Stilbaai
Encyclopedia
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...
about four hours by car from Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. It is part of the Hessequa Local Municipality
Hessequa Local Municipality
Hessequa Local Municipality is a municipality located in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. It is flanked by the lower Breede River to the west and the Gourits River to the east....
in the Western Cape
Western Cape
The Western Cape is a province in the south west of South Africa. The capital is Cape Town. Prior to 1994, the region that now forms the Western Cape was part of the much larger Cape Province...
province. Alternate spellings of the town's name include Stillbay, Stilbay, Stillbaai and Stilbaai.
The town hosts a variety of B&B
Bed and breakfast
A bed and breakfast is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast, but usually does not offer other meals. Since the 1980s, the meaning of the term has also extended to include accommodations that are also known as "self-catering" establishments...
lodges and a friendly warm coast for surfing and swimming. During the peak of summer the warm waters at times become packed with blue bottles (a stinging sea creature also known as a portuguese man-of-war) when an easterly wind is blowing and the chance of being stung by one is high.
Stilbaai is host to a number of interesting archaeological sites, including ancient fish traps thought to have been built by early ancestors of the Khoi
Khoi
Khoi may refer to:*The common name of Siamese Rough Bush, Streblus asper Lour*The Khoikhoi people*One of the Khoe languages*The Khoekhoe language*Khoy, a city in Iran*Khoy County, an administrative subdivision of Iran...
people of the Southern Cape, and a shell landfill that has been carbon dated to around 1000 BC.
Another archaeological site is situated in a group of caves at 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...
, about 12 kilometers from Stilbaai. Artifact
Artifact (archaeology)
An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...
s found at Blombos have been carbon dated to around 77,000 BP, making it the oldest known human settlement today.
See also
- StillbayStillbayThe 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 around 71,000 BP in the Middle Stone AgeMiddle Stone AgeThe 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...
named after an archeological site. - Oswego-Guardian/Texanita collisionOswego-Guardian/Texanita collisionThe Oswego-Guardian/Texanita collision was a maritime accident between two supertankers near Stilbaai, South Africa on 21 August 1972. The Texanita exploded and sank with the loss of 47 men, while a further life was lost on the Oswego Guardian...