Page 50 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - South Africa

48  INTRODUCING SOUTH AFRIC A

Prehistoric South Africa

Some 2–3 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs,
Australopithecus afri canus inhabited South Africa’s plains.
Australopithecines were the ancestors of anatomically modern
people whose remains in South Africa date at least as far back
as 110,000 years. Rock art created by San hunter-gatherers
over the past 10,000 years is widely distributed. Some 2,000
years ago, pastoral Khoi migrated south westward, while black Early Man
farming communities settled the eastern side of the country. Distribution in South Africa
Their descendants were encountered by the
15th-century Portuguese explorers. 0 km 100
0 miles 100

Australopithecus Africanus
In 1925, Professor Raymond Dart,
then dean of the University of the
Wit watersrand’s medical faculty, first
identified man’s ancestor based on
the evidence of a skull found near
Taung, North West Province.

Langebaan Footprints
Homo sapiens tracks at
Langebaan Lagoon are
around 117,000 years
old. They are the world’s
oldest fossilized trail of
anatomically modern
human beings.

Cradle of Humankind
Based on the evidence of fossilized remains from
Karoo Fossils the Sterkfontein caves (see p322) and other sites in
Diictodon skeletons found in the Karoo (see p360) South and East Africa, palae ontologists believe that
belonged to mammal-like rep tiles that tunnelled humans evolved in Africa. Stone tools and bone
into the mud along river banks some 255 million fragments indi cate that modern humans lived and
years ago. hunted in South Africa some 110,000 years ago.

c. 35,000 BC
c. 117,000 BC Start of Late Stone c. 8,000 BC
c. 3,000,000 BC Early modern Age; man uses Spear Microlithic
Australopithecus africanus man settlement refined tools and head stone toolkit of
lives in central South Africa at Langebaan weapons the San culture
3,000,000 BC 2,000,000 BC 1,000,000 BC 40,000 BC 30,000 BC 20,000 BC
c. 1,000,000 BC Homo c. 200,000 BC
erectus dis places Middle c. 38,000 BC c. 26,000 BC
earlier ape-like Stone Age Iron ore is mined for its Earliest known
hominid species pigment at Ngwenya example of rock art
(Namibia)
Hand axe in Swaziland

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