Caves

Geological Background

Caves are rock or lava tubes with openings large enough for humans to find shelter or refuge. There are many types of caves in Africa. For example, some are formed at the same time as the surrounding rock and are called primary caves. Most of these are the results of lava activity. Normally created as lava flows down a volcano's side, the cave appears when the first crust cools and another flow of lava carves a path under the crust so that the resulting opening, when the lava flows out, is a cavernous area.

Secondary caves in Africa exist when processes inside rocks called solution and erosion occur. When rainwater, over many centuries, dissolves gypsum from between less soluble rocks, caves can be made. In Africa, one finds this type of karstification, a special land form produced in solution and erosion, in many cave formations. There are many other types of caves, but these are the most common in Africa. Fortunately for Africa's cave formation, there are lots of limestone areas where limestone has dissolved because of rain or groundwater and produced karsts, sinkholes, streams, and drainage areas. Often acidic water percolating from the surface creates stalactites and stalagmites.

Historical Context

The cave in South Africa's Gauteng Province, a World Heritage Site, has yielded the oldest and most complete human skull in science. It dates to 2.5 million years ago and figures in the search for human origins. In terms of evolution, the caves of southern Africa have simply confirmed the length of time that hominids and humans have occupied the continent.

The Khoisan people of South Africa left their marks on many caves. When one examines the myths of the Zulu, who say that they came from inside the Earth, it is clear that the idea of a cave origin is possible in their thought. Although the Zulu appear in the region long after the San and Khoi people, they may have been as struck by the mystical nature of the caves as the San. Of course, because the ancestors of the San and Khoi had lived in the area around Klasies Rivers about 125,000 years ago, they are considered some of the earliest cave dwellers having left indications of their presence on the Tsitsikamma coastline of South Africa. There are evidences of stone tools and flakes used for hunting and cooking. It is clear that the dwellers at the southern tip of Africa were modern humans in every way. They used the same skills, methods, and reasoning as modern humans, yet they lived in caves and perfected a lithic technology that included thin bladed stones and arrowheads.

...