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Plovers Lake Cave

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Site type:
Cave
Site function:
Habitation site
Lat/Long:
-25.97, 27.77
Country:
South Africa
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Plovers lake external 2

Plovers lake external 2

Plovers Lake Cave is a fossil-bearing breccia filled cavity in South Africa. The cave is located about 4 km Southeast of the well known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Kromdraai and about 36 km Northwest of the City of Johannesburg, South Africa. Plovers Lake has been declared a South African National Heritage Site.

Many thousands of fossils were found by both teams. In the Outer Deposits, Brain and Thakeray discovered a very fine fossil baboon that had survived a leopard or saber-toothed cat attack as was evidenced by a healed wound over the eye. They also discovered many other animals and some indeterminate stone tools. No hominid fossils were discovered.

Berger and Churchill worked in the Inner Deposits, and quickly discovered that this site was younger than the Outer Deposits and contained the remains of Middle Stone Aged occupation by humans. They recovered over 25,000 fossil remains, many hundreds of tools including knives and spear points and fragmentary hominid remains dated to around 70,000 years ago.

The Outer Deposits have been dated to around 1.0 million years old based on the size of porcupines recovered. The Inner Deposits have been dated to greater than 70,000 years using radiometric techniques.

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