Howieson’s Poort Shelter
Encyclopedia
Howieson’s Poort Shelter is a small rock cave in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 containing the archeological site from which the Howiesons Poort
Howiesons Poort
Howiesons Poort is a lithic technology cultural period in the Middle Stone Age in Africa named after the Howieson’s Poort Shelter archeological site near Grahamstown in South Africa...

 period in the Middle Stone Age
Middle Stone Age
The Middle Stone Age was a period of African Prehistory between Early Stone Age and Late Stone Age. It is generally considered to have begun around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50-25,000 years ago. The beginnings of particular MSA stone tools have their origins as far back as 550-500,000...

 gets its name. This period lasted around 5,000 years, between roughly 65,800 BP and 59,500 BP.
This period is important as it, together with the Stillbay
Stillbay
The Stillbay industry is the name given by the archaeologists Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in 1929 to a mid-Palaeolithic stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types...

 period 7,000 years earlier, provides the first evidence of human symbolism and technological skills that were later to appear in the Upper Paleolithic
Upper Paleolithic
The Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...

.

Description

The rock shelter occurs in a hill on the north side of the Howieson's Poort containing the main road into Grahamstown from Port Elizabeth. The cave is halfway up a cliff and is 7 m deep and 5.5 m wide at the mouth, with a large Real Yellowwood tree growing in the deposit and “bent horizontal with the floor to allow its branches to spread into the open at the mouth of the shelter”. The original Howiesons Poort period remains were covered very slowly due to the cave’s position half-way up the cliff and to wind clearance. 20000 years ago, however, a rock fall acted to protect the deposits near the front from wind erosion.

Excavation

It was excavated in the late 1920s and then again in 1965 by Hilary and Janette Deacon
Hilary Deacon
Hilary John Deacon was a South African archaeologist and academic. He was Professor of Archaeology at the University of Stellenbosch in Stellenbosch, South Africa. His research focused on the ‘emergence of modern humans’ and African archaeology...

. There are very little in situ deposits left.

All the artifacts at the Howieson’s Poort site were found below a barren layer about a foot thick in a black layer also about a foot thick. The stone tools were mostly large segments or 'crescents', obliquely backed blades and unifacial and bifacial points. There are no rock paintings, nor bone or shell artifacts, though bone and shell artifacts are found in the deposits elsewhere of the Howiesons Poort period. Stone tools similar to those in the cave have been collected from hillsides above the rock shelter.

Originally, and until the mid 1970s, the remains at Howiesons Poort Shelter were thought to belong to the Magosian
Magosian
The Magosian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry found in southern and eastern Africa. It dates to between 10,000 and 6,000 years BC and is distinguished from its predecessors by the use of microliths and small blades.In 1953, J...

 period and so intermediate in time and technology between the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age
Late Stone Age
The Later Stone Age refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic...

. However, optically stimulated luminescence
Optically stimulated luminescence
In physics, optically stimulated luminescence is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation.The method makes use of electrons trapped between the valence and conduction bands in the crystalline structure of certain types of matter . The trapping sites are imperfections of the lattice -...

 dating pushed back dates for occupation by this period to 65,800 BP and 59,500 BP.

Apart from the Howiesons Poort period, the cave was occupied for several very short periods, around 18-19000 BP, 9-10000 BP and 3-4000 BP, by people who made fires but left few or no artefacts.

Naming

The poort was named after a “Mr Howison” but it was misspelt by Stapleton and Hewitt
John Hewitt (herpetologist)
John Hewitt was a South African zoologist and archaeologist of British origin. He was born in Dronfield nearby Sheffield, England, and died in Grahamstown, South Africa. He was the author of several herpetological papers which described new species.He graduated with a first-class in natural...

 as Howieson and their error has been used ever since for the stone tool industry named after it.
Note the site is always spelled with an apostrophe but the period can be spelt variably with and without it.

See also

  • Blombos Cave
    Blombos Cave
    Blombos Cave is a cave in a calcarenite limestone cliff on the Southern Cape coast in South Africa. It is an archaeological site made famous by the discovery of 75,000-year-old pieces of ochre engraved with abstract designs and beads made from Nassarius shells, and c. 80,000-year-old bone tools...

  • Klasies River Caves
    Klasies River Caves
    The Klasies River Caves are a series of caves located to the east of the Klasies River mouth on the Tsitsikamma coast in the Humansdorp district of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The three main caves and two shelters at the base of a high cliff have revealed evidence of middle stone...

  • Diepkloof Rock Shelter
    Diepkloof Rock Shelter
    Diepkloof Rock Shelter is a rock cave in Western Cape, South Africa in which has been found some of the earliest evidence of the human use of symbols, in the form of patterns engraved upon ostrich eggshell water containers. These date around 60,000 years ago.The symbolic patterns consist of lines...

  • Sibudu Cave
    Sibudu Cave
    Sibudu Cave is a cave in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago...

  • List of caves in South Africa
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