Wonderwerk Cave
Encyclopedia
Wonderwerk Cave is an archaeological site, formed originally as an ancient solution cavity in Dolomite rocks of the Kuruman Hills
, situated between Danielskuil and Kuruman
in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa
. It is a National Heritage Site within a servitude ceded to and managed as a satellite of the McGregor Museum
in Kimberley. Geologically, hillside erosion exposed the northern end of the cavity, which extends horizontally for about 140 m into the base of a hill. Accumulted deposits inside the cave, up to 7 m in depth, reflect natural sedimentation processes such as water and wind deposition as well as the activities of animals, birds and human ancestors over a period of some 2 million years. The site has been studied and excavated by archaeologists since the 1940s and research here generates important insights into human history in the subcontinent of Southern Africa. Wonderwerk means “miracle” in the Afrikaans
language.
Rock art occurs in the form of parietal paintings within the first 40 metres from the entrance, possibly all less than 1000 years old, and small engraved stones found within the deposit, mainly from the Later Stone Age sequence where they date back some 10 500 years. The associations of older engraved or striated pieces have yet to be substantiated.
in Kimberley
then carried out major excavations at the site between 1978 and 1993, with Anne Thackeray and Francis Thackeray working at the site in 1979, excavating and researching the Later Stone Age levels from cultural and archaeozoological perspectives respectively. Current work is being led by Prof Michael Chazan of the University of Toronto
in collaboration with the McGregor Museum (where excavated assemblages are housed). A digital model of the site was created by laser scanning, forming part of the Zamani Project
. Key team members working on the dating of the lower units are Hagai Ron (magnetostratigraphic or palaeomagnetic
dating), Ari Matmon (cosmogenic isotope dating
), and Naomi Porat (Optically stimulated luminescence
dating). Latest results of these archaeological, dating, sedimentological and palaeoenvironmental studies were reported at a symposium convened by Chazan at the site in June 2009.
Also preserved are pollens, another key source of information on changing environmental conditions outside the cave, studied by E.M. van Zinderen Bakker and Louis Scott. Lloyd Rossouw is researching phytolith
s from the cave, which show changing vegetation profiles, while preserved charcoal is being studied by Marion Bamford to generate data on woody plants.
Deposition processes have been the focus of work by Karl Butzer and, currently, Paul Goldberg.
Progress in researching the palaeoenvironmental record at the site were summarised at the 2009 Symposium at Wonderwerk Cave.
, include the Kuruman Eye and Boesmanspit
.
The past ritual significance of the site is subject to on-going archaeological investigation.
and Klasies River Mouth for South Africa's Tentative List for World Heritage inscription, it was re-nominated in its own right for the Tentative List in April 2009.
Wonderwerk Cave is one of the 100 sites selected for the 2010 World Monuments Watch
by the World Monuments Fund
.
Asbestos Mountains
The Asbestos Mountains is a range of hills in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, stretching SSW from Kuruman, where the range is known as the Kuruman Hills, to Prieska...
, situated between Danielskuil and Kuruman
Kuruman
Kuruman is a town with 12,701 inhabitants in Northern Cape province of South Africa, famous for its scenic beauty and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature bringing water from deep underground to the surface in the Kalahari Desert....
in the Northern Cape Province, 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...
. It is a National Heritage Site within a servitude ceded to and managed as a satellite of the McGregor Museum
McGregor Museum
The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a province-aided museum established in 1907.- Overview :...
in Kimberley. Geologically, hillside erosion exposed the northern end of the cavity, which extends horizontally for about 140 m into the base of a hill. Accumulted deposits inside the cave, up to 7 m in depth, reflect natural sedimentation processes such as water and wind deposition as well as the activities of animals, birds and human ancestors over a period of some 2 million years. The site has been studied and excavated by archaeologists since the 1940s and research here generates important insights into human history in the subcontinent of Southern Africa. Wonderwerk means “miracle” in the Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
language.
Archaeological sequence
The cave contains up to 6 m depth of archaeological deposits reflecting human and environmental history through the Earlier, Middle and Later Stone Ages to the present. Cosmogenic dating suggests that basal sediment entered the cave some 2 million years ago.Rock art occurs in the form of parietal paintings within the first 40 metres from the entrance, possibly all less than 1000 years old, and small engraved stones found within the deposit, mainly from the Later Stone Age sequence where they date back some 10 500 years. The associations of older engraved or striated pieces have yet to be substantiated.
Fertiliser extraction
Major damage was caused in the 1940s when local farmers dug up large parts of the cave interior to bag and sell organic-rich material as fertiliser – which in fact comprised stratified archaeological deposits containing artefacts, bone and other material that would have been crucial to an understanding of the cultural and palaeoenvironmental history of the site. The presence of bone was reported upon, leading to the first archaeological and zooarchaeological investigations.Archaeological investigations
The initial archaeological studies of the 1940s, by Malan, Cooke and Wells, were followed up briefly by K.W. Butzer in the 1970s. Peter Beaumont of the McGregor MuseumMcGregor Museum
The McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a province-aided museum established in 1907.- Overview :...
in Kimberley
Kimberley, Northern Cape
Kimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
then carried out major excavations at the site between 1978 and 1993, with Anne Thackeray and Francis Thackeray working at the site in 1979, excavating and researching the Later Stone Age levels from cultural and archaeozoological perspectives respectively. Current work is being led by Prof Michael Chazan of the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
in collaboration with the McGregor Museum (where excavated assemblages are housed). A digital model of the site was created by laser scanning, forming part of the Zamani Project
Zamani Project
Zamani Project - The African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes DatabaseZamani, a research group at the University of Cape Town, acquires, models, presents and manages spatial and other data of cultural heritage sites. The present focus of the Zamani project is Africa with the principal...
. Key team members working on the dating of the lower units are Hagai Ron (magnetostratigraphic or palaeomagnetic
Paleomagnetism
Paleomagnetism is the study of the record of the Earth's magnetic field in rocks. Certain minerals in rocks lock-in a record of the direction and intensity of the magnetic field when they form. This record provides information on the past behavior of Earth's magnetic field and the past location of...
dating), Ari Matmon (cosmogenic isotope dating
Environmental radioactivity
Environmental radioactivity is produced by radioactive materials in the human environment. While some radioisotopes, such as strontium-90 and technetium-99 , are only found on Earth as a result of human activity, and some, like potassium-40 , are only present due to natural processes, a few...
), and Naomi Porat (Optically stimulated luminescence
Optically stimulated luminescence
In physics, optically stimulated luminescence is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation.The method makes use of electrons trapped between the valence and conduction bands in the crystalline structure of certain types of matter . The trapping sites are imperfections of the lattice -...
dating). Latest results of these archaeological, dating, sedimentological and palaeoenvironmental studies were reported at a symposium convened by Chazan at the site in June 2009.
Palaeoenvironmental investigations
The sediments within the cave exhibit often exceptional preservation of organic remains including fauna (i.e. animal bones), both larger and smaller (macro and microfauna) which shed light inter alia on species extinctions relative to the end of the last ice age circa 10 000 years ago – studied by Francis Thackeray. Margaret Avery researches the small mammal remains introduced to the cave sediments as part of the contents of owl droppings and which are indicators of palaeenvironmental conditions outside the cave. Liora Kolska Horwitz and James Brink are analyzing the fauna from a taphonomic perspective.Also preserved are pollens, another key source of information on changing environmental conditions outside the cave, studied by E.M. van Zinderen Bakker and Louis Scott. Lloyd Rossouw is researching phytolith
Phytolith
Some plants can take up silica in the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different intracellular and extracellular structures of the plant. After these plants decay, silica is redeposited in the soil in the form of phytoliths , which are rigid, microscopic structures of varying sizes and shapes...
s from the cave, which show changing vegetation profiles, while preserved charcoal is being studied by Marion Bamford to generate data on woody plants.
Deposition processes have been the focus of work by Karl Butzer and, currently, Paul Goldberg.
Progress in researching the palaeoenvironmental record at the site were summarised at the 2009 Symposium at Wonderwerk Cave.
Ritual uses
Indications of the cave’s contemporary social or ritual significance relate inter alia to the occasional collecting of water, by local African people, for healing purposes. Other nearby sites where beliefs concerning the ritual power of water (associated with a mythic watersnake) are remarked upon, for example by members of the Zion Christian ChurchZion Christian Church
The Zion Christian Church is one of the largest African initiated churches in southern Africa, with members belonging to ZCC star and members belonging to the saint Engenas ZCC...
, include the Kuruman Eye and Boesmanspit
Boesmansgat
Boesmansgat, also known in English as "Bushman's Hole", is believed to be the third-deepest submerged freshwater cave in the world, approximately 270 metres deep...
.
The past ritual significance of the site is subject to on-going archaeological investigation.
Rock paintings
The rock art on the walls of the cave near its entrance, being researched by David Morris, and engraved stones found in the deposit, may implicate changing ritual significance.The deep interior as ritual space
Aspects of the use of the cave's deep interior reaches are also being considered in these terms. Chazan and Horwitz refer, as Beaumont had done, to the introduction of manuports (unmodified natural stones) "with special sensory properties" by terminal Acheulean hominins, more than 180 000 years ago, to the deep interior of the cave which is characterised by "singular acoustic and visual qualities." They argue that the site provides a "unique and extensive diachronic record of milestones in the development of symbolic behaviour" and "evidence to support the position that elements of symbolic behaviour emerged long before the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa."Wonderwerk Cave in literature
- Julia Martin devotes a chapter to Wonderwerk Cave in her book A Millimetre of Dust, the title of which was inspired by a remark about the site.
- Michael Cope's anthology Ghaap has sonnets inspired by Wonderwerk Cave.
Heritage Status
Wonderwerk Cave, within a servitude ceded to the McGregor Museum, was declared a National Monument of South Africa in 1993. It was opened to the public, with a site museum, in 1993. In the same year a major graffiti-removal project was carried out. In 1999 new legislation had the site automatically become a Grade 2 Provincial Heritage Site, until it was nominated for Grade 1 National Heritage Status in 2003 (approved in March 2009). Declaration of Wonderwerk Cave as a National Heritage Site was published in the Government Gazette on 12 March 2010. Coupled in a serial nomination with Border CaveBorder Cave
Border Cave is a rock shelter on the western scarp of the Lebombo Mountains in KwaZulu-Natal near the border between South Africa and Swaziland. Border Cave has a remarkably continuous stratigraphic record of occupation spanning about 200 ka. Anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeletons together with...
and Klasies River Mouth for South Africa's Tentative List for World Heritage inscription, it was re-nominated in its own right for the Tentative List in April 2009.
Wonderwerk Cave is one of the 100 sites selected for the 2010 World Monuments Watch
2010 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites
The World Monuments Watch is a flagship advocacy program of the New York-based private non-profit organization World Monuments Fund that calls international attention to cultural heritage around the world that is threatened by neglect, vandalism, conflict, or disaster.-Selection process:Every two...
by the World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training....
.