAge sites in the Magaliesberg. Xaro has also been invoked as
a possible explanation for rich assemblages of grave goods
with infant burials in the Eastern Cape (Hall and Binneman
1987). In the Thukela River Basin of KwaZulu/Natal, Aron
2. The spelling xaro is used here in conformity with the standard
orthography in Patrick Dickenss (1994) English-Ju/hoan, Ju/hoan-En-
glish Dictionary. Older articles on the subject often use the spelling
hxaro.
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 571
Table 1. The Holocene Sequence at Nelson Bay Cave and Correlation with Matjes River Rock Shelter
Date BP
Nelson Bay Cave Matjes
River Rock
ShelterStone Artefacts Other Artefacts Food Remains
2,0003,300 Post-Wilton: Mostly
quartzite, large crudepieces, few retouched
tools (e.g., scrapers),
utilized pieces and
pie`ces esquillees
New types of shell pendants
and bone artefacts com-mon, pottery in last
2,000 years
Marine foods (esp.
yearling and second-year fish, seals)
common; no infor-
mation on shellfish
Layers A, B
3,3007,500 Wilton: Fine-grained raw
materials (esp. chal-
cedony), microlithic
artefacts (esp. small
[ mm] scrapers);! 20
quartz cores (before
4,500 BP), backed
tools (esp. segments)
(before 5,300 BP)
Perforated Donax shells be-
fore 4,500 BP
Bovid remains mostly
those of small
browsers; shellfish,
fish, and marine
mammals consumed
regularly, shellfish
more so after 4,500
BP
Layer C
7,50012,000 Albany: Mostly quartzite,
most common formal
tool large ( mm)1 20
scrapers
Bone ar tefacts, others? Range of species, both
grazing and brows-
ing bovids; marine
foods after ca.
12,00011,000 BP
as post-glacial sea
level rose
Layer D
Note: Dates are for Nelson Bay; at Matjes River the Layer D/C (Albany/Wilton) transition has been securely dated to just over 7,000 BP (Dockel
1998), but dates of the interfaces between the upper layers are uncertain and are suggested here by analogy with Nelson Bay.
Mazel (1989a, 1989b) used the types of backed artefacts, to-
gether with densities of non-lithic artefacts and ochre, to try
to map social regions and study their development through
time. Working along the south-eastern coast, Johan Binneman
has focused on the distribution of different stone artefact-
making traditions, interpreted as symbolic markers of iden-tity (1995, iv). In the Fish River Basin of the Eastern Cape,
Simon Hall (1990) integrated studies of tool type, raw-ma-
terial usage, food remains, and burials to develop a new ex-
planation for changes in hunter-gatherer societies in the sec-
ond half of the Holocene. Hall has shown that, from about
4,300 BP, people began to rely more on riverine resources
such as freshwater mussels, fish, and crabs and to construct
storage pits. He argued that this would have reduced the risk
of seasonal food shortages and facilitated an increasingly sed-
entary settlement pattern, especially in the context of a grow-
ing population. Reduced mobility led to closer identification
of people with the land, expressed through choice of raw
material for stone artefacts and through placement of burials.
Jerardino Wiesenborn (1996) has explored similar themes on
the west coast.
Some of this work has depended on direct analogies be-
tween Kalahari and Later Stone Age societies (e.g, archaeol-
ogists use of Wiessners work on xaroexchanges among the
Juhoansi). Others have pointed to differences in the South
African Later Stone Age record such as the presence of storage
pits in hunter-gatherer contexts after about 4,000 BP (Deacon
and Brooker 1976; Deacon, Deacon, and Brooker 1976; Hall
1990). Storing resources on a regular basis is one of the char-
acteristics of delayed-return strategies in which effort was
invested for future returns (Woodburn 1980, 1982), thus rais-
ing issues of ownership and possible unequal access to re-
sources. This is at odds with what we know of recent southern
African hunter-gatherers. Nevertheless, the Kalahari ethnog-
raphies continue to provide the framework for most inter-
pretations of Later Stone Age (and some Middle Stone Age)
archaeology, particularly in studies of social relations and land
use patterns. In a discussion of these questions, a recent paper
explicitly took the approach of transposing the set of ge-
neralised Kalahari expectations to the western Cape (Par-
kington 2001, 5). The implications of this are far-reaching: it
has been argued, for instance, that the immediate-return eco-
nomic strategies and the egalitarianism characteristic of Ka-
lahari foragers would have impeded the adoption of herding
in prehistory, since keeping domesticated animals involvedinvestment for future return and unequal distribution of re-
sources. If, however, South African hunter-gatherers were al-
ready practising delayed-return strategies, the shift to herding
would have required less of a cultural leap. In this case, spread
of this new way of life by diffusion (rather than migration)
would have been easier (Sadr 2004).
Below I address questions of prehistoric land use from an
entirely different perspective, drawing on a study of diet and
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572 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
Figure 1. Places mentioned in the text. The horizontally hatched areaindicates the modern town of Plettenberg Bay.
economy across the Later Stone Age landscape through stable
isotope analysis of human skeletons.
Southernmost Africa and the Nelson Bay Cave Sequence
The southern coast of South Africa preserves an exceptionally
rich archaeological record, with the past 10,000 years being
particularly well represented. The coastal forelands are at-
tractive for human settlement. Temperatures are mild, with
a mean annual temperature of about 16C. Rainfall averages
around 800 mm per annum and occurs year-round (Schulze
1965, table 45, figs. 136 and 138). There is relatively little
seasonal fluctuation in climate. The coastal plain covers only
a limited area, however, and as one moves away from the
coast the altitude rises steeply to the Cape Fold Belt moun-
tains. Inland of this mountain chain lies the Karoo, the dry
interior basin of South Africa (fig. 1). There are thousands
of archaeological sites along the southern coast and inland as
far as the Fold Belt mountains, including deep stratified de-
posits in caves, open middens, both large and small, rockpainting sites, and more. The sequence is best known from
a few large cave sites, and one of these, Nelson Bay Cave, on
the Robberg Peninsula near Plettenberg Bay, has an especially
complete and well-documented sequence. Nelson Bay Cave
was systematically excavated by Ray Inskeep during four sea-
sons from 1964 to 1979 and by Richard Klein in 1970 and
1971. The findings have been reported in several papers and
monographs (J. Deacon 1984; Inskeep 1987; Klein 1972a,
1972b).
The Nelson Bay sequence is usually described in terms ofmajor culture/stratigraphic periods identified on the basis of
changes in stone artefacts (table 1). Briefly, the early Holocene
layers have yielded assemblages ascribed to the Albany In-
dustry, part of the more widespread Oakhurst Industrial
Complex. About 7,000 radiocarbon years ago, there was a
marked shift to microlithic artefact assemblages of the Wilton
Industrial Complex. Microlithic mid-Holocene assemblages
are widespread in southern Africa (see below).
At 3,300 BP, there was a very substantial change in the
stone tool assemblage at Nelson Bay Cave, as well as in non-
lithic artefacts and some food remains. Fish remains and seal
bone (particularly from young seals) became much more
common, indicating a greater focus on marine foods. Ter-
restrial food remains began to include bones of species such
as blue duiker, indicating the development of more densely
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 573
forested environments. Informal macrolithic post-Wilton as-
semblages similar to those found at Nelson Bay have also
been reported from the past few millennia at other coastal
sites (Binneman 1995; Sampson 1974; Van Noten 1974). The
overall impression is that we are seeing a far-reaching shift
in economy and material culture, one that is particularly well
documented and securely dated at Nelson Bay Cave but alsooccurred at other sites along the Cape coast.
About 2,000 (radiocarbon) years ago, pottery and domes-
ticated animals, in the form of sheep, appeared along the Cape
coast (Henshilwood 1996; Sealy and Yates 1994; Schweitzer
1979; Vogel, Plug, and Webley 1997; Webley 2001). This marks
the beginning of food production in this region and must
have considerably disrupted earlier hunter-gatherer lifeways.
Nelson Bay Cave does not, however, preserve a good sequence
of deposits from the last 2,000 years and has yielded little
pottery and few sheep bones (Inskeep 1987).
Excavations at other sites along the southern coast have
yielded very comparable terminal Pleistocene and Holocene
sequences or parts thereof (Binneman 1995; J. Deacon 1972,1984; H. J. Deacon 1976; Goodwin 1938; Hall 1990; Louw
1960; Schweitzer and Wilson 1982), confirming that this gen-
eral pattern extends across the southern part of South Africa.
Other Sites at Robberg/Plettenberg Bay
We have little archaeological information from the area now
covered by the town of Plettenberg Bay. Urban development
has destroyed open-air shell middens and other archaeological
remains. Isolated artefacts have been donated to museums,
as have a number of human skeletons. There is more infor-
mation from the Robberg Peninsula, where Nelson Bay Cave
is one of several dozen archaeological sites. Rudner and Rud-ner (1973) summarized much of the available information on
early-twentieth-century collections from these sites, many of
which involved uncontrolled digging and disturbance of ar-
chaeological deposits. These collections focused on the ac-
quisition of human skeletons and on highly decorated objects
such as painted stones and elaborate bone artefacts. Most of
this material is out of context and undated, and therefore it
is difficult to use it to extend our picture of life in the Robberg/
Plettenberg Bay area beyond that based on Nelson Bay Cave.
Walking around the peninsula today, however, one sees large
quantities of post-Wilton material. A 2-m-deep test trench
dug in Hoffmans Cave, about 300 m east of Nelson Bay Cave,
yielded two radiocarbon dates on shell: BP (UW-3,190 110
204) from the top of the midden and BP (UW-3,770 100
205) from the bottom (Fairhall, Young, and Erickson 1976).
Uncalibrated dates on shell are typically about 400 years older
than those on charcoal, so the older of these two determi-
nations is very close to the date of 3,300 BP on charcoal for
the Wilton/post-Wilton transition at Nelson Bay Cave. At
Cave D, near the tip of the Robberg Peninsula, shells asso-
ciated with a burial were dated to BP (Pta-014)1,925 33
(Rudner and Rudner 1973; Vogel and Marais 1971). Of
course, more recent occupation is likely to be more visible
than older remains, but it is clear that there is a great deal
of evidence, from multiple sites, of occupation in the second
half of the Holocene.
Matjes River Rock Shelter
Matjes River Rock Shelter is a rocky overhang on the western
side of the mouth of the Matjes River, which flows out into
the Indian Ocean about 14 km east of Robberg. The shelter
is a long, east-facing sandstone wall which would have af-
forded some shelter and was much used as a camp-site during
the past 10,000 years. This occupation has left one of the
largest shell middens in southern Africa, with deposits up to
10 m deep extending over an arc roughly 50 m long by 16
m wide in the centre (Louw 1960). Most of the archaeological
remains consist of shells, the debris from many meals of shell-
fish collected on the rocks and along the beach below the site.
In addition, there are animal bones, stone artefacts, and items
manufactured out of ostrich eggshell, marine shell, ivory, andother materials. As at other sites along the South African coast,
there are few plant remains.
Excavations at Matjes River Rock Shelter were initiated by
Dreyer in the 1920s and continued by Hoffman and Meiring
in the 1950s (Dreyer 1933; Hoffman 1958; Louw 1960). None
of these men were trained archaeologists, and excavation
methods were crude. We have little detailed contextual in-
formation on the finds, and a good deal of material, including
most of the food waste, was discarded. In 1994, Hilary Deacon
and Willemien Dockel, of the University of Stellenbosch, car-
ried out limited further excavations at the site to clarify ques-
tions of stratigraphy and dating (Dockel 1998). The bulk of
the sample from Matjes River, however, comes from exca-vations in the first half of the twentieth century.
This material was described by Louw (1960). Although his
report is problematic in many ways (Inskeep 1961; Singer
1961), it provides a rough guide to the sequence. Louw di-
vided the deposits into four major stratigraphic layers: from
top to bottom, A, B, C, and D. The sequence is similar to
that at Nelson Bay Cave. Layer A was a shallow layer from
which relatively little material was recovered, making it dif-
ficult to characterize. It did, however, yield a few potsherds,
which means that at least part of Layer A dates to within the
last 2,000 years. The large quantity of archaeological deposits
at Matjes River and the wealth of finds recovered attest to
intensive occupation at the site over a long period.
Dreyers excavations centred on a large trench dug through
the deposits at the back of the shelter to reveal the back wall.
In Later Stone Age cave sites, graves are often located in this
area, and we have the remains of about 120 individuals from
Matjes River Rock Shelter, many of them infants or children
(Morris 1992; my own observations). There are probably
more skeletons in the remaining unexcavated deposits. This
is the largest number of individuals recovered from a Stone
Age site in southern Africa. Nearly all the skeletons are in-
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574 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
complete because of both disturbance of graves by subsequent
interments in prehistory and careless excavation and curation.
Even so, these skeletons preserve a wealth of information
about many aspects of life in the Later Stone Age (Clayton,
Sealy, and Pfeiffer 2006; Dewar and Pfeiffer 2004; Pfeiffer and
Sealy 2006; Stock and Pfeiffer 2004).
Matjes River Rock Shelter is the best-known site in thearea, but there are many more Later Stone Age sites nearby.
Wilson (1988) reported on Forest Hall shelter, about 800 m
east of Matjes River, and there are other sites as one continues
eastward along the Tsitsikamma coastline. Some were inves-
tigated in the first half of the twentieth century (FitzSimons
1923, 1926; Schauder 1963), but no reports were published
and these sites have received less attention from archaeologists
in recent years.
Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analysis
Stable isotope measurements of human skeletons are now
widely used in archaeology to investigate ancient diets andhence to try to infer aspects of economy, social organization,
or other facets of life in the past (Katzenberg and Harrison
1997; Schoeninger and Moore 1992). Isotope techniques have
been particularly successful in the investigation of the im-
portance of marine compared with terrestrial foods, since in
most parts of the world these have clearly distinguishable
stable carbon and/or nitrogen isotope ratios (Richards, Price,
and Koch 2003; Richards, Schulting, and Hedges 2003;
Schoeninger, DeNiro, and Tauber 1983; Sealy and van der
Merwe 1986, 1988; Tauber 1981; Walker and DeNiro 1986;
Yesner 1988). The approach relies upon variations in the ratio
of naturally occurring stable (non-radioactive) isotopes of
carbon and nitrogen . The smaller, lighter13 12 15 14( C/ C) ( N/ N)isotope tends to react more rapidly than the12 14( C or N)
heavier one in the chemical reactions that make13 15( C or N)
up the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. This leads to pat-
terned variation in the abundance of compared with13C
compared with that we can use as natural12 15 14C and N N
tracers (for a general summary of this topic, see Hoefs 1997).
In the case of carbon, the ratio of a given material13 12C/ C
is expressed relative to that of Peedee Belemnite (PDB) marine
limestone, the generally accepted standard material. Most liv-
ing organisms contain less than PDB, which means that13C
their values are negative13 13 13 12d C (d C p {[ C/ C sample stdparts per thousand, or per mil, ab-13 12C/ C ] 1}# 1,000sample
breviated as ). The greatest shifts in occur during13 12C/ C
photosynthesis, when plants preferentially fix rather12CO2than out of atmospheric carbon dioxide because mol-13CO2ecules containing the smaller, lighter atom diffuse more12C
easily into the photosynthetic tissues of plants and because
enzymes involved in photosynthesis preferentially assimilate
at the expense of . The value of atmospheric12 13 13C C d C
is at present about . Most plants photosynthesize byCO 82means of the Calvin-Benson or pathway, which discrim-C3inates strongly against , with the result that the average13C
value of plants is around 27, with a range from13d C C3about 22 to 34 (OLeary 1995). Some species, mostly
tropical grasses, use the Hatch-Slack or pathway, in whichC4discrimination is less pronounced; values of plants13d C C4average 13, with a range from about 8 to 16.
Contemporary atmospheric values have become more13d C
negative since the Industrial Revolution because of the com-bustion of fossil fuels derived from plants; the currentC3value is around 8, but for most of the Holocene it has
been closer to 6.5 (Indermuhle et al. 1999). Thus we
should add 1.5 to measurements of modern organisms13d C
to approximate pre-industrial values. In animals, carbon and
nitrogen are derived from food. Animals that eat plantsC3have bone collagen (the major constituent of bone protein)
values about 5 more positive than their food; therefore13d C
the values for -consumers are typically -20 or 21 (forC3archaeological samples) and for -consumers around 6.C4Mixtures of and foods lead to intermediate values. InC C3 4the ocean, photosynthesis is carried out by plankton and ma-
croalgae, which may use the C3 and/or the photosyntheticC4pathway.
Terrestrial vegetation in the southern Cape is a mosaic of
forest, bush, and grassland in which trees and bushes are
and grasses include both and species (Vogel, Fuls,C C C3 3 4and Ellis 1978). Foods eaten by prehistoric humans were,
however, predominantly . Plant foods consisted mainly ofC3fruits and berries, which are all , and the starchy under-C3ground storage organs of plants. There is no evidence thatC3people ate grasses. grasses are likely to have contributedC4to human diets principally via the meat of grazing animals
such as alcelaphine antelope and buffalo. Grazers were, how-
ever, not common in the excavated faunal assemblage from
Nelson Bay Cave, reflecting the limited extent of grassland inthe surrounding environment (Inskeep 1987; Klein 1972a;
1972b). Thus the overall character of the terrestrial human
diet was , with a minor contribution. The ofseafood13C C d C3 4would have varied, depending on the items chosen, with filter-
feeding shellfish such as mussels having values around 16
and seal meat about 12 (Muller 2002; Sealy and van der
Merwe 1986). In previous isotopic work along the South Af-
rican coast, the average value for a mixed marine-based13d C
diet has been estimated at around 16.
In the case of nitrogen, of a given material is ex-15 14N/ N
pressed relative to air. Samples containing more than air15 N
have positive values (calculated in the same way as15d N
values above) and those containing less have negative13d C
values. Atmospheric nitrogen gas is fixed into ammo-(N )2nium, nitrates, and nitrites by nitrogen-fixing organisms. The
first two are taken up by plants and incorporated into plant
proteins and may subsequently be converted by animals into
animal proteins. After an organism dies, its nitrogen-con-
taining compounds may be broken down into nitrogen gas
by microorganisms (denitrification) and returned to the
atmosphere. There is fractionation (i.e., a shift in the 15N/14N ratio) associated with each of these steps. Because of the
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 575
differential distribution of nitrification and denitrification on
land and in the sea, terrestrial values tend, on average,15d N
to be lower than those in the oceans, particularly for animals
(consumers high in the food chain). Consumers have 15d N
values 34 more positive than the food that they eat, and
top carnivores have the most positive values of all (Minagawa
and Wada 1984; Schoeninger and De Niro 1984; Schoeninger,De Niro, and Tauber 1983). Nitrogen in animal or human
diets comes from protein, and therefore the value of15d N
consumers tissue tells us about the nitrogen isotopic com-
position of the protein component of their diets.
The mean value for terrestrial herbivores from Nelson15d N
Bay Cave between 500 and 9,000 BP is 4.7 1.0 (np
25) (fig. 2). People who ate entirely terrestrial diets would be
expected, therefore, to have values in their bone collagen15d N
of approximately 8934 more enriched than their
(protein) food. Shellfish, especially filter-feeders such as mus-
sels, which are low in the marine food chain, have values15d N
of ca. 510. The values of modern brown mussels15d N
(Perna perna) collected from the Robberg Peninsula averaged7.7 0.8 (np 19), statistically indistinguishable from the
value of 7.4 0.5 (np 12) for mussels collected near
Matjes River Rock Shelter (Muller 2002). Animals higher in
the food chain have more positive values (for measure-15d N
ments of animals from the ocean at Cape Town, see Sealy et
al. 1987). Predators such as seals yield significantly more pos-
itive values: mean for a sample of archaeological seal15d N
bones from Nelson Bay Cave was 16.8 1.7 (np 9)
(Muller 2002).
Understanding the dietary origins of carbon (and hence
) in body tissues is more complicated than for nitrogen,13d C
since dietary proteins, carbohydrates, and fats all contain car-
bon, which may contribute to tissue synthesis in the con-sumer. We are concerned here with interpreting in bone13d C
collagen, which is a protein tissue, so we need to consider
the pathways by which carbon is incorporated into proteins
in the consumers body. We know that essential amino acids
have to be incorporated in their entirety from the diet, and
therefore the carbon atoms in those molecules must derive
from dietary protein. About 30% of the carbon atoms in
collagen are in essential amino acids. The remainder are in
non-essential amino acids that may also derive from dietary
protein, or the carbon skeletons may be partly or wholly
synthesized in the body from carbohydrates or, less com-
monly, lipids (Howland et al. 2003). We do not yet fully
understand what controls these pathways, and they probably
depend on the nutritional and energetic state of the individual,
in females whether they are pregnant or lactating, and other
factors. It may well be the case that, in individuals eating
high-protein diets (such as the coastal hunter-gatherers we
are concerned with here), carbon in collagen comes mostly
from dietary protein. We should bear in mind, however, that
and values of bone collagen may track somewhat13 15d C d N
different components of the diet.
Bone (including bone collagen) grows most quickly during
early life, as the skeleton grows and matures. In adults, bone
is continually resorbed and re-formed, with attendant collagen
replacement. Because this process occurs at different rates in
different parts of the skeleton and slows with age, it is difficult
to know exactly how long a period a particular tissue sample
represents. Adult bone collagen has, however, been deposited
over at least a decade and probably more (Libby et al. 1964;Stenhouse and Baxter 1976). This means that the and13d C
values provide a long-term average of diet over many15d N
years.
Dietary reconstructions based on stable isotope measure-
ments are best treated in a comparative framework. The dif-
ficulty of knowing the exact isotopic composition of the diet
and the metabolic complications mentioned above mean that
it is currently not possible to quantify the contributions of
different foods to complex mixed diets such as those com-
monly eaten by people. Provided that the isotopic values of
foodstuffs remain constant, it is possible to use isotopic di-
etary evidence as a powerful measure of relative diet: to in-
vestigate whether one group ate more or less of a particularcategory of foods than another. Isotope-based reconstructions
of diet have sometimes conflicted with reconstructions based
on the identification of excavated food residues (Bailey and
Milner 2002; Claassen 1988). This may stem from several
causes but is often at least partly the result of poor temporal
and/or geographical fit between the material used in the iso-
topic analyses and the excavated food waste. This is not a
problem in the study presented here. Used with care, isotopic
evidence of past diets can provide a powerful, secure line of
evidence that can be used to adjudicate among the multiple
competing hypotheses with which excavated archaeological
evidence is often consistent (e.g., Inskeep 1987, 3035).
Materials and Methods
The 69 skeletons analysed in this study were drawn from
museum collections. Forty-five come from the Robberg Pen-
insula and the adjacent Plettenberg Bay, while 22 come from
Matjes River Rock Shelter and 2 are from sites about 800 m
east of Matjes River (see fig. 1 and table 2). Some of these
skeletons were dug up by early collectors in the first half of
the twentieth century. Some were revealed accidentally in the
course of construction work, and some are from controlled
archaeological excavations. In only one case, however, was
there sufficient archaeological context to provide a reliable
date, so each individual (except Burial 2 from Nelson Bay
Cave) has been directly dated by radiocarbon dating of bone
collagen. To avoid complications in the interpretation of the
isotope results due to the effects of breast-feeding, only adult
skeletons have been included (Clayton, Sealy, and Pfeiffer
2006; Katzenberg, Herring, and Saunders 1996).
Stable isotope ratios were measured in the Archaeometry
Laboratory in the Department of Archaeology at the Uni-
versity of Cape Town. Small samples of bone were decalcified
in dilute (ca. 2%) hydrochloric acid, rinsed in distilled water,
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576 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
Figure 2. values of human skeletons from Robberg/Plettenberg Bay15d N(diamonds) and Matjes River (squares), together with archaeological an-imal bones from Nelson Bay Cave (triangles), all plotted against uncal-ibrated radiocarbon date BP. Data for animals from Sealy (1996). Crossesnear y-axis indicate mean one standard deviation for modern brownmussels from Robberg (inside plot area, 7.7 0.8, np 19) and MatjesRiver (outside plot area, 7.4 0.5, np 12), and archaeological sealbones from Nelson Bay Cave (16.8 1.7, np 9). Size of symbols asplotted encompasses mean one standard deviation of the radiocarbondetermination. As in Richards, Schulting, and Hedges (2003), dates have
not been calibrated because of the difficulty of knowing the magnitudeof the marine correction factor: this is usually estimated at ca. 400 years,but a recent series of comparisons of paired shell and charcoal samplesfrom Matjes River Rock Shelter yielded offsets ranging from 425 to 35
years (Dockel 1998). The maximum correction for bones in this studyis about 200 years (most positive is , excluding the very recent13d C 11.1outlier from Matjes River). Calibration does not significantly alter theallocation of points to the three time brackets shown here. Vertical linesdemarcate points between 4,500 and 2,000 BP.
soaked overnight in 0.1 M sodium hydroxide, and then soaked
in distilled water until neutral. The resultant acid-insoluble
bone protein, loosely termed collagen, was freeze-dried.
Collagen preservation was excellent: C/N ratios and weight
percent carbon and nitrogen of all samples were characteristic
of well-preserved collagen (Ambrose 1990; DeNiro 1985; van
Klinken 1999). This is as expected in a basic (high-pH) shell
midden burial environment. The isotope ratios were mea-
sured on a Finnigan-MAT 252 ratio mass spectrometer cou-
pled with a Carlo-Erba preparation unit. The standard de-
viation of repeated determinations of homogeneous material
was less than 0.2 for both carbon and nitrogen. Carbon
isotope results are expressed relative to PDB, nitrogen relative
to ambient inhalable reservoir.
Results
The values for skeletons from Robberg/Plettenberg Bay15d N
range from 8.0 to 18.3, with from 18.4 to 11.1.13d C
Skeletons from Matjes River show a slightly smaller range,with between 9.6 and 15.9 and between 15.615 13d N d C
and 11.3 with one outlier at 5.6 (table 2, figs. 2 and
3).
In figure 2, values (which, as argued above, are likely15d N
to provide a more direct index of marine/terrestrial protein
intake) are plotted against radiocarbon date. Analyses of a
series of archaeological animal bones from Nelson Bay Cave
show that the baseline environmental values for have15d N
not shifted significantly during the period of interest. At Rob-
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 577
Table 2. Stable Isotope Measurements, Sex Estimation (Where Possible), and Radiocarbon Dates for All Skeletons
UCT Lab No. Museum Acc. No. Locality C13d N15d Sex Radiocarbon Date (BP) Sample
7302&620 SAM-AP 5051 Robberg 18.4 12.4 OxA-V-2053-48 207 25 Cranium (styloid)
10989 SAM-AP 5053 Robberg 11.1a 15.9a OxA-V-2065-41 370 27 Cranium
ALB 282 Beacon Island 17.0 8.0 F Pta-8580 570 50 Fibula and ribs
5234 NMB 1704 Plettenberg Bay
12.2 9.3 F Pta-6963 760 50 Left femur10138 ALB (from JB) Robberg 13.4 13.1 Pta-8932 850 50 Ribs
7299 SAM-AP 4898 Robberg 13.1 1 3.4 OxA-V-2053-49 1,226 26 Mandible
5220 UCT 254 Beacon Island 15.7 9.3 M Pta-6820 1,270 50 Left femur
10851 NMB 1707 Plettenberg Bay 14.9 10.6 OxA-V-2064-53 1,394 24 Cranium
10847 NMB 5 Plettenberg Bay 14.3 11.5 OxA-V-2064-49 1,423 26 Cranium
5211 SAM-AP 1878(A) Robberg (Cave E) 13.0 14.4 M Pta-6592 2,170 20 Ribs
5209 SAM-AP 1146 Robberg 14.7 13.1 M Pta-6646 2,240 20 Left femur
5219 UCT 246 Plettenberg Bay 12.0 15.1 F Pta-6812 2,290 60 Ribs
5214 SAM-AP 1889 Robberg (Cave E) 11.5 17.5 M Pta-6594 2,310 50 Left humerus
5215 SAM-AP 1893 Robberg 11.7 16.6 M Pta-6613 2,360 20 Ribs
ALB 50 Plettenberg Bay 11.3 16.9 M Pta-8557 2,380 45 Fibula and ribs
7304&619 SAM-AP 5052 Robberg 11.1 18.3 OxA-V-2053-46 2,416 27 Cranium
7316 SAM-AP 3030 Robberg 13.3 15.1 Pta-7940 2,570 50 Tibia
7301&616 SAM-AP 5050 Robberg 11.7 16.7 F Pta-7927 2,580 60 Innominate
5232 NMB 1639 Robberg Cave 12.2 15.9 F Pta-6965 2,590 60 Ribs
5212 SAM-AP 1878(B) Robberg (Cave E) 12.0 15.9 Pta-2145 2,620 35 Femurb
7311 SAM-AP 5049 Robberg 12.1 16.1 F? Pta-7934 2,740 50 Tibia
5425 UCT 345 NBC Burial 2 12.5 14.7 F ca. 2,750 Ribb
5235 NMB 1705A Plettenberg Bay 12.9 14.4 F Pta-6964 2,780 60 Left femur
7314&614 SAM-AP 5048 Robberg 12.3 16.6 F? Pta-7924 2,780 60 Femur
7305 SAM-AP 6016 Robberg 12.4 1 3.7 OxA-V-2053-45 2,813 29 Mandible
7309&612 SAM-AP 1131 Robberg 13.5 13.2 F? OxA-V-2053-44 3,065 29 Maxilla
5599 NMB 1705B Plettenberg Bay 13.1 13.4 N Pta-6978 3,070 60 Left femur
5208 SAM-AP 1145 Robberg 12.5 15.3 M Pta-2284 3,210 70 Left metatarsalb
5426 UCT 347 NBC Burial 4 14.3 1 3.3 M OxA-V-2055-35 3,236 33 Rib
5210 SAM-AP 1871 Robberg (Cave D) 12.4 16.2 F Pta-2273 3,310 60 Right fibulab
5213 SAM-AP 1879 Robberg 11.1 17.5 M Pta-2283 3,440 60 Ribsb
7319 SAM-AP 1894 Robberg (Cave F) 12.9 1 5.2 OxA-V-2053-43 3,511 30 Mandible
10852 UCT161 Plettenberg Bay 12.1 16.0 OxA-V-2064-54 3,541 26 Cranium
7313&617 SAM-AP 4980 Plettenberg Bay 12.6 15.2 F? Pta-7941 3,605 20 Femur
10846 NMB 4 Robberg 14.2 14.2 OxA-V-2064-48 3,940 27 Cranium7300&615 SAM-AP 3026 Robberg 12.1 16.8 F Pta-7925 3,980 60 Temporal bone and rib
5216 SAM-AP 3021 Robberg 12.0 15.7 F Pta-6595 4,030 60 Right femur
5233 NMB 1640 Robberg Cave 12.0 16.3 F Pta-6983 4,120 60 Left femur
8459 SAM-AP 6326 Nelson Bay Cave 15. 5 10.4 OxA-V-2055-37 4,865 36 Large calcaneum
8458 SAM-AP 6325 Nelson Bay Cave 15. 2 11.2 OxA-V-2055-36 4,897 35 Small calcaneum
10849 NMB 1319 Plettenberg Bay 13.0 13.8 OxA-V-2064-51 5,251 29 Cranium
7303 SAM-AP 1129 Robberg 11.8 17.3 OxA-V-2053-47 5,379 34 Cranium
7395 NMB 1312 Plettenberg Bay 13.2 13.8 M Pta-7983 5,980 50 Fibula
11058 SAM-AP 5055 Plettenberg Bay 12.5a 15.6a OxA-V-2065-42 6,995 50 Cranium
9145 NMB 1324 Robberg 12.5 16.0 OxA-V-2055-38 7,245 40 Cranium
7407 Not accessioned Matjes River 5.6 9.6 OxA-11965 271 20 Rib
7613 SAM-AP 4661 Piet se Bank 13.1 14.4 OxA-V-2055-34 1,310 30 Cranium
7317 SAM-AP 4632 Piet se Bank 15.1 11.8 OxA-V-2053-42 2,183 26 Cranium
5230 NMB not acc MSk 2 Matjes River 15.1 13.4 F? Pta-6944 2,200 50 Ribs
5603 Matj Riv skel #1 Matjes River
13.8 13.6 F Pta-6952 2,280 60 Ribs5225 NMB 1241A Matjes River 12.7 13.5 F? Pta-6958 2,970 60 Right femur
10848 NMB 1242 Matjes River 14.8 11.5 OxA-V-2064-50 3,030 26 Cranium
5222 NMB 1440 Matjes River 15.0 11.4 F? Pta-6948 3,040 60 Right femur
5223 NMB 1273 Matjes River 15.4 11.6 M Pta-6942 3,050 60 Ribs
7408 NMB MSk 5 Matjes River 14.0 10.1 OxA-11939 3,277 31 Fibula
5226 NMB 1241B Matjes River 15.0 12.9 F? Pta-6950 3,290 90 Right femur
5601 NMB 1271 Matjes River 12.9 13.0 F? Pta-6957 3,570 50 Ribs
5224 NMB 1275 Matjes River 15.6 11.9 M Pta-6986 4,850 60 Right femur
5221 NMB 1437 Matjes River 13.8 13.2 M Pta-6947 4,940 70 Left femur
7398 NMB 1596 Matjes River 13.7 10.7 OxA-11937 4,956 32 Humerus
7404 NMB SN4 Matjes River 13.6 13.7 M OxA-11938 5,025 35 Phalange
5227 NMB 1274 Matjes River 13.6 13.2 F Pta-6981 5,120 50 Right fibula
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578 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
7415 NMB Gr1 rib A Matjes River 12.8 13.8 M OxA-11940 5,148 33 Rib
7416 NMB Gr1 rib B Matjes River 11.8 15.9 F OxA-11941 5,368 35 Rib
5602 NMB not acc SS2 Matjes River 13.5 13.0 F Pta-6976 5,370 70 Ribs
5600 NMB not acc SS3 Matjes River 14.6 13.9 M? Pta-6975 5,390 70 Right femur
10850 NMB 1448A Matjes River 13.9 12.9 OxA-V-2064-52 7,295 32 Cranium
5228 NMB 1281 Matjes River 15.0 12.8 M? Pta-6988 7,420 80 Right tibia
5229 NMB 1342 (p MR1) Matjes River 11.3 1 4.9 F OxA-V-2064-56 9,688 36 Ulna
Note: N, Neutral/nonsexable.aMeasured at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Laboratory.bUsed for stable isotope measurements only; date already available at the start of this project.
berg/Plettenberg Bay, only 7 of 45 skeletons are older than
4,500 BP. This is too few to see a clear pattern, if one exists,
but these individuals show substantial variation in . Be-15d N
tween 4,500 and 2,000 BP, skeletons from Robberg/Pletten-
berg Bay show uniformly enriched values, all . This15d N 1 13
is a relatively large sample (29 individuals), so the observation
is robust. These are the remains of people who ate substantial
quantities of seafood, including high-trophic-level animal
food such as the meat of seals and/or carnivorous fish. In
some cases it was possible to assess the sex of the individual.The values of male and female skeletons are very similar,15d N
at least between 4,500 and 2,000 BP. Men and women seem
to have eaten similar proportions of high-trophic-level sea-
foods. After 2,000 BP, there is a sharp decline in the 15d N
values of skeletons from Robberg/Plettenberg Bay. At that
time, hunter-gatherer lifeways were disrupted by the emer-
gence of herding societies along the southern and western
coasts of South Africa. The marked shift in values may15d N
be linked to the adoption of domesticated stock in the region.
Skeletons from Matjes River Rock Shelter show less chro-
nological variation in . Most have values of around 13,15d N
indicating that people ate a mixed diet with more terrestrial
food and/or low-trophic-level marine food such as shellfish.
Prior to 4,500 BP, on the basis of the small sample available,
values for skeletons from Matjes River Rock Shelter are15d N
not significantly different from those from Robberg/Pletten-
berg Bay (Mann-Whitney Z-value p 0.93, ).0.30 !p! 0.40
Between 4,500 and 2,000 BP, however, the difference is highly
significant (Mann-Whitney Z-value p 4.29, ).p! 0.0001
There are only two skeletons from Matjes River dated younger
than 2,000 BP. The most recent (UCT 7407, BP)271 20
has very positive for its value (d15Np 9.6, d13C13 15d C d N
p 5.6). This combination of values is outside the range
for Cape coastal hunter-gatherers, and the sample clearly de-
rives from an individual who ate substantial quantities C4foods. By this time, farmers practising -based agricultureC4(sorghum, millet, and possibly maize) had settled a few hun-
dred kilometers east of Matjes River. -consumers have beenC4recorded from the southern Cape from the second millen-
nium AD (e.g., UCT 67 and NMB 1704 [Sealy 1997]).
Discussion
It is clear that, at least between about 4,500 and 2,000 BP,
people who were buried on the Robberg Peninsula and in the
area of the modern town of Plettenberg Bay had had a spe-
cialized economy and consumed a great deal of high-trophic-
level marine protein. In contrast, people who were buried at
Matjes River Rock Shelter, only 14 km to the east, had eaten
much more mixed diets incorporating more terrestrial food
and/or low-trophic-level marine food such as shellfish. The
Robberg/Plettenberg Bay values stand out as unusual in the
context of the southern Cape as a whole (Sealy and Pfeiffer
2000). The most enriched values, 17 18, ap-15d N
proach figures reported for skeletons from the Northwest
Coast of North America and Inuit skeletons from Canada and
Alaska (Schoeninger, DeNiro, and Tauber 1983). Clearly,these
individuals ate a great deal of high-trophic-level marine
protein.
The inhabitants of Robberg had a special foraging oppor-
tunity in the form of access to seals. The word Robberg
means Seal Mountain, and the Robberg Peninsula is home
to one of the rare mainland colonies of Cape fur seals (Arc-
tocephalus pusillus) along the southern African coast. Most
seal colonies are on off-shore islands, where the animals are
protected from terrestrial predators. Today, the colonies clos-
est to Robberg are on islands in Algoa Bay, about 250 km tothe east, and Mossel Bay, 150 km to the west (Rand 1972;
Shaughnessy 1993). The fact that Robberg is a long narrow
peninsula with a restricted connection to the rest of the coast-
line may have afforded some protection from carnivores. In
the first half of the twentieth century there was also a small
colony on Beacon Island, a couple of kilometres east of Rob-
berg, within Plettenberg Bay. This is an island only at high
tide; it would have been accessible from the shore at low tide.
The present-day nature and distribution of seal colonies
have been significantly affected by intensive hunting over the
past few centuries. Seals have been harvested commercially
in South Africa since the seventeenth century, with 45,000
animals being taken by Dutch sealers near the Cape of GoodHope in 1610 alone (Hart 1957 in Shaughnessy 1984) in
addition to the catches of English and French sealers. By the
late nineteenth century, at least 23 colonies had been wiped
out (Oosthuizen and David 1988). A colony was, however,
still present at Robberg; a license was granted in 1909 to
harvest seals from Seal Point, near the tip of the peninsula,
and also at Seal Ledges and Walker Point, on the mainland
near Knysna, where colonies no longer exist (Shaughnessy
1984). Vic Cockroft of the Centre for Dolphin Studies and
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 579
Ocean Safaris in Plettenberg Bay, studying the documents
relating to commercial sealing, has calculated that the Robberg
colony in the nineteenth century probably consisted of around
6,000 animals, compared with ca. 3,000 in March 2003 (per-
sonal communication). Today, the Robberg seal colony is sit-
uated on the eastern side of the peninsula, on a very precip-
itous stretch of rocky coastline. Seals can often be seen battlingto climb out of the water onto the steep rocks, and space on
shore is very limited. Before commercial sealing took its toll,
it is likely that the colony was located at Suidoosbank, near
the tip of the peninsula (Vic Cockroft, personal communi-
cation), where the rocks slope much more gently and there
is a large area of flat rock.
Cape fur seals do not migrate, but they travel and feed over
long distances, up to 50 miles from land (Rand 1967). They
are land-based during the breeding season in spring and early
summer, but they feed at sea in autumn and winter. Thus
breeding colonies are large in summer and small in winter.
Oosthuizen and David (1988, fig. 2) report that at the large
seal colony at Cape Frio, in Namibia, up to 10,000 animalsare present in summer, falling to around 1,500 in winter. The
Robberg colony is today a hauling-out colony, where seals
rest on rocks, rather than a breeding colony and may have
been so in the past. Some animals are, however, to be found
there at all times of the year.
A seal colony such as this would have been a major at-
traction to hunter-gatherers. Food refuse from coastal ar-
chaeological sites commonly includes seal bones; in most ar-
eas, people were able to obtain only animals that washed up
sick or dead and perhaps the occasional individual that came
ashore and could be killed. The age profiles of seals in most
Later Stone Age sites reflect this: the majority of animals are
ca. nine-month-old weanlings, at the age when their mothersare pregnant with the next pup and insist that the previous
years offspring find their own food. Weaker juveniles com-
monly succumb at this stage and are washed up dead or dying
on the shorerich pickings for hunter-gatherers. Seal remains
from Nelson Bay Cave, while still dominated by juveniles,
include more older animals, as one would expect if hunters
had access to a seal colony rather than having to rely on wash-
ups. Animals younger than nine months are, however, not
represented, which supports the idea that this was a hauling-
out colony rather than a breeding colony even in prehistoric
times (Klein and Cruz-Uribe 1996, fig. 5; Klein, Cruz-Uribe,
and Skinner 1999, fig. 2). Estimates of sustainable cull rates
vary, but Cape fur seals reproduce fast: females are sexually
mature by their second year, and they pup every year. Un-
disturbed seal colonies for which records have been kept in
recent decades can grow quite rapidly (Branch and Branch
1981). In addition, it is likely that only about one in five
young males becomes a harem master (Vic Cockroft, personal
communication). Considerable numbers of animals could
therefore have been hunted without compromising the via-
bility of the population.
Seal bones are present at Nelson Bay Cave from the early
Holocene, when the sea reached approximately its present
level after the post-glacial warming, onwards. They are more
common, however, in levels post-dating 3,300 BP. It is not
clear when the Robberg seal colony was first established. The
shoreline shifted in the mid-Holocene, when sea level rose by
about 13 m (Compton 2001; Marker and Miller 1993; Red-
dering 1988). This high stand is dated to ca. 6,000 BP atKnysna (Marker and Miller 1993) and 5,000 BP at Keurbooms
River, with a return to present mean sea level by shortly after
4,000 BP (Reddering 1988). This would have affected seal
colonies, but the animals may simply have followed the rising
and falling shoreline without substantially shifting the location
of the colony.
Cape fur seals eat fish and are near the top of the marine
food chain (their principal predators, apart from man, are
sharks and orcas). Archaeological seal bones from Nelson Bay
Cave have high values: 16.8 1.7 (np 9) (Muller15d N
2002). Consumption of seal meat would, therefore, have con-
tributed substantially to elevated values in human bone15d N
collagen. A seal colony would have provided a rich year-roundstorehouse of food, both meat and blubber. Fat is known to
be a particularly desirable resource to hunter-gatherers, since
the meat of most wild animals is very lean. The rarity of
readily accessible seal colonies must have made those that
existed especially attractive, and these must have been key
localities on hunter-gatherers mental maps of their landscape.
Other foods would also have contributed to high val-15d N
ues at Robberg/Plettenberg Bay. The geographical position of
the Robberg Peninsula, extending 4 km out into the ocean,
with deep water on either side, means that it offers particularly
good fishing opportunities, and deep-water fish species not
usually caught by shore-based anglers are regularly taken from
Robberg. Fish bones are prominent among the excavated foodremains from Nelson Bay Cave, as well as the bones of sea
birds such as cormorants and gannets. The Nelson Bay Cave
assemblage includes bones of the yellowtail fish (Seriola la-
landii), a species not usually caught from the shore and un-
common in archaeological sites. Yellowtail are carnivorous fish
and therefore have relatively high values (13.7 0.615d N
[np 5] [muscle tissue of modem fish]). Yellowtail started
to become a regular part of the fish assemblage at Nelson Bay
Cave above unit 78 (ca. 4,500 BP), reaching about 40% of
the minimum number of individual fish in a number of the
units from 63 (ca. 3,300 BP) to 54 (Inskeep 1987, fig. 68A).
Since yellowtail are twice as large as any of the other fish
caught regularly at Nelson Bay Cave they contributed a sig-
nificant proportion of the total quantity of fish flesh (Pog-
genpoel 1984).
Contrary to initial expectations, there is no significant in-
crease in the values of human skeletons after 3,300 BP15d N
coinciding with the marked changes in food residues and
artefact assemblages at Nelson Bay Cave. Post-3,300-BP levels
yielded substantially more fish remains and more bones of
juvenile seals than older layers. We do not have information
on the relative importance of shellfish before and after this
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580 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
time (Inskeep 1987, 273). If there is archaeological evidence
for a more marine-oriented diet after 3,300 BP, why do we
not see correspondingly higher values in the skeletons?15d N
This is something of a puzzle, but the explanation may have
to do with the trophic levels of the marine foods consumed.
If consumption of lower-trophic-level marine foods such as
planktivorous fish and perhaps shellfish also increased at thistime, then the average value of the diet as a whole may15d N
not have shifted substantially. We need further work to un-
derstand this issue properly. For the moment, we should note
that there was indeed a wider variety of fish species in levels
post-dating 3,300 BP than in earlier layers (Inskeep 1987,
235).
If we turn this issue around and look at it from an ar-
chaeological point of view, it is remarkable that the specialized
economy at Robberg/Plettenberg Bay, with its focus on high-
trophic-level marine foods, persisted across the major culture-
stratigraphic boundary at 3,300 BP. We know that this was a
time of widespread change across the entire region. The shift
in stone tool types from the formal microlithic Wilton toinformal macrolithic assemblages made mostly on locally
available quartzite beach cobbles is the most archaeologically
visible and hence widely documented component of the suite
of changes observed at Nelson Bay Cave. It extended along
much of the Cape coast (Binneman 1995; Sampson 1974; Van
Noten 1974), although nowhere else is it as securely dated as
at Nelson Bay Cave. In other words, this is a change from a
curated technology (the Wilton) to an expedient onea con-
trast argued elsewhere to be deeply rooted in socioeconomic
practice, specifically risk-management strategies (Binford
1977). In the southern Cape this wide-ranging change in stone
tool-making tradition took place across established economic
and social structures without necessarily re-configuring them.In a pioneering study more than 30 years ago, Nick Shack-
leton measured oxygen isotope ratios in growth increments
in Patella tabularisshells from early and mid-Holocene layers
at Nelson Bay Cave. (This species has recently been reassigned
to Scutellastra tabularis [Ridgway et al. 1998]). Shackleton
found patterned variations in across the shells cor-18 16O/ O
responding to summer/winter fluctuations in water temper-
atures. In each of his 15 specimens the most recent growth
increments indicated lower water temperatures: these shellfish
were harvested in the winter months (Shackleton 1973). He
inferred that at this time, between 9,000 and 5,000 BP, the
cave was occupied in the winter. Shackleton chose to work
on Scutellastra tabularis because it is the largest species of
limpet in South Africa. The shells are robust and tend to be
well preserved, and the growth increments are sufficiently
large to be easily sampled. It is, however, a relatively rare
species at Nelson Bay Cave: in most levels it contributed only
a few percent of the total shellfish assemblage, rising to a
maximum of 5% in layers dating to 11,000 to 10,000 BP and
again at about 5,000 BP (Klein 1972a, fig. 4). Inferences about
the seasonality of occupation of the site based on this one
species may be correct; certainly, Shackletons results are re-
markably consistent. It would, however, strengthen the ar-
gument to have similar analyses of other, more common shell
types. Subsequent attempts to apply this technique have en-
countered problems, especially poor preservation of the out-
ermost growth increments in shells from older layers. Some
success has, however, been achieved with Turboopercula from
the last 5,000 years. Turbo is a more common species thanScutellastra tabularis, and the opercula are well suited to ox-
ygen isotope measurements. Analysis of 76 specimens has
yielded much more variable results, indicating that shells were
collected in all seasons of the year (my own unpublisheddata).
In the period of most interest here, after 4,500 BP, oxygen
isotope analyses of shells indicate that Nelson Bay Cave was
occupied in all seasons.
Matjes River Rock Shelter, by contrast, offered no special
foraging opportunities. The fishing spots in this area are sim-
ilar to those all along the southern Cape coast, and there are
no records of seal colonies in the vicinity in historic times.
Unsystematic excavation practice at the site has meant that
food remains were mostly discarded. Examination of the re-maining sections shows that shellfish were abundant. Fish
bone is present, but we do not know the range of species that
were caught or their relative importance. There are a few seal
bones among the small extant sample of excavated animal
bones, but these occur in almost all Later Stone Age sites and
may derive from washed-up animals, as described above.
Quantitative studies of the available excavated materials are
impossible. On the basis of the values, however, it is15d N
clear that diets at Matjes River Rock Shelter included more
low-trophic-level marine foods such as shellfish and/or more
terrestrial foods than those at Robberg/Plettenberg Bay
This hypothesis is supported by the results of the regression
of on for the two data sets (skeletons older than15 13d N d C2,000 BP only, in order to exclude possible food producers)
(fig. 3). The shallower slope at Matjes River (i.e., lower
for given values) is what one would expect for15 13d N d C
lower-trophic-level foods, and the lower value indicates2r
dietary heterogeneity.
The isotopic measurements reported here are of bone col-
lagen, which, as outlined above, is a tissue that turns over
slowly in adult life. The isotopic values integrate foods eaten
over at least the last decade of life and probably longer. Dif-
ferences in between Robberg/Plettenberg Bay and Matjes15d N
River therefore reflect long-term dietary differences at the scale
of individual lifetimes, differences that were maintained over
a decade or more. If the people who were buried in a par-
ticular area were also resident there, then the pattern could
only have arisen in a situation in which there was considerable
social albeit not geographic distance between the two
areas. I infer that there was a territorial boundary between
Robberg/Plettenberg Bay and Matjes River, very likely marked
by the estuary of the Bietou/Keurbooms River (cf. Dockel
1998). This is a prominent feature in the landscape; it is (by
South African standards) a very large estuary, too deep and
wide to wade across. Another boundary existed between the
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 581
Figure 3. N versus C for skeletons from Robberg/Plettenberg Bay15 13d d(diamonds) and Matjes River (squares), individuals older than 2,000 BPonly.
coast and the site of Whitchers Cave, 14 km inland. Skeletons
from Whitchers Cave had isotope values indicating that they
did not consume marine foods and therefore must not have
spent time on the coast (Sealy and Pfeiffer 2000). This cave
is in the Fold Belt, which here lies close to the coast. It is
very rugged country, dissected by deeply cut river valleys and
difficult to traverse.
Wider Implications
Thus I propose that we can begin to reconstruct an archae-
ological landscape in which, by ca. 4,500 BP, the coastal areas
of the southern Cape were partitioned into territories occu-
pied by separate hunter-gatherer groups. These appear to have
been separated by clear geographic boundaries, and individual
and group mobility was limited to demarcated areas. Further
work may draw out additional details, but the picture thus
far contradicts the generalized forager model derived from
southern African hunter-gatherer ethnographies (although
some groups, notably the !ko, did defend territories [Heinz
1972]). It remains to be seen whether marriage partners, for
example, were obtained from outside territories; further iso-
topic work may enable us to answer this question.
This finding becomes less surprising when viewed in the
context of the wider literature on territoriality among hunter-
gatherers. Elizabeth Cashdan (1983) described two very differ-
ent approaches to controlling access to resources (in situations
in which control is necessitated by competition). The first op-
erates through restricting membership of the social group that
permits use of resources in a given area (social boundary de-
fence). The second involves excluding outsiders from a defined
area of land (economic defence or perimeter defence). Social
boundary defence tends to occur in regions where resources
are thinly distributed and variable or unpredictable. As a result,
territories are large, and the work costs of patrolling them are
high. In addition, expert knowledge of where resources are
located is critical to foraging success, and therefore newcomers
need to link up with locals who have this expertise. Cashdan
argued that Kalahari San groups employ social boundary de-
fence with reciprocal access. The degree of defence varies from
area to area, depending on how much pressure there is on
resources. This system of spatial organization is clearly related
to many features of Kalahari San social organization, including
fluid band membership, with very permeable spatial and social
boundaries. Individuals in societies employing social boundary
defence are often very mobile and may move over sizable areas.
This system is also linked to extensive social networks, main-
tained through exchange or other relationships, which furnish
a safety net of friends and relatives whom people can visit
(sometimes for extended periods) in times of need.Perimeter defence, on the other hand, occurs in areas where
resources are dense and predictable and the costs of defence
are less than the benefits that accrue from controlling the
resource (Dyson-Hudson and Smith 1978). Territories tend
to be quite small, since it is energetically feasible to defend
territorial boundaries only if these are relatively short. Bound-
aries need to be easily recognizable and are marked by land-
scape or other features. Social groups have their own terri-
tories, and individuals do not usually move into foreign
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582 Current Anthropology Volume 47, Number 4, August 2006
territories. Ethnographically, perimeter defence strategies have
been documented among the Maidu and Cahuilla in Cali-
fornia, the Owens Valley Paiute, the Wanniyala-aetto (Veddah)
in Sri Lanka, and possibly the Ainu in Japan. In the past,
when hunter-gatherers occupied more of the worlds highly
productive land, perimeter boundary defence was probably
more common.These two categories may be the ends of a spectrum, and
a simplistic either/or classification is likely to underestimate
the complexity of territorial organization among hunting and
gathering peoples. Even so, perimeter defence certainly fits
the isotopic evidence from the southern Cape better than the
ethnographic/social-boundary-defence model. Cashdan has
noted, further, that we might expect competition to be re-
lated to the magnitude of temporal variation in resource
abundance; if populations are regulated to environmental
resources they are presumably regulated to the lean times, and
consequently populations in varying environments would be
below carrying capacity much of the time. We might therefore
expect greater competition where resources do not fluctuatetemporally (Cashdan 1983, 63). The southern coast of South
Africa is productive, with little seasonal fluctuationjust such
an environment as is described by Cashdan.
To sum up, I propose that hunter-gatherers living in the
area of Robberg/Plettenberg Bay and Matjes River between
about 4,500 and 2,000 BP were more settled than previously
thought. They lived in exclusive, demarcated territories with
clearly defined boundaries. We cannot yet trace all these
boundaries, but one ran between Plettenberg Bay and Matjes
River Rock Shelter, very likely along the Keurbooms/Bietou
estuary, and there was another between the coast and
Whitchers Cave. Future work should try to map the extent
of these territories. A comparison of the excavated artefactualassemblages from Nelson Bay Cave and Matjes River Rock
Shelter is already under way to investigate whether the eco-
nomic differences reported here have material cultural cor-
relates. Two clearly differentiated social groups living in close
proximity to one another might well have expressed group
affiliation through styles of artefact manufacture and use.
We need to develop ways of exploring how a more settled
lifestyle might have articulated with other aspects of life: for
example, exchange networks, including exchange of marriage
partners. I suggest that extensive systems of formal gift-giving
relationships, as documented in the Kalahari, are inconsistent
with the settlement pattern and type of social organization
proposed here. The best-documented system is of course Ju/
hoansi xaro, but analogous arrangements have been docu-
mented among the Nharo and the Nama, though not among
the G/wi (Barnard 1992). This is not to deny the existence of
trade and exchange at Nelson Bay and Matjes River: at both
sites there are items such as ostrich eggshell that probably came
from some distance away. Ostriches are dry-land birds, not
found along the southern Cape coast in historic times, and the
ostrich eggshell in these sites may have come from as far away
as the Karoo. I would argue, however, that in the more tightly
bounded, socially constrained world proposed here, people
would not have neededor been ableto maintain extensive
social networks which, apart from their role in redistributing
goods, provided rights of access to alternative places of resi-
dence and resources in times of need. This is explicitly rec-
ognized: xaro is about unreliable food and water, or at least
it was in the past (Ju/hoan man quoted in Wiessner 1997,167). Such residential mobility conflicts with the pattern in
figure 2 and so could not have been practised in this area
between 4,500 and 2,000 BP. Any exchange relationships that
existed must have been embedded in a different set of social
practices.
There are a number of other questions. How would people
have resolved disputes? Does a more settled lifestyle imply a
greater degree of social complexity (cf. Rowley-Conwy
2001), and how might we go about investigating this question
in the archaeological record? There are no obvious indicators
of accumulation of wealth in the 4,5002,000 BP levels at
Nelson Bay Cave compared with earlier layers. The frequen-
cies of decorative items such as beads and marine shell pen-dants vary through the sequence but are not significantly
higher after 4,500 BP. Some burials were more elaborate than
others, with a greater quantity and variety of grave goods. At
Klasies River, about 100 km east of Matjes River, and at Wel-
geluk, some infant burials were especially richly adorned (Hall
and Binneman 1987). Individual burials are, however, very
variable, and it is not apparent that any social ranking is being
expressed. Hall and Binneman suggested that the elaborate
juvenile burials might represent accumulations of goods ob-
tained in xaro-like exchange networks while the child was still
too young to reciprocate (but see caveat above).
Burials deserve fuller discussion, especially in the light of
work on placement of burials as a means of marking the land-scape in hunter-gatherer societies in Australia (Pardoe 1988),
Mesolithic Europe (Rowley-Conwy 1988, 2001, 2004) and the
Eastern Cape Province of South Africa (Hall 1990, 2000). These
researchers and others have argued that territorial hunter-gath-
erers often (though not always) bury their dead in designated
cemeteries which serve, in part, to express ancestral links to
the land. Is Matjes River Rock Shelter, with its ca. 120 human
burials, a cemetery? This question needs to be considered in
the light of the density of occupation at the site (itself an
interesting issue that might repay closer investigation). As de-
scribed above, Matjes River Rock Shelter is an enormous shell
midden. In addition to burials, it contains a whole range of
domestic residues indicating that it was also an important oc-
cupation site. Along the Cape coast, human burials are often
associated with middens, whether these are in caves, in rock
shelters, or in the open. Many burials from the southern Cape
occur as isolated instances in small open middens or sometimes
are not associated with other archaeological remains at all(Mor-
ris 1992). There is no detectable separation of burial sites from
living sites. On Robberg, burials have been found in all the
large cave sites (Nelson Bay Cave, Cave D, Cave E, etc.) (Morris
1992, table 2). There is therefore no evidence forexclusiveburial
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Sealy Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern in Holocene South Africa 583
Figure 4. Painted seal scapula found in cave at the Knysna Heads
(from Willcox 1963, pl. xvi). Specimen is reported to be inches3
78long (Willcox 1963, 48).
sitescemeteries as Pardoe (1988) defines them. In other parts
of the world, however, this criterion of exclusivity is given less
weight, and Matjes River Rock Shelter might well be considered
a cemetery. On the basis of the evidence we have at present, I
doubt that one can sustain an argument for the existence of
cemeteries in this region. The situation may be different in the
Eastern Cape (Hall 1990).Hitchcock (1982) discussed the implications of sedentism
for San communities along the Nata River, in Botswana. He
found that, with increased territorial identification and de-
marcation, rights of access to territories were more often in-
herited through the male line (compared with the situation
among mobile bands, where inheritance was through both pa-
ternal and maternal lines). This may be one example of in-
creased male influence, which Woodburn (1980) has noted is
often associated with the adoption of delayed-return strategies.
Along the Nata River, collection and storage of surplus foods
became a more regular strategy, with children increasingly in-
volved in household labour. Group size declined (though not
all case studies show this pattern) and marriage partnerstendedto be drawn from closer to home, as argued for territorial
communities along the Murray River in Australia (Pardoe
1988). Hitchcock documented changes in sharing patterns: with
increased sedentism, a greater proportion of sharing was among
close relatives. Economic specialists, such as hunt leaders and
traditional medical practitioners, became more important, and
leaders came to have more influence. Arguments could no
longer be settled by one or both parties moving away, so that
some form of conflict resolution was required. Because Hitch-
cocks study describes hunter-gatherers who were becoming
more sedentary partly because of access to domesticated foods,
a degree of caution is required. Even so, some of these obser-
vations provide material for formulating hypotheses to test inthe archaeological record. For example, were marriage partners
drawn from nearby groups between 4,500 and 2,000 BP com-
pared with earlier (or later) times? More detailed physical an-
thropological work might be able to answer this question.
Future work will explore how the model of southern Cape
hunter-gatherer societies developed here articulates with the
excavated artefactual record. For the present, one can reach
beyond economy and settlement pattern to a tantalizing hint
of the cognitive and symbolic world of southern Cape hunter-
gatherers in the form of a unique artefact: a painted bone
recovered from a cave at Knysna in the late nineteenth century.
The original is in the British Museum, and I have not seen it.
It has been described as a lion scapula, but, judging from the
photograph published by Willcox (1963, pl. xvi, reproduced in
fig. 4), this identification is almost certainly wrong. It is prob-
ably a seal scapula (Graham Avery, personal communication).
It is painted with several somewhat enigmatic black figures, one
resembling a seal and another that may depict two similar
superimposed creatures or, alternatively, a birdlike being. This
is the only painting on bone known from South Africa, but
the style is similar to that of images painted and engraved on
rock in many parts of the subcontinent. David Lewis-Williams
and others have shown conclusively that these paintings ex-
pressed aspects of a complex belief system that encompassed,
inter alia, ideas about how people came to be differentiated
from animals and about interactions between animals and peo-
ple in the spirit world. There is no mention of seals in the
(exclusively inland) southern African hunter-gatherer ethnog-
raphies, but animals that move between one realm and another,
such as flying birds or snakes that live both above and below
ground, were accorded special significance (Bleek and Lloyd
1911; Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1990). Seals, as animals that
live both on land and in the sea, fall into this category. Hunter-gatherers would have known that seals are unusual, among
marine creatures, in several ways: they breathe air, and they are
warm-blooded animals that suckle their young. These char-
acteristics, combined with the probable economic importance
of seals, may have singled them out as special animals, and they
may have had special symbolic associations.
I would like, now, to situate this study in a wider context,
relating it to what we
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