Abstract
The Kalahari has a powerful hold on the collective imagination as an environment of extreme aridity where survival is a challenge. However, the current aridity of the Kalahari (which is classified as a savannah biome) is a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged in the Holocene. Particularly for the Early Pleistocene, there are compelling indicators, especially from studies of the Mamatwan mine, of greater availability of water from both precipitation and an active drainage system that ran southward through the Kalahari from the Angolan highlands (Matmon et al., 2015; Vainer et al., 2018). There are currently few documented Pleistocene archaeological localities within the Kalahari. It is within this context that the sites of the Kathu Complex and Wonderwerk Cave, located on the Ghaap Plateau on the southern edge of the Kalahari (Northern Cape Province of South Africa), take on particular significance for the study of human evolution in southern Africa.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Handbook of Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa |
| Subtitle of host publication | Hominin behavior, geography, and chronology |
| Publisher | Springer International Publishing |
| Pages | 1749-1765 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9783031202902 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783031202896 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.