Hofmeyr is a small Karoo

Karoo

The Karoo is a semi-desert region of South Africa. It has two main sub-regions - the Great Karoo in the north and the Little Karoo in the south. The 'High' Karoo is one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the larger South African Platform division.-Great Karoo:The Great Karoo has an area of...

 town in the Eastern Cape Province of 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...

, 20 km west of the Bamboesberg

Bamboesberg

The Bamboesberg is a South African mountain range in the Eastern Cape, and was named for the bamboo Arundinaria tesselata growing in its ravines. It is a westward spur of the Stormberg Mountains and forms a watershed between the south-flowing Tarka and Black Kei Rivers, and the Stormbergspruit...

 mountain range. It lies 64 km north-east of Cradock

Cradock, Eastern Cape

Cradock is a town in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, in the upper valley of the Great Fish River, by rail northeast of Port Elizabeth. The town is the administrative seat of the Inxuba Yethemba Local Municipality in the Chris Hani District of the Eastern Cape. The estimated population...

 at an altitude of 1252 metres with a population of fewer than 2000. In former times it lay at the centre of a flourishing sheep-farming district and managed some salt pans 10 km to its west.

Founded in 1873, the town was initially named Maraisburg. To avoid confusion with the Gauteng

Gauteng

Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...

 area of Maraisburg it was renamed Hofmeyr in 1911 in honour of Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan), a campaigner for the equal treatment of Afrikaans and English and a prominent figure in the Eerste Taalbeweging.

The Hofmeyr Skull

Hofmeyr Skull

The Hofmeyr Skull is a specimen of a 37,000 year old human skull found in 1952. It is one of the very few modern human skulls discovered in Africa south of Ethiopia and older than 20,000 years.-Background:...

, belonging to a 36,000-year-old hominid, was found in 1952 in the dry wash of the Vlekpoort River just outside Hofmeyr.