Blombos Cave

Blombos Cave is an important site on the Southern Cape of South Africa for supporting " modern behavior " of the Middle Stone Age people. Many contend that the MSA people were not fully modern in behavior because the artifact remains do not support the working of organic material, fishing, and other advanced behavior. They also project that these behaviors may not have originated in Africa. However, at this particular site, evidence supports all three, and dates to as far back as at least 40,000 years ago. Bone artifacts have been excavated and could possibly be worked in symbolic ways, as well as fish remains with bone tools, including tools of the Still Bay industry. This evidence supports a substantial amount of " modern " developments were made by these MSA people. Excavation Excavations were carried out at Blombos Cave in 1993 as well as 1997. Because of the success of the previous work at the cave, excavations will continue to 2001 with yearly excavations planned for the next three years. They have found a Later Stone Age deposit, and estimate it to date within 2,000 years. There are sterile layers below this LSA deposit, but as they kept digging, they found layers containing artifacts of a Middle Stone Age industry, particularly the Still Bay. Despite the small size of the excavations, many important discoveries have been made there, giving insight into the past lives of the MSA peoples who resided at the cave. Location Blombos Cave is found at the southwestern tip of Africa. The cave is found approximately 100 meters from the coast of the Indian Ocean, and is about 35 meters above sea level. Because of the evidence of shellfish and fish at the MSA levels, there were probably