Blombos Cave is an archaeological site located in Blombos Private Nature Reserve, about 300 km east of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline, South Africa. The cave contains Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits currently dated at between c. 100,000 and 70,000 years Before Present (BP), and a Late Stone Age sequence dated at between 2000 and 300 years BP.Tribolo, C., et al. (2006) TL dating of burnt lithics from Blombos Cave (South Africa): further evidence for the antiquity of modern human behaviour. Archaeometry, 48, 341–357.Jacobs, Z., et al. (2006) Extending the chronology of deposits at Blombos Cave, South Africa, back to 140 ka using optical dating of single and multiple grains of quartz. Journal of Human Evolution, 51, 255–73.Henshilwood, Christopher S., et al. (2011) A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science, 334, 219–222, .Jacobs, Zenobia, et al. (2013) An improved OSL chronology for the Still Bay layers at Blombos Cave, South Africa: further tests of single-grain dating procedures and a re-evaluation of the timing of the Still Bay industry across southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science, 40, 579–594. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997, and is ongoing.Henshilwood, Christopher S. (2008) Holocene prehistory of the Southern Cape, South Africa : excavations at Blombos Cave and the Blombosfontein Nature Reserve, Oxford, England, Archaeopress.
The excavations at Blombos Cave have yielded important new information on the behavioural evolution of anatomically modern humans. The archaeological record from this cave site has been central in the ongoing debate on the cognitive and cultural origin of early humans and to the current understanding of when and where key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens in southern Africa during the Late Pleistocene.McBrearty, Sally & Brooks, Alison S. (2000) The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution, 39, 453–563.Henshilwood, Christopher S. & Marean, Curtis W. (2003) The Origin of Modern Human Behavior: Critique of the Models and Their Test Implications. Current Anthropology, 44, 627–651.Mellars, P. (2007) Rethinking the human revolution : new behavioural and biological perspectives on the origin and dispersal of modern humans, Cambridge, UK, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research : Distributor : David Brown Bk, Co. Archaeological material and faunal remains recovered from the Middle Stone Age phase in Blombos Cave – dated to ca. 100,000–70,000 years BP – are considered to represent greater ecological niche adaptation, a more diverse set of subsistence and procurements strategies, adoption of multi-step technology and manufacture of composite tools, stylistic elaboration, increased economic and social organisation and occurrence of symbolically mediated behaviour.
The most informative archaeological material from Blombos Cave includes engraved ochre,Henshilwood, Christopher S., et al. (2002) Emergence of Modern Human Behavior: Middle Stone Age Engravings from South Africa. Science, 295, 1278–1280. engraved boned'Errico, Francesco, Henshilwood, Christopher S. & Nilssen, Peter (2001) An Engraved Bone Fragment From c. 70,000-Year-Old Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for the Origin of Symbolism and Language. Antiquity, 75, 309–318. ochre processing kits, marine shell beads,Henshilwood, Christopher S., et al. (2004) Middle Stone Age shell beads from South Africa. Science, 304, 404.d'Errico, Francesco, et al. (2005) Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave: evidence for symbolic behaviour in the Middle Stone Age. Journal of Human Evolution, 48, 3–24.Vanhaeren, Marian, et al. (2013) Thinking strings: Additional evidence for personal ornament use in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 64, 500–517. refined bone and stone toolsHenshilwood, Christopher S. & Sealy, Judith (1997) Bone Artefacts from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa. Current Anthropology, 38, 890–895.Henshilwood, Christopher S., et al. (2001a) An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language. Journal of Human Evolution, 41, 631–78.d'Errico, Francesco & Henshilwood, Christopher S. (2007) Additional evidence for bone technology in the southern African Middle Stone Age. Journal of Human Evolution, 52, 142–63.Villa, P., et al. (2009) The Still Bay points of Blombos Cave (South Africa). Journal of Archaeological Science, 36, 441–460.Mourre, Vincent, Villa, Paola & Henshilwood, Christopher S. (2010) Early Use of Pressure Flaking on Lithic Artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science, 330, 659–662. and a broad range of terrestrial and marine faunal remains, including shellfish, birds, tortoise and ostrich egg shell, and mammals of various sizes.van Niekerk, Karen Loise (2011) Marine fish exploitation during the Middle and Later Stone Age of South Africa. University of Cape Town.Henshilwood, Christopher S., et al. (2001b) Blombos Cave, Southern Cape, South Africa: Preliminary Report on the 1992–1999 Excavations of the Middle Stone Age Levels. Journal of Archaeological Science, 28, 421–448.Thompson, Jessica C. & Henshilwood, Christopher S. (2011) Taphonomic analysis of the Middle Stone Age larger mammal faunal assemblage from Blombos Cave, southern Cape, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 60, 746–767. These findings, together with subsequent re-analysis and excavation of other Middle Stone Age sites in southern Africa, have resulted in a paradigm shift with regard to the understanding of the timing and location of the development of modern human behaviour.
On 29 May 2015 Heritage Western Cape formally protected the site as a provincial heritage site.Provincial Notice 163/2015, Province of the Western Cape Provincial Gazette, No 739, Cape Town: 29 May 2015
Cross-hatching done in ochre on a stone fragment found at Blombos Cave is believed to be the earliest known drawing done by a human in the world.
Excavation history and research context
Blombos Cave was first excavated in 1991–1992 as a part of Professor Christopher S. Henshilwood's (1995) doctoral thesis.Henshilwood, Christopher S. (1995) Holocene archaeology of the coastal Garcia State Forest, southern Cape, South Africa., Cambridge at the University of Cambridge: Holocene archaeology of the coastal Garcia State Forest, southern Cape, South Africa. Blombos Cave was originally one of nine Holocene Later Stone Age sites that Henshilwood excavated and it was first given the acronym GSF8 (Garcia State Forest, site no. 8). In 1997 GSF8 was renamed Blombos Cave and given its current acronym: BBC. From 1999 to 2011 in total ten field seasons, each six weeks long, have been carried out at the cave site.
From the initial excavations conducted in the early 1990s, the Blombos Cave project has adopted and established new and innovative research agendas in the study of southern African prehistory. While Henshilwood's initial, doctoral research was directed towards the more recent Later Stone Age occupation levels, the focus since 1997 has been on the Middle Stone Age sequence. The Blombos Cave project has since then developed academically, economically and administratively, from being a local and small-scale test excavation to becoming an international, full scale, high-technological archaeological project.
In 2010–2015 the cave site was the focus of the multi-disciplinary, pan-continental research program, the TRACSYMBOLS project. It was led by Professor Christopher S. Henshilwood based at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and ReligionDepartment of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, together with Professor Francesco d'Errico from the University of Bordeaux 1, France. The aim of TRACSYMBOLS project is to examine how key behavioural innovations emerged among Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis in southern Africa and Europe respectively, and to explore whether and how environmental variability influenced this development between 180,000 – 25,000 years ago, primarily by combining archaeological results, original multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental data and climatic simulations for two continents.
From 2017 the cave site continues to be excavated by many of the same researchers under the newly funded Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE) at the University of Bergen, Norway. The centre is formed in cooperation with Witwatersrand University, Royal Holloway University of London, Université de Bordeaux, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and UNI research, Bergen, Norway. The aim is to follow an even broader multi-disciplinary approach, and the 10-year programme include cognitive studies, neuroscience, geoscience, climate modelling and reconstruction, fauna etc.
Site description
The cave is in a south-facing cliff face 34.5 meters above sea level, ca. 100 meters from the present-day shoreline. The cave formation is set in calcretes of the Wankoe Formation, and the geological setting indicates that the cave was formed by wave action sometime during the Plio-Pleistocene.Henshilwood, Christopher S. (2005) Stratigraphic Integrity of the Middle Stone Age Levels at Blombos Cave. In D'Errico, Francesco & Backwell, Lucinda (Eds.) From tools to symbols : from early hominids to modern humans; in honour of Professor Phillip V. Tobias. Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press.
The interior of Blombos Cave consists of a single main chamber, and the entire (accessible) interior cave floor is about 39 m2 behind the drip line. West of the cave's main chamber, the anthropogenic deposit extends inwardly 3–5 meters. In this area, however, the cave ceiling lowers to a point where it falls in level with the surface, preventing access to the deposit beneath. In the area north-east of the main chamber, the deposit expands into a low laying ante-chamber of unknown extent due to the sand filling it. By the end of the 2011 field season about 19.5 m2 of interior cave has been dug during the Blombos Cave excavations.
Blombos Cave's outer talus forms a gently sloping platform of about 23 m2 that extends 4–5 meters southwards, before the terrain abruptly drops down towards the shoreline that lies some 34.5 meters below the cave entrance. The talus, which primarily consists of Middle Stone Age deposit, rock fall and unconsolidated sediments, is stabilized by an area of large, exposed blocks (14 m2). At some stage – and in between the prehistoric occupation of the cave site – these blocks have fallen down from the rock face above, effectively preventing site erosion and allowing sediments to stabilize and accumulate in front of the cave's drip line.