Between 1927 and 1928, Father P. Stapleton, a keen amateur archaeologist and teacher at St Aidan’s College, and Dr John Hewitt, a zoologist by training and the director of the Albany Museum, excavated a small rock shelter just below the crest of a hill on the northern side of the Howiesons Poort overlooking the main road into Grahamstown from Port Elizabeth.
Between 1927 and 1928, Father P. Stapleton, a keen amateur archaeologist and teacher at St Aidan’s College, and Dr John Hewitt, a zoologist by training and the director of the Albany Museum, excavated a small rock shelter just below the crest of a hill on the northern side of the Howiesons Poort overlooking the main road into Grahamstown from Port Elizabeth.
Because the rock shelter is situated half way up a cliff and is only accessible by climbing down the cliff face from above or by climbing a tree from below, it would not have been considered an ideal habitation site during ancient times.
This was confirmed when excavations revealed only a single archaeological deposit (consisting entirely of stone artefacts), an indication that the rock shelter was inhabited only once, perhaps by a small hunting party.
In order to make sense of the site's stratigraphy and to acquire samples for carbon dating, the Howiesons Poort rock shelter was re-excavated in 1965 by Hilary and Janette Deacon, two of South Africa’s most influential Stone Age archaeologists.
The stone artefacts recovered from the site (which became known as the Howiesons Poort Industry and have since been discovered elsewhere in the country) include small segment or crescent-shaped tools and are believed to have been made between 66 and 58 000 years ago.
The tools, which archaeologists consider to be technologically advanced for their time, were hafted together with an ochre and tree gum compound so that they could serve as arrow points.
These tools are particularly interesting for archaeologists as their production involves a complex set of steps, an indication that their makers possessed the cognitive ability to think and reason in much the same way as we do today.
Despite the ingenuity and practicality of these tools, the Howiesons Poort Industry was short lived and was ultimately replaced by a technologically uneventful period known as Middle Stone Age 3 and 4.
It is only in the much later Robberg Industry (between 22 and 12 000 years ago) that we again start seeing stone tool technologically comparable to that of the Howiesons Poort Industry.
The Howiesons Poort tools are on permanent display at the Albany Museum and are a must-see for anyone interested in the pre-history of the Grahamstown area.
Correction: The Howieson's Poort tools were said to be on permanent display at the Albany Museum. According to museum's archaeology department the tools are not on display at the moment, as the gallery is currently being renovated.
