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FiscHER, P. H., Duvat, M. & Rarry, A. 1933. Etudes sur les échanges respiratoires des littorines. Archives de zoologie

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Koun, A. J. 1960a. Ecological notes on Conus (Mollusca: Gastropoda) in the Trincomalee region of Ceylon. Annals and

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Koun, A. J. 19606. Spawning behaviour, egg masses and larval development in Conus from the Indian Ocean. Bulletin of

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(continued inside back cover)

ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

ANNALE VAN DIE SUID-AFRIKAANSE MUSEUM

Volume 103 °+#Band

December 1993 Desember

Part 6 Deel

oun ngs KS

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT AND ITS

RELEVANCE TO THE STUDY OF THE PAST

INHABITANTS OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN

COASTAL REGION

M. L. WILSON

Cape Town Kaapstad

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THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT AND ITS RELEVANCE TO THE STUDY OF

THE PAST INHABITANTS OF THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN COASTAL REGION

M. L. WILSON

Archaeology Department, South African Museum, Cape Town

(With 1 figure)

[MS accepted 23 November 1992|

ABSTRACT

In the seventeenth century, the name ‘Strandloper’ was given to a small group of people, the

Goringhaicona, who lived chiefly on the shores of Table Bay and were said to eke out a miserable

existence, subsisting on what they could obtain from the sea-shore. In the late nineteenth century, this

name was applied to human skeletons found in the coastal region as well as to archaeological sites there,

providing the basis for a concept that in the past there were people who were physically and culturally

different from the Hottentots (Khoikhoi) and Bushmen (San).

This study investigates the use of the name and its application. The early claims of physical

anthropologists for a separate ‘race’ of ‘Strandlopers’ are shown to be unsubstantiated. The archaeological

evidence also does not support the suggestion of a culturally distinct people whose technology differed

from that of other people in the region, and who subsisted solely by ‘strandloping’, or collecting and

scavenging along the shore. It is shown that sites in the coastal region are the result of the activities of three

groups with differing economies: hunter-gatherers, herders and farmers. Most of these sites contain a

terrestrial component as well as a marine one, and it is argued that these sites represent only part of these

groups’ subsistence activities.

The name “Strandloper’ is thus shown to be misleading in its implications and correctly applicable

only to the Goringhaicona, who were given that name and used it themselves. Even then, the name

misrepresents these people’s actual way of life, as does its informal use as a sobriquet.

CONTENTS

PAGE

IiLHROLalb Te a(0) il ale ming oC CAO CCR ETO ORIG OCA CRIT Re ce EMI ete Es eee 294

hexdocumentanyievidencewys same mre eee ane iene matics eeeame neneNece 295

ALLY ICON LACS nts erat iart homers teres Niet ages ees ee rn ho ene EP 295

UWE TVET Sa oeocege, Seated. cota. a esa chortrS broad GIaEnO I aoaicor et hioreed of 295

ater CONLACIS ae eey eas ieee ten Ree Poo eee et aero am teers 300

P)ISCUSSIO Mg rete sta epee eres et ee OREO Sebel aoe ee 301

Strandlopersvandsrelatedinamesye eee y ere een eer ice: 301

LWict Ceri eniien eisey rs ree tie cosas erie Pon chs oer bel eretue Weti ap a kuUe Ue aeseree ls 301

Strandlopers—earlysreferencesiy wine ys eye eevee ree 302

MASTAMIS RE Ar eh erie eect cae Te elected ene) aiceae Wey ules catia eno © 304

Strandlopers—tatenmeferences/s.aveics soe sess neces ee cesar eietie 305

MhexGormghaicona: Whorkhomor Sans aes «clean eee ele eee 309

DISCUSSIONS Sree reer ees a eS eee ee rake eee NE 312

“Strandlopers’ in the late eighteenth century: Gordon and Paterson in

the morth=westermcoastaleresione se pada oel eae see 313

DD ISCUSSIOD yee Ree oe ET oer ST Hah eee UTES SIS

The evidence of archaeology and other disciplines ...................... 315

Bhysicalvanthropolo sys wee ee ee oes caret aera ener eee ecie 315

Mhemevivalvotsthe wStrandlopers: pea: eriacieen- eerie enya BIS)

(OOPENTI(O) FOF eA pam wesc mothe een bruce o escent tee la a Ses eerie Sie 316

DVISCUSSLO MIN ay oe fore eee eens openness Hemet e a EniN SAE Weep ae 320

293

Ann S. Afr. Mus. 103 (6), 1993: 293-382, 1 fig.

294 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Archacolo gycacssn eres binned oe eon Edens tn Ao Gnu etoMNO Sued Sane re eee 320

Sitestandvartefacts) 5 ra ceraciar Sane Oar ene een 320

DISCUSSION yi ash shorn eseuey ease Geis ei eee eRe 335

Subsistenceunuthercoastaliregion aeeaee eee ree comer 337

WCPO MUCH OM ash o.oo ausceuecebs else sheets eee) ete nice ae dee 337

unter cathenrerse eer eee oeee none eC oeee 338

IPAStOTAMSES! Sante eine mice nee cree doe ee Seen eee 346

HR AGIMETS hg oor ee oe Choe ae oe ee ee ee 349

MISC USSION eee sei refs Cee Rae te eee Ae ene eee 352

Subsistence strategies: seasonal mobility versus sedentism ........ 354

ithe seasonalimobility hypothesismas-. sae ee eee 354

Isotopic analyses of human bone as indicators of prehistoric

GIG tes ey aeseetin eeteeus eta det Geta ree wile aren nae ee 359

hesproblemvofsprotemseee. se ete tae ee 361

DISCUSSION eaten acct eectueii cs Sings Cie AERA Chrees ane 363

Archaeobotany~— plant remains from coastal sites .................-. 365

MD ISCUSSTOME «2 si sa citvotin ere, Satay tacee teas tte team cia) sr cee sn eee me ee 366

Ethnosraphy—the: Aone. sence sree ae eee oes aoe 367

DV ISCUSSIOM: rae cesar eres ore sec Nedeve i aienen eeu aera eh cuefe per yer ea TC ee eee 368

Summanysand: conclusions erect ee eee tate tere ee ee eee 370

ACKnOWlEd SEMEMtS eo are ee rr ene a eat Soom crohe ere Steet eae eh reer 374

IRELETENCES ear easels caterer yea ener re ee eters stra ane te ne cares gees 374

INTRODUCTION

It would be convenient if the people who lived so largely upon shellfish had a

distinctive name given to them, for the word strandlopers (beach-rangers),

applied to them by some recent writers, causes much confusion (Theal 1918: 4).

A paper on the nomenclature of the Khoisan (Wilson 1986a) omitted discussion of

one of the names, ‘Strandloper’. This was used extensively during the earlier part of this

century to denote the people believed to have been responsible for the creation of what

are now archaeological deposits, particularly shell middens, in the southern African

coastal region. The name is still to be found in more recent scientific publications and is

one of those most commonly used in the popular media. ‘Strandloper’ (literally, beach-

walker) generally conjures up a picture of people who lived on marine resources and, in

the view of many early writers, eked out a miserable existence, as is shown below. It is

argued that the application of this name is based on misconceptions of the identity and

life-style of the people so called, and that it thus merits discussion. The names ‘Watermen’

and ‘Vismans’ are also discussed, since they were sometimes also applied to the

‘Strandlopers’ of the early historical period.

Archaeological research during the past two decades has tended to suggest that

occupation of the coastal region and the exploitation of marine resources were only a part

of the seasonal round of the indigenous hunter-gatherers. More recent research has

indicated that this pattern was disrupted after about 2 000 years ago by the incursion of

pastoralists and farmers into the region, and again by white settlement and expansion

after 1652. The general model of seasonal movement has lately been challenged by

isotopic analyses of human bone that appear to show that part of the population studied

had a predominantly marine diet and therefore spent most, if not all, of their time at the

coast and thus supports the “Strandloper’ theory.

This study investigates a range of aspects in an attempt to determine whether there

can be any justification for the ‘Strandloper’ concept. Research has been mainly

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 295

documentary and has concentrated on the Khoisan who occupied the western part of the

coastal region. This is because the name ‘Strandloper’ was first given to some of the

Khoisan and later applied to their sites in the coastal region. The documentary records of

the Khoisan are also more comprehensive than those of the black people, the ancestors of

the Nguni, who moved into the eastern part of southern Africa during the early centuries

of the present era.

The first part of this study concentrates on the evidence provided by the records left

by early travellers and settlers in the period 1488-1690 and again in 1779-1780. This

material is dealt with first as it provided the basis for the assumptions made by later

anthropologists. These are examined in the second part, which deals with the

introduction of the ‘Strandloper’ concept in the late nineteenth century and its

subsequent use in physical anthropology and archaeology. The evidence of physical

anthropology, archaeology, archaeometry, botany and ethnography is then examined.

Each section ends with a discussion that partly summarizes the information therein and

adds comment on certain aspects. The last part summarizes the evidence and shows that

the southern African coastal region was occupied by San hunter-gatherers, Khoikhoi

pastoralists and Nguni farmers, and that most of the midden deposits in the coastal

region include a terrestrial component as well as a marine one. This indicates that the

people responsible for the deposits did not subsist only by ‘strandloping’— living on what

they could obtain by beachcombing— but that they exploited all the resources of the

coastal zone, in some cases including exotic animals and plants. It 1s therefore concluded

that the name ‘Strandloper’ may be applied validly only to a small Khoisan group, the

Goringhaicona, who lived on the Cape Peninsula in the seventeenth century, and then

only as an informal sobriquet that was given to them by the Dutch, and which they used

themselves.

In this study, the coastal region is divided into an eastern and a western part, with

Port Elizabeth as the approximate boundary between the two (Fig. 1). It is not possible to

define this region precisely because the topography varies so widely. In the western part,

the coastal region may be understood as the area between the coast and the Cape Fold

Mountains. East of this, however, the situation is more complex, but it should be noted

that none of the sites discussed is more than 20 km from the coast.

This study expands discussion of the same topic in articles published in popular

magazines (Wilson 1989a, 1991) and is a revised version of an unpublished postgraduate

thesis (Wilson 1990).

THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

EARLY CONTACTS

FIRST MEETINGS

When the first Portuguese explorers under Bartolomeu Dias had rounded the

southernmost point of Africa in 1488, they put in at a bay they named Angra dos

Vaqueiros, “Bay of the Herders’ (now Mossel Bay), because the people seen there

had many cattle. These people were terrified by the arrival of the strangers from the

sea and fled inland without the Portuguese being able to make contact (Raven-Hart

1967: 1).

296 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

@ KIMBERLEY

o @BLOEMF ONTEIN

Fig. 1. Map of South Africa showing the location of places and sites mentioned in the text. (1 = Port

Nolloth, McDougall’s Bay; 2 = Grootmis, Buffels River; 3 = Springbok; 4 = De Hangen; 5 = Elands

Bay Cave, Tortoise Cave, Hailstone Midden: 6 = Sutherland; 7 = St Helena Bay (southern end);

8 = Piketberg, Het Kruis; 9 = Paternoster; 10 = Kasteelberg; 11 = Saldanha Bay, Sea Harvest, Hoedjies

Punt; 12 = Elandsfontein; 13 = OudepostI, Stofbergsfontein; 14 = Malmesbury; 15 = Tulbagh;

16 = Duinefontein; 17 = Cape Peninsula: (west) Sandy Bay, Hout Bay, Kommetjie, Bonteberg; Cape

Point; (east) Miller’s Point, Simon’s Town, Kalk Bay; 18 = Gordon’s Bay (False Bay); 19 = Hawston;

20 = Die Kelders; 21 = Byneskranskop; 22 = Mossel Bay; 23 = Great Brak River; 24 = Herolds Bay;

25 = Oakhurst; 26 = Buffelskloof; 27 = Boomplaas; 28 = Nelson Bay Cave; 29 = Bloukrans;

30 = Klasies River Mouth; 31 = Melkhoutboom; 32 = Wilton; 33 = Mpame; 34 = Umgazana Cave;

35 = Umlaas; 36 = Borchers Shelter; 37 = Mpambanyoni, Umbeli Belli; 38 = Ingane River;

39 = Mjonzani, Emberton Way; 40 = Collingham Shelter; 41 = Koffefontein.

In November 1497, however, when a second fleet under the command of Vasco da

Gama put in at a bay on the south-western coast that they named Santa Ellena (now St

Helena), the Portuguese were able to make contact with some of the local inhabitants.

The identity of the men of St Helena Bay is discussed at some length, not because

they are particularly important—if they, or their descendants, were encountered later,

this cannot be determined from the records— but in order to show the problems inherent

in using the often scanty information provided in the early records to try to identify the

indigenous people and/or their culture. It also shows the need to consider all the evidence

before coming to conclusions.

In the land the men are swarthy. They eat only sea-wolves and whales and the

flesh of gazelles and the roots of plants. They wear sheaths on their members.

Their arms are staffs of wild olive trees tipped with fire-hardened horns. They

have many dogs (Raven-Hart 1967: 3).

The following day, the Portuguese captured a man, who ‘was small of body ... and

was going about gathering honey on the moor’. He was fed and clothed and put ashore

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 297

the next day, when 14 or 15 other men visited the ships. They caught a ‘sea-wolf’ (seal),

which they roasted and gave, with ‘some of the roots of plants which they eat’, to one of

the Portuguese crew who accompanied them (Raven-Hart 1967: 3-4).

During the eight days that the fleet spent in the bay, the number of the indigenous

visitors, all men, rose to between 40 and 50. There was no evidence of cattle, but the men

indicated that their village was at the foot of some hills about two leagues (approximately

12 km) distant, possibly at the Patrysberg, south-west of the Berg River mouth. The

Portuguese bartered with the men for the shell ornaments they wore in their ears, also for

‘fox-tails, which they carry fastened to sticks, and with which they fan their faces’. One of

the men also bartered his ‘sheath’ for a ¢eitil, a small copper coin: ‘From this it seemed to

us that they prized copper; and they also wore small beads of it in their ears’ (Raven-Hart

1967: 4).

Penis sheaths were not recorded as being part of the apparel of the Khoikhoi, which

was a frontal flap or apron of dressed hide or skin (e.g. Kolb 1738: 187-191; Smith &

Pheiffer 1988). It was considered that ‘sheaths’ might have been an incorrect translation

or a wrong usage on the part of the original writer, but J. M. F. Morais, of the Centro de

Pré-historia e Arqueologia, Instituto de Investigagao Cientifica Tropical, Lisbon (1990 in

litt.), confirmed that this is the correct translation of the Portuguese word bainhas. There

is, however, evidence in the reports of early travellers (e.g. Moodie ed. 1960: 224) that San

men south of the river dressed similarly to the Khoikhoi. The Namaqua as seen,

described and illustrated in Namaqualand in 1685-1686 (Waterhouse 1932: 161-162,

frontispiece; De Wet & Pheiffer eds 1979: 145-147, 412-415) did not wear penis sheaths.

On the other hand, one of the illustrations accompanying the journals of the late

eighteenth-century soldier and explorer Robert Jacob Gordon is of a Khoikhoi man

wearing what the editors called a penis sheath (Raper & Boucher eds 1988, pl. 57).

Unfortunately, however, there is no information as to this man’s tribal affiliation or the

locality in which the illustration was made. In another illustration (Raper & Boucher eds

1988, pl. 50), a man wears a similar piece of apparel, but this is not called a penis sheath.

William Somerville, who in 1800 met a party of San on a farm on the Tarka River in the

eastern Cape, said that ‘the men wear a bag made of Jackal’s hide over their private parts’

(Bradlow & Bradlow eds 1979: 28). It thus seems that temporal and/or spatial differences

may be involved as well as the apparently cultural ones.

Some of the information given about the people at St Helena Bay, that “They eat

only sea-wolves and whales and the flesh of gazelles [antelope] and the roots of plants’

may, apart from seals and the roots of plants, be discounted as the interpolation of a later

editor, since the eating of whales or antelope was not recorded as having been observed at

the time; moreover, as mentioned above, the man first seen was said to have been

collecting honey.

Metal, especially copper, appears to have been known to the Khoikhoi of the Cape

Peninsula and vicinity, since they were eager to barter their livestock for it, but they

apparently had none until the arrival of the Europeans (Goodwin 1956). This is

surprising because St Helena Bay is only about 140 km from Table Bay as the crow flies

and both bays seem to have been included in the annual migration route of the chief tribe

of the area, the Cochoqua (Smith 1984). It may be that there was no contact between the

people seen by Da Gama and his crew and those who lived to the south. In January 1661,

it was recorded that the Namaqua ‘were always at variance’ with the Cochoqua (Moodie

298 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

ed. 1960: 228), and this enmity was perhaps of long standing and thus a barrier to barter

or the exchange of gifts. However, the same report stated that the Namaqua ‘were

Hottentots like themselves [the Cochoqua], also dressed in skins ... not wearing chains

on the arms or neck, nor in the ears, but beads round the waist and copper bracelets’. The

comment about chains not being worn in the ears does not preclude the wearing of other

ornaments, such as beads. The illustrations of the Namaqua mentioned above show both

the man and woman wearing bead necklaces, and the woman has loops of these hanging

from her ears. The accompanying text states that the beads were made of gum and

copper. Close on a century later, Gordon (or his artist) illustrated a family of Little

Namaqua, the branch of the tribe who lived south of the Orange River, all of whom are

depicted as wearing bead necklaces and pendant copper earrings (Raper & Boucher eds

198823775 ple 79):

In 1657, it was recorded that the Namaqua were the source of all the indigenous

copper, although it was not known at the time whether the metal originated in their

territory or was obtained from other people further away (Moodie ed. 1960: 116). This

suggests that the men seen at St Helena Bay in 1497 were not members of the tribes

normally seen in the Saldanha Bay—Cape Peninsula region by later voyagers and settlers.

In February 1661, travellers on an expedition, of which Pieter van Meerhoff was a

member and its recorder, were the first settlers to meet the Namaqua (Moodie ed. 1960:

232), at a point somewhere south of present-day Graafwater (Mossop 1927: 141).

Meerhoff described the Namaqua as being abundantly adorned with copper in the form

of beads, necklaces, some with pendant discs, and armbands. They also wore ornaments

of iron and ivory (Moodie ed. 1960: 233). In May 1668, a Corporal Bosman at the

Company’s post at Saldanha Bay reported to Commander van Quaelbergen that a great

number of Hottentots, called Namaqua, had stolen the stock of the local people as well as

some belonging to the Company. Bosman was instructed to send men with a wagon and

merchandise in an attempt to continue bartering with the Namaqua, towards whom they

were to show no hostility. The following month Bosman reported that, even though the

party had crossed the Olifants River, they had been unable to make contact and had

returned to base as they had run out of provisions (Wilson 19865: 33).

The foregoing provides grounds, even if they are somewhat tenuous, for suggesting

that the men seen by Da Gama were Namaqua. There is no proof that the stock thieves

actually were Namaqua, but that they were identified as such does allow for the

possibility that the Namaqua, whose territory lay north of the Olifants River, made

excursions to the south. Where the Namaqua were located in 1497 cannot now be known;

but it seems more reasonable to assume that they, the only people known to have copper,

were the people seen by Da Gama and his crew than that the wearers of the copper beads

were San or other Khoikhoi. Had it been otherwise, later voyagers would surely have

commented on the fact that the people they met, at Saldanha Bay, Table Bay, and

eastwards, wore copper beads and/or other ornaments of the same metal.

Nienaber (1989: 105-116) was unable to reach a firm decision as to whether the

‘Amaquas’ and the ‘Amas’ were the same as the Namaqua. Inter alia, he cited

information in the journal of Van der Stel’s expedition to the Copper Mountains in

1685-1686 that, in the vicinity of Piketberg, Van der Stel had effected a reconciliation

between the Amaquas and the Sonqua on condition that the latter restored to the former

the cattle they had stolen (Valentyn 1971: 244; other sources, e.g. Moodie ed. 1960, under

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 299

6 September 1685). Nienaber also cited Valentyn’s map (Valentyn 1971, facing p. 34) in

which the Namaqua were shown as occupying the northern reaches of the Olifants River

and land east of the Little Grigriqua tribe. However, this map, particularly with regard to

the known distribution of the Khoikhoi tribes (e.g. Maingard 1931), is so defective as to

be almost worthless as a source of information. There is also no evidence that the

Amaquas were present when Van der Stel effected the reconciliation, the Sonqua being

the only people mentioned as involved in his negotiations.

The description of the men of St Helena Bay mentions that ‘Their arms are staffs

of wild olive trees tipped with fire-hardened horns’ and, later, when the Portuguese

went to the rescue of one of the crew, the men attacked them with ‘assegais’ (Raven-

Hart 1967: 4). Maingard (1932: 712-713), discussing the historical evidence for the use

of the bow and arrow in South Africa, commented that the assegai was the weapon

principally used by the Khoikhoi for hunting and war, and suggested that the

“Sonqua ... were the great bow-users as compared with the Hottentots’, which could

be taken as an indication that the men of St Helena Bay were not San. Nicholas

Downton, who was at Table Bay in 1610 and 1613, said of the people there that ‘In

there hands they carrye a small Launce or Darte, that hath a small Iron head, ...

they have also bowes and arrowes, but when they came downe to vs they would leave

them in some hole or bush by the way’ (Raven-Hart 1967: 47-49). The identity of the

people at Table Bay, from whom the English were able to barter cattle and sheep, is

uncertain, but it is likely that they were either Khoikhoi herders or their agents, the

‘Strandlopers’, whose identity is discussed below. On the basis of Maingard’s and

Downton’s observations, the men at St Helena Bay could have been Khoikhoi who

brought only their assegais as a means of protection, but this is by no means certain,

particularly as both Khoikhoi and San were said to have used both types of weapons

(e.g. Thom ed. 1954: 211; Moodie ed. 1960: 158).

Other than the foregoing, it is only the number of the men, 40—S0, that leaves room

for speculation as to their identity. From information in the early records, that the

Goringhaiqua had ‘about 300men capable of bearing arms’ and the Gorachouqua

600-700 (Moodie ed. 1960: 247), Elphick (1977: 92) estimated that the total of the tribes

in the region of the Cape Peninsula numbered between 4000 and 8 000 men, women and

children. On this basis, 40-50men would be indicative of a group total of about

150-200 people, including women and children. Whereas this would not have been

unusual for a Khoikhoi clan, or part of a larger tribe temporarily broken up, for example,

to facilitate grazing their herds and flocks, it would have been unusual for a San hunter-

gatherer band. The size of these, as given in the early records, was usually small; for

example, when Meerhoff travelled northwards along the inland part of the west-coast

region in 1661, the number of men met ranged from one to 12 (Moodie ed. 1960: 231). On

the return journey, the party met 40 (Moodie ed. 1960: 237), but it was not stated whether

these were only men, or whether the number included women and children. Also, with

regard to the estimates of tribe size given by Elphick, Meerhoff observed that the (Little)

Namagua under Akembie consisted of about 300men and 400 women and children

(Moodie ed. 1960: 233). This would give a group size for the people of St Helena Bay

greatly different from that based on Elphick’s estimates: about 60-80 people in all. This

would not have been excessive for one or two San bands camped in the vicinity, whose

men were attracted to the bay by the strange visitation.

300 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Smith (1984: 139) considered significant the absence of any mention of cattle, since

the Portuguese ‘spent eight days careening their ship there and would have been delighted

to exchange for fresh beef had it been available’. However, since Da Gama and the crews

of his fleet were the first Europeans to call at St Helena Bay, it is not necessary to assume

that they considered that the men they met there were culturally the same as the herders

seen earlier by Dias at Mossel Bay, several hundred kilometres to the east, and whom

they encountered later (Raven-Hart 1967: 5—7). On that occasion, the men soon brought

their cattle and sheep to the shore; and the following day they were also accompanied by

their women and children, though these ‘remained on a hillock near the sea’. The

behaviour of the people of Mossel Bay was thus manifestly different from that of the men

of St Helena Bay.

Hromnik (1990: 29) stated that “Vasco da Gama had been speared by the

/Karihuriqua at St Helena Bay’, but did not provide supporting references, although in

the sentence preceding his statement he mentioned ‘the /Karihuriqua Quena (commonly

called “Cariguriqua”’, ““Chariguriqua Hottentots” or ““Saldanhars” in the early Dutch

records)’. Hromnik (1990: 39, footnote 52) cited Dapper as the source of this information:

‘The Kochoquas are called Saldanhars ... because they have always dwelt mostly near

and in the valleys of Saldanha Bay’, which Dapper also gave as the location of “The Great

and Little Karichuriquas [sic]’, who lived ‘close to the Kochoquas or Saldanhars’

(Dapper in Schapera ed. 1933: 23, 25, 27, translated). In the list of tribes left by Van

Riebeeck in 1662 for his successor, the ‘Little Chariguriquas’ (sic) were said to ‘chiefly

reside between Saldanha Bay and midway between Robben and Dassen Island[s]— about

4 or Shours’ walk from the sea coast’. These people, having misappropriated the stock

entrusted to them by Oedasoa, the Cochoqua chief, ‘are not recognized by any of the

Hottentoos [sic] as a people who have a Choeque or Hunque, that is a hereditary king or

chief?’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 248-249). This would place the location of the Little

Chariguriqua in 1662 approximately between Moorreesburg and Malmesbury, some

60-80 km south-east of St Helena Bay, but does not, of course, provide evidence of

where they may have been located in 1497. Hromnik’s */Karihuriqua’ seems to be a

version of #karihuriqua, cited by Elphick (1977: 134) as the reconstruction by Vedder

(1928: 114) of the tribal name of the Chariguriqua, whom Elphick called the ‘Guriqua’.

Elphick (1977: 134-135) observed that ‘The Dutch normally met the Guriqua at Saldanha

Bay or along the banks of the Berg or Olifants Rivers. ... In the south the Guriqua often

overlapped with Cochoqua at Saldanha Bay, and in the north they were often found

interspersed with Namaqua’. The identity of the Chariguriqua is discussed again below

(see p. 308).

LATER CONTACTS

For the next century and more, almost all the descriptions of the indigenous

inhabitants of the Cape coastal region, from present-day Saldanha Bay to Plettenberg

Bay, were of the pastoralists (Raven-Hart 1967: 8-41), the people now identified as

Khoikhoi. However, John Jourdain, whose ship called at Table Bay (then still called

‘Saldanha Bay’) in July 1608 (winter), made mention of about 20 people or more in small

‘cottages’ made of branches, who had no stock of their own, but notified others inland of

the coming of the ships, so that cattle and sheep were brought daily. Later in his

narrative, Jourdain commented that the people, whom he called ‘Saldanians’, had feasted

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 301.

on the flesh of seals from which the English had cut the blubber to make train-oil (Raven-

Hart 1967: 41-42).

Augustin de Beaulieu, who visited Table Bay in March 1620 (late summer) and May

1622 (autumn), commented that the people, ‘the most miserable savages which have been

discovered up to now’, knew nothing of agriculture or of fishing. They were, he said, ‘of

very low stature, especially the women, thin, and seem always to be dying of hunger. They

eat certain roots, which are their chief food ... they are pretty tasty. Also they go along

the seashore, where they find certain shellfish, or some dead whale or other fish, however

putrefied it may be, and this they put on the fire for a little and make a good meal of it’.

Their only shelter consisted of branches and skins stretched over two sticks ‘under which

their wives and children set themselves, buried to the waist in sand’ (Raven-Hart 1967:

100-101).

DISCUSSION

These observations, from the first 134 years of contact between the voyagers from

Europe and the indigenous inhabitants of the coastal region, provide evidence of at least

two groups with apparently differing resource bases. There were the people at Mossel Bay

and Table Bay, who were seen to have cattle, and there were those at St Helena Bay and

Table Bay, who were not. Although any determination of the identity of the men met by

Da Gama and his crew at St Helena Bay in 1497 cannot be other than speculative because

of the scantiness of the information, on the basis of what was stated it is clear that the

economy of these people was not based solely on marine resources. The identity of the

people described by Jourdain and De Beaulieu is also not clear, but these descriptions

may be early references to the people later called ‘Watermen’, who are discussed in the

following section. De Beaulieu’s observations are typical of the generally prejudiced

attitude of the voyagers towards the people they met, but they also provide evidence that

the group he saw subsisted, apparently largely, on terrestrial resources in the form of

plant foods as well as on marine ones. It is necessary, however, to bear 1n mind that the

observations of the early voyagers were based on only partial evidence obtained during

relatively short visits: they are descriptions of what was seen in the vicinity of the coast at

particular times, not of the people’s annual life-style in their whole territory.

STRANDLOPERS AND RELATED NAMES

WATERMEN

Johan Albrecht von Mandelslo, a passenger on the English ship Mary which called

at Table Bay in May 1639, observed that the inhabitants were of two sorts. The

“Watermen’ were so named because they lived by the sea and subsisted on ‘herbs, roots

and fishes, especially on the dead whales, which must serve as their best food.... The

other sort, which live further inland, are called Solthanimen, ... [and] live somewhat

better than the Watermen. They also do not cultivate the soil, .... But they have lovely

cattle, sheep and goats.... Both ... these sorts live in small leaf-huts’ (Raven-Hart 1967:

ED)

Von Mandelslo’s report errs in several respects, of which two are relevant here.

The first goat recorded as having been seen at Table Bay was one sent in March

1661 by the Namaqua chief Akembie as a gift to Van Riebeeck (Thom ed. 1958:

302 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

343). ‘Solthanimen’ is a variant of ‘Saldanhamen’, more usually ‘Saldanhars’, the

name first given to the Cochoqua, who were Khoikhoi (Moodie ed. 1960: 247). The

hemispherical mat-and-wattle huts of the Khoikhoi were often described by the early

writers (e.g. Kolb 1738: 220-222), and earlier callers had also seen and described

them (Raven-Hart 1967: 30, 46, 60, 66). The shelters described by Von Mandelslo

were, however, similar to those described by Jourdain and De Beaulieu some two

decades earlier (see above). Despite Von Mandelslo’s incorrect ascription of such

shelters to the ‘Saldanhamen’, his observation reinforces those of his predecessors:

that there were people whose housing differed from that of the herders and who

subsisted on plant and marine foods.

Discussion of the ‘Watermen’ is continued in the following sections.

STRANDLOPERS— EARLY REFERENCES

According to Elphick (1977: 83, footnote 41—page references in Elphick (1985) are

generally identical to those in his earlier publication), the earliest unambiguous references

to the ‘Strandlopers’ are in a letter from the Dutch ship s’Gravenhage written in Table

Bay on 2 December 1632, followed by the entry for 20 May 1636 in the log-book of the

ship Banda, both of which are in the Algemeen Rijksarchief in The Hague.

The earliest published use of the name, however, appears to be that in the diary of

Leendert Janssen, under-merchant on the Haerlem, which was wrecked in Table Bay on

25 March 1647. Janssen recorded that on 29 March, a party of the survivors had set off

overland to meet two English long-boats that had been sent ashore, but that some of

them had been wounded in an attack by the Strandlopers. Later entries in Janssen’s diary

show subsequent relations between the two groups to have improved. The Strandlopers

were said to number about 50 men, women and children, and one of the men spoke

English (Raven-Hart 1967: 168-169).

Raven-Hart (1967: 169) identified the man who spoke English as ‘Hadah’, who was

taken by the English to Bantam (modern Jakarta) in the East Indies in 1630 or 1631 and

brought back the following year (Raven-Hart 1967: 127, 136). This man was later to

become known to Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch garrison on the shore of Table Bay as

‘Harry’ (Thom ed. 1952: 71) or ‘Herry’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 14, footnote 1). For the sake of

consistency, “Herry’, the name by which this man is locally best known, is used in

preference to the less common but probably more correct ‘Harry’, although his name was

actually Autshumao (Moodie ed. 1960: 135).

In 1613, Captain Towerson of the Hector took two of the local inhabitants of the Table

Bay area on board with the intention of taking them to England. One died during the

voyage, but the other survived and was returned to the Cape the following year (Raven-Hart

1967: 54, 64). This man, known to the English as ‘Cory’ or variants thereof, acted for several

years as the principal agent in the bartering of livestock with the Khoikhoi, and appears to

have been one of them. According to Walter Peyton, who was at the Cape in 1615, Cory’s

‘village’ was eight miles (approximately 13 km) from the bay and consisted of 100 huts; there

was another village consisting of 10 huts on the east side of Table Mountain (Raven-Hart

1967: 72). The description of the huts is identical to those of Khoikhoi huts (e.g. Kolb 1738:

220-222) and, although it was not specifically stated, it appears that the sheep and cattle that

were bartered came from the inland village.

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 303

Cory seems to have disappeared from the scene around 1627 (Raven-Hart 1967:

120), and Herry commenced his duties as ‘postman’ and intermediary in the bartering by

at least 1632 (Raven-Hart 1967: 137 f.). It seems unlikely that Cory was the same man as

Choro, the chief of the Gorachouqua, nicknamed ‘tobacco thieves’ by the Dutch, who

met Van Riebeeck in May 1660 (Moodie ed. 1960: 207), and whom Nienaber (1989: 682)

considered to have been the eponymous ancestor of a branch of the Korana. Choro was

last mentioned in the official records in 1662 (Moodie ed. 1960: 247), by which time, if he

were in fact Cory, he would have been well over 60 years old. The indications are,

however, that Cory, unlike Herry, was a member of one of the recognized Khoikhoi

tribes, perhaps of the Goringhaiqua, the principal occupants of the Cape Peninsula.

Peter Mundy, whose ship called at Table Bay in May 1634, said of the people: “Theis

that are hereabouts (by report) are of a baser Sort and live in feare of others called

Saldania men, whoe are further in the Land.’ Herry, meanwhile, with about 60 men,

women and children, “better apparelled than those living on the Maine, though after the

same manner’, was living on Robben Island, in ‘7 litle Cottages’ (Raven-Hart 1967: 141,

143). This report is ambiguous in that it suggests that there was yet another group besides

Herry’s people and the ‘Saldanhamen’, the latter at that time being the Khoikhoi sensu

lato.

On 13 November 1652, Van Riebeeck questioned Herry about the inhabitants of the

area. Herry told him that the Table Valley was annually visited by three tribes of people,

‘similar in dress and manner ... namely, themselves, the Strandloopers [sic], or as they

call themselves in the broken English they have learned, Waterman, because they live on

muscles [sic], which they find on the rocks, and some roots out of the ground, without

always having cattle—and who, as far as we have as yet ascertained, are not above 40 or

50 in number’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 25, footnote). The other two groups were the

‘Saldanhaman’, later identified as the Cochoqua (Moodie ed. 1960: 247), and the

‘Vishman’, the latter of whom are discussed below.

In a dispatch to the Lords VII (the Council of the Dutch East India Company) dated

5 March 1657, Van Riebeeck referred to ‘the Watermans or Strandloopers (a poor tribe

with whom Herry used formerly to live ...)’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 94), which suggests that

Herry had severed his connection with the group. However, on 2 July 1658, he was

described as ‘nothing but a naked beggar and merely the captain or head of the

Watermans or Strandloopers hereabouts’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 131).

Herry and his people were identified in October 1657 as being of the Choeringaina

tribe, the name being given the following month as Goeringaina or Goeringaijqua (Thom

ed. 1954: 172, 184). However, in the list of tribes left by Van Riebeeck in 1662 for his

successor, Herry and his people were named as the Goringhaicona, the Goringhaiqua

being identified as the larger tribe of ‘Caepmans’ whose chief was Gogosoa (Moodie ed.

1960: 247). In the lists of 1657, but not that of 1662, the Goringhaicona (correcting the

original error) were said to comprise Herry, his people, ‘and all the Watermen’ (Thom ed.

1954: 172, 184).

The records continued to be inconsistent in their use of the two names, for

example: ‘as soon as Herry has been sent to the [Robben] island, peace shall be

offered to all his people and also the Watermans’ (present author’s emphasis); ‘all the

strandloopers [sic] and vagabonds of Watermans’; ‘Herry’s people, called Watermans’;

‘the said men, who were all well known, and were accustomed to live at the Fort,

304 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

called out to our people that they were Vismans, alias Watermans’; ‘as to the Vissers

or Watermans, such poor naked creatures dared not go anywhere but must keep

under the protection of the Company’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 136, footnote on 170, 185,

Hees, 8} ZT).

Dapper (1668, in Schapera ed. 1933: 9, translated) stated that ‘The Goringhaicona or

Watermen are under a chief, whose native name is Demtaa, but our countrymen call him

Klaas Das .... They have a camp of only four or five huts, number about fifty souls with

women and children, and are the poorest of all the Hottentots’. Schapera (1933: 8-9,

footnote 6) said he had been unable to find any evidence in the official records to support

Dapper’s statement that Klaas Das was the leader of the Goringhaicona, and mentioned

that his native name was Khaik Ana (or Khaikana) Makouka. Moodie (ed. 1960,

footnote 1 on p. 136, 188) gave his name as both Humthasoankhumma and Kaikana

Makoukou. The present author has likewise been unable to find any confirmation that

Klaas (or Claes) Das was the leader of the Watermen or the Goringhaicona. He was

generally described in the official records as one of the interpreters (Moodie ed. 1960:

70-71, 77-78, etc.) and once as ‘one of the fishers, or Watermans’ (Moodie ed. 1960:

198).

VISMANS

The Vismans (‘Fishermen’ is probably more correct than the literal translation,

‘Fishmen’) are another source of confusion. In the previously-mentioned journal entry of

13 November 1652, when Herry told Van Riebeeck of the three groups that visited Table

Bay annually, he said that, in addition to the Strandlopers/Watermen and Saldanhamen

or Cochoqua, ‘... the third sort was called by them Vishman, who after the departure of

Saldanhaman come here with cows only, and without sheep, and who subsist by fishing,

without boats, by lines from the rocks—who are from 400 to 500 in number; [against]

these [Vishman, the] Watermans and Saldanhamans ... are at constant war... he told us

that those Vischman always travelled secretly, concealing themselves from Saldanhaman,

and not like them lighting fires, for if the Saldaniers, who are of countless numbers,

perceived their fires, they always tried to catch them, for which Vischman was much

afraid, residing beyond the mountains Eastward of the Cape, towards the bay of Sambras

[Mossel Bay], and in that direction’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 25-27, footnote. The interpolated

‘against’ is taken from Moodie’s footnote 1 on p. 59).

The Cochoqua told Van Riebeeck that the Vismans were ‘all robbers, who would

come here and try to steal our cattle’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 26), an accusation supported by

Herry, who also called them ‘Soaqua’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 28). In 1654, ‘Herry’s allies’,

probably the Goringhaiqua, complained to Van Riebeeck that ‘the Vishmans (called by

them Soaqua) had robbed them of all their cattle’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 46). The following

year, a party sent into the interior under the command of Jan Wintervogel met “some

Soaquas, called Vischman, and enemies of Waterman and Saldanhaman, who had no

cattle’. These were a different group from those described later in Wintervogel’s report as

‘a certain tribe, very low in stature, and very lean, entirely savage, without any huts,

cattle, or any thing in the world, clad in skins like these Hottentoos, and speaking nearly

like them’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 59). The Vismans, other than those mentioned above who

were also called Strandlopers or Watermen, were, however, never seen at Table Bay and

were last mentioned in 1660 (Moodie ed. 1960: 217).

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 305

It is evident from the foregoing that the name ‘Vismans’ was applied to the

Goringhaicona, and used by them to identify themselves. It was also applied to the

people, 400-500 in number, called cattle thieves and Soaqua by Herry, the Cochoqua and

Goringhaiqua. Whether the ‘Soaquas, called Vischman’ mentioned by Wintervogel were

the same as the cattle thieves is not clear. That they had no cattle is perhaps not

important; they could have disposed of them, or lost them to another tribe, especially

since they were accused of being cattle thieves. On the other hand, they may simply have

been a party separated from the main group, which might have gone into hiding so as to

conceal their cattle from the Europeans. Their leanness suggests, however, that they were

not people who benefited from the regular possession of domestic stock.

Maingard (1935: 486-487) was of the opinion that the Vismans ‘were the same

people as the Ubiguas who are also called Sonquas’. He disputed the etymology given by

Theal (1897: 173) as ‘murderers, presumably from the Hottentot //o:, “‘to die’ ’ and stated

that “Since Ubigqua is equated with the “‘Fishmen”’, it should be derived rather from

Hottentot //au, “fish” + ube, “‘to take away” + kwa (plural suffix)’. This seems some-

what circular reasoning and an implausible contraction of two words to produce the first

part of the name. “Ubiqua’, with the meaning ‘people who take away’, is an apt name for

robbers. Although there appears to be some validity in Maingard’s equating ‘Ubiqua’

with ‘Sonqua’, both having been used with reference to hunter-gatherers without

domestic stock, at least one group of ‘Vismans’ had cattle, but were called only ‘Soaqua’,

not ‘Ubiqua’, as indicated in the excerpts given above.

Nienaber (1989: 898-901) attempted to identify the Vismans, chiefly from the

sources cited above. He pointed out that the people met by Wintervogel were encountered

west of the Drakenstein Mountains, in the vicinity of present-day Tulbagh, an unlikely

locality in which to find people who were alleged to subsist by fishing, although the

possibility that they caught river fish cannot be excluded. Nienaber also drew attention to

the absurdity or incongruity (ongerymdheid) of Herry’s assertion that the relatively large

band of Vismans, 400-500 in number, subsisted by fishing when they also had cattle,

though he was unable to determine from the scanty information whether these people

were only cattle-thieves or whether they were herders.

Nienaber (1989: 901, translated) was of the opinion that ‘Ethnonymically, the name

Visman(s) indicates a necessary connection with fish, [and] in the explanation of this

specific reference is made to sea-fish, so that the location always assumes a beach or coast

within easy reach’. His conclusion was that ‘The identification of [the] Vismans remains

the great problem. If they did not disappear [after 1660—see above], under what name

are they to be found again? The problem is thus more ethnic than ethnonymic.’ He found

interesting the inference of Goodwin (1952: 142) that the ‘Strandlopers and Fishmen ...

were Hottentots and Bushmen, herding and hunting people respectively who had turned

for part of the year at least to the abundant sea-food to augment their normal sources of

subsistence’, but considered that Goodwin, too, had not answered the basic question of

the specific identity of the people called ‘Vismans’.

STRANDLOPERS— LATER REFERENCES

Although it seems clear that the Strandlopers, Watermen and at least one group of

Vismans were one and the same, Herry’s association with, and leadership of them,

remains problematic. In 1659, a man called Trosoa was mentioned as chief of the

306 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

‘Vismans, alias Watermans’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 188) and, in January of the following year,

Herry was said to be living with the Little Chariguriqua in the vicinity of Saldanha Bay

(Moodie ed. 1960: 199). In a dispatch to the Lords VII dated 16 March 1660, Van

Riebeeck reported that during a skirmish with a band of stock-thieves, three were killed,

‘one of the killed being the chief of the Strandloopers, named Trosoa’ (Moodie ed. 1960:

203). As mentioned earlier, Herry’s actual name was Autshumao (Moodie ed. 1960: 135)

and in 1666 it was reported that he had died three years previously, the report adding that

he had been ‘chief or captain’ of the Goringhaicona (Moodie ed. 1960: 291).

It seems likely that the Dutch perception of Herry as leader of the Goringhaicona

was the view he presented to them. If it is assumed that the Goringhaicona were a proper

tribe or band and not the collection of outcasts Theal (1897: 155) and Maingard (1931:

492) assumed them to have been, it is possible that Trosoa was the de jure chief of the

tribe, while Herry, by virtue of his influence with the Dutch and some of the Khoikhoi

tribes, was their de facto leader. The Goringhaicona, although they had a Khoikhoi

‘tribal’ name, seem to have been no more than a loosely-knit group that fluctuated in size

(e.g. Moodie ed. 1960: 291), and of which the leadership was probably nominal rather

than actual (see Elphick 1977: 103-106). Herry’s association with, or separation from,

them was doubtless related to the changes in his relationships with the Dutch and the

(other) Khoikhoi. Theal (1897: 155-156) stated that after Herry’s death in 1663, the

‘Hottentots residing permanently in Table Valley ... about eighty souls ... were

nominally under the government of Jan Cou’. Jan Cou, alias Khamy, Chamy or Khuma,

was the third son of Gogosoa, the chief of the Goringhaiqua (Moodie ed. 1960: 133, 135,

137, 141), but the present author has been unable to find any support in the official

records (e.g. Moodie ed. 1960) for Theal’s claim.

In October 1652, the bookkeeper Hendrik Verburgh was a passenger on the

Company’s yacht Goede Hoope that called at Saldanha Bay. Here they met on the shore

some ‘Hottentots’, and ‘firmly believed them to be Strandlopers, as they had no cattle or

sheep or elephants’ tusks ... they were all very lean and thin’. They visited the yacht

again the following day, but ‘these poor people had nothing to barter but tortoises,

ostrich egg shells ... and similar trash’ (Thom ed. 1952: 92-93). Two days later, after

finding a kraal containing fresh manure, the Dutch fired a gun, after which some men

arrived. ‘They were three fat, sleek and robust fellows, quite friendly, and we could

understand them better than we could the Strandlopers’ (Thom ed. 1952: 95). The men

promised to bring sheep, but did not, and the Dutch could find no other people in sight

when they climbed ‘a high mountain’ (there is none in the vicinity: the Posberg on the

Churchhaven Peninsula has an elevation of 194m, the Karringberg on the mainland one

of 177 m). This report is interesting in that it provides evidence of two different groups in

the vicinity of Saldanha Bay: the emaciated people with no domestic stock and little to

barter of value to the Dutch; and the well-fed men, who apparently had access to sheep,

even if they did not bring them. Whether the comment about the Dutch being able to

understand the second group better than they could the first refers to language or mime

(see below) is not clear but, in the former case, it may indicate linguistic or dialectal

differences between the two groups.

In January 1653, Verburgh was again at Saldanha Bay and again encountered ‘some

Strandlopers. We asked them whether they would help us kill hercas [seals] and have the

meat to eat, but understood that they did not want to do any work for it’. A day or two

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT B0-

later, the Dutch bartered 25 hippopotamus tusks from the Strandlopers for some

tobacco. Asked, with signs, whether they had any elephant tusks, ‘they shook their heads,

indicating that these animals were too large and powerful to be attacked by so few of

them’ (Thom ed. 1952: 134-135). This report reinforces the impression gained from the

first, that there were people at Saldanha Bay who were not herders and who were few in

number. If they were people who would otherwise be classified as hunter-gatherers, it is

difficult to understand why they were reluctant to help kill seals, which would have

provided them with a good supply of meat more easily than if they had done the trapping

themselves. The size of the group was not stated but, as mentioned, there were too few

men to engage in the dangerous task of hunting elephants, so that their number was

probably small. That they had hippopotamus tusks to barter indicates that, unless they

had traded them with people in the interior, these men were not habitually resident at the

coast. There is no record of hippopotami living in Langebaan Lagoon in the early

historical period: their closest habitat was probably the Berg River (Skead 1980:

399-409), at its nearest point some 35 km to the north-west.

Avery (1976, table 3) listed 10 occasions on which the Strandlopers were recorded as

having been seen elsewhere than at Table Bay, three of which were those at Saldanha Bay

mentioned above. In January 1655, Jan Sijmonssen, captain of the galiot Roode Vos,

reported from Saldanha Bay that he had been there for 10 days, waiting for the natives,

presumably to barter stock, but they had been visited daily only by the Strandlopers, who

had brought them ‘one beast ..., but there were no sheep to be obtained from them’

(Thom ed. 1952: 283). The following month, Verburgh reported that ‘he had traded only

2 head of cattle and 10 sheep from Strandlopers who, he thought, had stolen ... [them]

from other natives’ (Thom ed. 1952: 297). In October 1655, Corporal Muller, who was on

a bartering expedition east of the Table Bay settlement, reported that, at their camp on

the False Bay coast (identified by Avery (1976, table 3) as near Gordon’s Bay), Herry had

been visited by eight ‘strange Hottentoos’, who were later identified as being ‘the

Strandloopers who were formerly at the Fort bartering cattle’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 73).

There are apparently only three other records of Strandlopers being seen elsewhere than

on the Cape Peninsula. Again, these were at Saldanha Bay (Moodie ed. 1960: 195, 202,

212), but the reports are inconclusive. The first, in November 1659, reported that the

Strandlopers had informed the Dutch that the Cochoqua had retired inland. The second,

in March 1660, merely referred to ‘naked Strandloopers’ and the last, in July of the same

year, stated that there was nobody but Strandlopers there at that time. An earlier report,

in August 1659, mentioned ‘shore people, who lived by fishing’, also at Saldanha Bay

(Moodie ed. 1960: 190). The Dutch text of the official journal (Bosman & Thom eds 1957:

131) uses the term strantluyden, which in the English version (Thom ed. 1958: 129) is

translated as “beach rangers’. The use of ‘Strandlopers’ in these references may be a

precursor of the way in which ‘Hottentots’—those with domestic stock—and

‘Bushmen’—those without—were identified in later periods. In the cases mentioned

above, people who were at the coast, for whatever reason, and had no stock, seem to have

been de facto Strandlopers as far as the Dutch were concerned. That those seen by

Verburgh at Saldanha Bay in 1655 had some few cattle and sheep gave rise to the

suspicion that these had been stolen, presumably because of the general belief that the

only natives who could legitimately possess domestic stock were the ‘real’ Khoikhoi:

people who were recognizably herders, such as the ‘fat, sleek and robust fellows’

308 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Verburgh had seen at the bay in 1652. On the other hand, the Strandlopers met by

Corporal Muller later the same year had previously been seen at the fort bartering cattle.

This suggests that at least some of the Strandlopers were considered to be in legitimate

possession of livestock, but they were more likely to have been recognized as

intermediaries rather than as owners.

Elphick (1977: 134-135) considered plausible the reconstruction by Vedder (1928:

114) of the tribal name Chariguriqua as ¢kari-huri-qua, meaning ‘Lesser Sea People’ and

cited a personal communication from S. Marks ‘that the original Guriqua may have been

a Strandloper group which acquired livestock: this theory would explain their name (Sea

People), their comparative poverty, their political decentralization, and the fact that other

Khoikhoi occasionally referred to them as “San’’. That the name Guriqua/huriqua

means ‘Sea People’ receives some support from the name of one of the branches of the

Nama #Aonin, “‘Hurinin’, which has the same meaning (Budack 1977: 12) (see below).

However, Nienaber (1989: 437) commented with regard to the foregoing that, although

he understood Marks’s and Elphick’s positions, the Chariguriqua did not really live so

close to the sea, compared with, for example, the Saldanhars (Cochoqua) or Kaapmans

(Goringhaiqua), that this afforded them a distinctive name. Nienaber preferred rather to

consider the measure of resemblance between the Guri- of the name and the Huri (i.e. the

Hurinin) as a coincidence, pointing out, however, that the g- and the /- of the various

words are in some cases dialectally interchanged.

There is no evidence in the early records that the Chariguriqua were not considered

Khoikhoi, although they were once called ‘Soanquas’ (= San). Early in 1658, Jan van

Harwarden was sent with a party into the interior to see if they could ascertain whether

fires in the distant mountains signalled the seasonal approach of the Khoikhoi from the

north-west (Moodie ed. 1960: 119, footnote 2). On 10 March, apparently somewhere in

the vicinity of present-day Malmesbury, they saw some cattle and asked the natives who

had accompanied them who were the owners of these. They were told that the people

were Soanquas, but when they went to their kraal ‘found that they were the same

Hottentoos with whom the Fiscal [Abraham Gabbema] had formerly been, named

Charingurinas’ (the -na suffix has the same meaning as -qua, people), and that the small

group of five huts was merely an advance party of the main group, which was still some

distance away (Moodie ed. 1960: 122). Whether or not this incorrect identification of the

Chariguriqua as San was deliberate cannot now be determined, although it could have

been expected that the people who accompanied the Europeans would recognize the

Chariguriqua as being Khoikhoi. ‘Sonqua’ may, however, have been used intentionally as

a term of contempt, especially if Van Harwarden’s guides were Cochoqua or their allies.

As mentioned above, the Chariguriqua were formerly stock-keepers for Oedasoa, the

Cochoqua chief, but had taken his cattle for themselves and were therefore considered

outcasts by the other Khoikhoi.

On the basis of the claim that the Little Chariguriqua were formerly herdsmen for

the Cochoqua, it is possible to suggest that they were San (i.e. hunter-gatherers, rather

than necessarily Strandlopers, as suggested by Marks) who had improperly acquired

stock and thus became herders in their own right. On the other hand, given their

relatively small numbers— Van Riebeeck estimated the tribe to be ‘a people about as

numerous as the Goringhaiqua’, who had ‘exclusive of women and children, about

300 men capable of bearing arms’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 247)—it is also possible that they

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 309

had earlier lost their stock to one or other of the Khoikhoi tribes and had been forced

into a subservient position with the Cochoqua. The suggestion that they might have been

robbed previously receives some support from the record of the first meeting in 1657

between the settlers and the ‘Charigrina’, as they were then called: ‘that tribe had all fled,

out of fear that they would be robbed’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 109). Their flight could, of

course, have been prompted by guilty consciences if the stock they feared to lose was

actually the property of the Cochoqua.

The uncertainty of the Dutch with regard to the identities of the various groups of

people in the area is exemplified by the entry for 21 March 1658 in the Company’s journal

dealing with Harwarden’s journey, in which it was recorded that the party had ‘met 3 or

4small parties of natives (Negryen) and also the Swarte Captain, being all of the

Chariguriquas’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 120). The “Swarte (Black) Captain’ was Ngonomoa (or

Gonnema), one of the two chiefs of the Cochoqua (Moodie ed. 1960: 148, 182, 199, 214).

The name ‘Strandloper’ was last used in the official records on 1 March 1681

(Moodie ed. 1960: 376, footnote 2), and it is likely that by that time most of them would

either have gone into the service of the settlers or have joined other tribes. Kolb, who was

at the Cape from 1708 to 1713 and published one of the most extensive early treatises on

the indigenous peoples, did not mention either the Strandlopers or the Goringhaicona in

his description of the Khoikhoi tribes (Kolb 1738: 62-83). However, Valentyn, who spent

a total of about six months at the Cape between 1685 and 1714 (Serton in Valentyn 1971:

9), listed among the tribes ‘the Goringhaicona or Watermen’ (Valentyn 1973: 61).

Elsewhere, he observed that “Those who have no herds, and especially the Kaapmans and

the Strandloopers who live near the Castle’, were accustomed, before the smallpox

epidemic of 1713, to assist the burghers on their farms and their wives in the houses. By

the time of his last visit, these people had all but disappeared, ‘although in 17141 still saw

Hottentot men and women here and there, the latter often busying themselves with the

digging out of ... little roots’ (Valentyn 1973: 75).

Valentyn’s mention of the ‘Kaapmans’ (Goringhaiqua) not having cattle at that

time, and his vague use of ‘Hottentots’—by then often applied to the Khoisan in

general— suggests that by that time the name ‘Strandloper’ was just a catch-all used to

describe the various impoverished Khoikhoi (and possibly San) who lived in and around

the Table Bay settlement.

The ‘tribal’ identity of the Goringhaicona is discussed in the following section.

THE GORINGHAICONA: KHOIKHOI OR SAN?

According to Maingard (1931: 492), the Goringhaicona were originally part of the

Goringhaiqua but had been ‘for some reason, unknown, but not inconsistent with

Herry’s scoundrelism, outlawed from the larger tribe’. There was, none the less, constant

interaction between the two groups, the Goringhaiqua often being called ‘Herry’s allies’

by the Dutch (Moodie ed. 1960 passim: see Index: v, under “Caepmans’). Nienaber (1989:

409) commented that Herry acknowledged the overlordship of Gogosoa, the Gorin-

ghaiqua chief (see Moodie ed. 1960: 115).

Stow (1905: 245) considered that the description by Oedasoa, the senior ci tef of the

Cochoqua, of the Goringhaicona as murderers and stock-thieves who preyed on the other

tribes when they were at their weakest, was ‘so at variance with the more indolent mode

of life in which the normal Hottentot was so prone to indulge, that one feels almost

310 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

forced to the conclusion that these marauders must have belonged to the more energetic

Bushman race, who harboured a feeling of revenge against the pastoral intruders into

their ancient territories’.

There is, however, evidence that the Khoikhoi also murdered one another and stole

each other’s stock when they could (e.g. Thom ed. 1952: 127; Elphick 1977: 53-57; see

also the reference above to the Chariguriqua having stolen the stock of the Cochoqua).

These qualities were thus not restricted to the San, as Stow suggested, and consequently

do not serve to support his identification of the Goringhaicona as San on these grounds.

Elphick (1977: 94, text and footnote 13) dismissed as misleading Stow’s suggestion

that the Strandlopers were, or had been, Bushmen, observing instead that ‘The

Goringhaicona belong to that group of peoples ... which are Khoikhoi rather than

aboriginal in language and culture’. ‘Aboriginal’ is one of the terms that Elphick (1977:

XXi-xxl1) used in preference to ‘San’.

Elphick (1977: xxi-xxil) considered ‘a Khoikhoi to be any person accepted as a full

(i.e. not a subordinate) member of a Khoikhoi community. A Khoikhoi community was

one where a dialect of the Khoikhoi language was spoken and where pastoralism was the

preferred mode of economic life’ (his emphases). He also commented that “Goringhaicona

is usually construed as “children of the Goringhaiqua’’, since /kona means “‘children”’’

(Elphick 1977: 94, footnote 13). Nienaber (1989: 409-410, 419, translated) gave the

meaning of the name as ‘children of the high kraal’ and commented * “children” has here

a special connotation for those “who are like children, immature, humble in status, and

live down there on the beach, not here, up high” ’, that is, on the higher ground away

from the shore where the Goringhaiqua, the ‘people of the high kraal’, lived.

G. Klinghardt of the Department of African Studies and Anthropology at the South

African Museum (1988 pers. comm.) pointed out that when tribes split, the breakaway

group retains the tribal name and is still recognized as part of the main tribe. However,

such groups were always referred to as ‘little’, for example, Little Chariguriqua, Little

Namaqua, not as ‘children’. This suggests that a special circumstance applied to the

Goringhaicona and that they were not considered as a group normally separated from the

Goringhaiqua and enjoying junior status within the whole tribal body.

That Herry’s niece Eva (Krotoa) had a sister who was a wife of Oedasoa, one of the

chiefs of the Cochoqua (Moodie ed. 1960: 145), is also no certain indicator of the

Goringhaicona being Khoikhoi. Oedasoa’s wife was a ‘prize of war’, having been taken

from Goeboe, son of Sousoa the Chainouqua chief (Moodie ed. 1960: 217). Elphick

(1977: 107) may have been correct in suggesting that the terms ‘niece’ and ‘sister’ were

classificatory rather than actual, although he supposed that Eva’s ‘mother’, who lived

with the Goringhaiqua (Moodie ed. 1960: 145), was her biological parent; but this does

not prove that Herry or any of the women were Khoikhoi. There is no evidence that the

Khoikhoi considered themselves too superior to take San women as wives: the Korana

accepted former ‘Bushmen’ into their tribe (Engelbrecht 1936: 17, but see below),

although such a practice need not necessarily have been the case in earlier times.

However, since Elphick (1977: 11) considered that ‘one or several hunting bands—

consisting of Central “Bush” speakers in or near northern Botswana—acquired stock

and became by that act the first Khoikhoi’, it is arguable that the Khoikhoi were

biologically the same as the San (see also Wilson 1986c; Morris 1990: 12). Any reason for

their not mixing would, in the later period at least, have been social rather than

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 311

biological: status-related, that is, rather than arising out of a distaste for what might have

been perceived as miscegenation—not, as far as is known, that the latter has ever been

suggested.

Morris (1990: 12) commented that intermarriage between the Khoikhoi of the

Orange River area and their Tswana neighbours, the Thlaping, was acceptable because

both were pastoralists, therefore equals. These two groups ‘had a similar concept of

bridewealth’, a notion that was alien to the San and would thus have been an impediment

to intermarriage. Although it may be accepted that the San had no concept of

bridewealth in the sense that this was to be paid in livestock, of which they were not

normally owners, there is little doubt that they had a very good idea of the value of cattle,

even if this was not precisely the same as that of the Khoikhoi. Moreover, it would have

benefited a Khoikhoi man who had few cattle to take a San wife since the brideprice, if

any, would have been less than that asked for a Khoikhoi wife.

The Hessequa, Cochoqua, Namaqua and Inqua are among the tribes mentioned in

the early records as having from time to time used the services of people they called

‘Sonqua’ or ‘Obiqua’ or variants thereof (Moodie ed. 1960: 324, 342, 410, 436). These

people appear to have been hunter-gatherers rather than pastoralists, and there seems no

good reason why the Goringhaicona were not also in this category. In this connection,

the observation by Jourdain (see above), that the people he met on the shore of Table Bay

in 1608 had no domestic stock of their own, but notified those inland of the arrival of

the ships, who then brought the animals, tends to support the suggestion that the

Goringhaicona were subservient to, and possibly had a clientary relationship with, the

Goringhaiqua.

That the Goringhaicona had a Khoikhoi ‘tribal’ name (Elphick 1977: 94) and were

not called “Sonqua’ or ‘Obiqua’ is, although an apparently unusual circumstance, also not

necessarily an indication that they were Khoikhoi. Because of their location close to the

Dutch settlement and their interaction with the settlers, the Goringhaicona were the best-

described non-herder group; but it does not follow from this that the people called

‘Sonqua’ or ‘Obiqua’ did not also have other names. Isak Schryver, who journeyed to the

Inqua in 1689, recorded meeting ‘a party of Hottentots called Hougliquas, and Sonquas or

Thonuny’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 437), so that it is likely that other individual bands did have

specific names. As Elphick (1977: 24) observed, the names ‘Sonqua’ and ‘Obiqua’ referred

‘not to specific bands but to a category of people scattered all over southern Africa’

(present author’s emphasis).

That the Goringhaicona spoke a Khoikhoi dialect is also no sure criterion of

their being Khoikhoi: any group in a subordinate position will—must—learn the

language of its superiors, as is evidenced by the fact that Herry learned English, and

probably also Dutch. The Dama of Namibia, a people of Negro origin who long had

a servile relationship with the Nama, speak the language of their former overlords

(Schapera 1930: 3; Hiernaux 1974: 110; also various authors cited by Nienaber 1989:

290-307).

That pastoralism was ‘the preferred mode of economic life’ is not disputed. In 1653,

Herry and some of his band were implicated in the murder of one of the Company’s herd-

boys and the theft of all the Company’s small herd of cattle (Moodie ed. 1960: 35-38); the

early records provide abundant evidence that the Goringhaicona had associated with

herders long enough for them to have appreciated that ownership of domestic stock was

312 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

an indicator of status, and thus desirable, especially for people of evidently low station

like themselves.

However, apart from the language they spoke and their desire to own cattle, there is

no evidence in the early records that the culture of the Goringhaicona was specifically

Khoikhoi. Indeed, Elphick (1977: 94, footnote 13) himself stated that ‘They belong to the

category “hunter-gatherers” .... The term Strandloper usefully denotes a subgroup of

hunter-gatherers, namely those with a predominantly scavenging and gathering economy’

(his emphasis). In this context, however, calling people who were said to be

‘predominantly scavengers’ hunter-gatherers is questionable, although opportunistic

provisioning, by whatever means, 1s probably acceptable in any economy. As mentioned

previously, Elphick (1977: xxi-xxi1) preferred not to use the name ‘San’, but this, or its

variants, was the name generally applied by the Khoikhoi to hunter-gatherers or those

without domestic stock (see Wilson 1986a: 254-256) and it is thus arguable, on the basis

of the foregoing, that the Goringhaicona should be identified as San rather than as

Khoikhoi. The processes whereby herders lost their stock and had to revert to being

hunter-gatherers (and scavenging seems to have been part of their economy), and former

hunter-gatherers acquired stock and thus became pastoralists, have been discussed by a

number of writers (e.g. Wilson 1969; Marks 1972; Elphick 1977, 1985; Schrire 1980).

Thus, although it is generally necessary to avoid a rigid application of the Khoi-

khoi = herder, San = hunter-gatherer dichotomy (Wilson 1986a: 261-264), it is on

occasions legitimate to use these equivalences when dealing with the peoples of the early

historical period, and probably also some of those in the prehistoric period.

The foregoing tends to show that Elphick’s assertion that the Goringhaicona were

Khoikhoi is not supported by the evidence of the early records or, for that matter, by the

arguments he adduced in support of his claim. In July 1656, the Goringhaiqua said of

Herry that he was ‘a good-for-nothing and was already conspiring with the robbers,

named Sonqua, with a view to enlarging his own following’ (Thom ed. 1954: 50). Neither

Herry nor the Goringhaicona were recorded as having been called “‘Sonqua’ by the

Khoikhoi, and this seems to be the strongest, perhaps only, argument in favour of their

having been Khoikhoi. It must be remembered, however, that it was the Goringhaicona

interpreters, Herry and Eva, who were the chief communicators between the Dutch and

the Khoikhoi, and they would have been unlikely to pass on to the Dutch anything said

to their own discredit. On the other hand, the third interpreter, Doman (alias Anthony),

who seems not to have been one of the Goringhaicona, would have welcomed the

opportunity to further his own interests at Herry’s expense (e.g. Moodie ed. 1960: 78,

129). The accusation that Herry was attempting to recruit Sonqua into his band is

interesting in that it suggests that, even at that time, there were San bands close enough to

the Cape Peninsula for him to be able to do so. Regrettably, however, this matter was not

elaborated in the official records.

DISCUSSION

The way of life of the Goringhaicona, the ‘Strandlopers’ of the early Dutch records,

was Clearly not typical of that of either the Khoikhoi herders or the San hunter-gatherers.

Unlike Cory, his predecessor as ‘postman’ and intermediary in the bartering of livestock,

Herry was—if only by default—not a herder, nor did he and his people live as a matter

of course in a kraal of their own, as did Cory and the other Khoikhoi. Whether the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT Ser

Goringhaicona were outcasts from other Khoikhoi tribes, as suggested by Maingard

(1931), and possibly augmented by San, or whether they were San ‘clients’ of the

Goringhaiqua is something that, on the basis of the documentary evidence available,

cannot be established with certainty.

As was mentioned at the end of the first section, although it is probable that

observations such as those of Von Mandelslo— that the people lived on shellfish and the

flesh of beached marine mammals—-were correct, this evidence is only partial: it was not

based on daily and round-the-clock observation. None the less, even the sparse

information provided by the travellers and settlers of the time shows that the Gorin-

ghaicona included plant foods in their diet and that they had access to the flesh of sheep

and cattle. They, therefore, did not live solely by ‘strandloping’.

It may be suggested that the Goringhaicona, whatever their tribal identity, were a

group that, under Herry’s leadership, saw the advantages of living close to the shores of

Table Bay, where they could be the first to avail themselves of the benefits to be derived

from contact with the passengers and crews of the ships that called there. At first, this

may have caused an occasional change in their usual way of life (whatever that may have

been) when ships called but, after the establishment of the Dutch settlement in 1652, they

took up more or less permanent residence in the vicinity. There, when Herry’s conduct

did not alienate the Dutch, they made themselves useful to the settlers, who provided

them with protection against the Khoikhoi when Herry’s behaviour had turned the latter

against him and, consequently, the rest of his band. Through the agency of Herry and

Eva as interpreters and facilitators in the trading between the Khoikhoi and the Dutch,

the Goringhaicona reaped the benefits of their association with both groups. (According

to Sealy & Van der Merwe (1986a: 142), similar suggestions were made by Parkington

(19766) and Robertshaw (1979), in their unpublished doctoral theses, to which the

present author has not had access.)

There is no evidence in the early records that the ‘Strandlopers’ seen at Saldanha Bay

were Goringhaicona. The name seems to have been applied by the Dutch to people met

there who, except in two instances, had no domestic stock and were probably hunter-

gatherers. Had they been encountered away from the coast, they would probably have

been called “‘Sonqua’.

Etienne de Flacourt, who visited Saldanha Bay in October 1648, commented, “All

those who come to these coasts are merely the poor slaves of others, who are the masters

and possess cattle, which they have in great numbers’ (Raven-Hart 1967: 174). This is a

good indication of the low esteem in which the Goringhaicona and other people without

domestic stock were held.

“STRANDLOPERS’ IN THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:

GORDON AND PATERSON IN THE NORTH-WESTERN COASTAL REGION

The preceding sections have dealt almost exclusively with the documentary evidence

for the life-style of people in the south-western coastal region, the area where, until the

latter part of the seventeenth century, most contacts between the voyagers and settlers

from Europe took place. During the eighteenth century, the settlers and visitors travelled

further afield and information was obtained about more distant peoples. From a research

point of view, it is unfortunate that Part II of Moodie’s The Record, which covered the

314 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

period 1691-1769, was never published, since the parts that were published (Moodie ed.

1960) are a valuable, if somewhat limited, source of information.

The late eighteenth-century soldier and explorer Robert Jacob Gordon was probably

the first European to realize that some of the shell deposits on the southern African

littoral were of human rather than of natural origin. In August 1779, he found, in the hills

near the mouth of the Buffels River in northern Namaqualand, ‘many sea shells and

although there were signs of marine erosion, many of these shells seemed to have been

brought here by people or baboons, since I have heard that beach-Hottentots lived here,

who fed themselves on whale meat and shellfish. In addition, whole heaps of shells were

too new to have been at this spot since the sea was here’ (Raper & Boucher eds 1988: 256;

see their footnotes 79-80 re the identification of Gordon’s “Gouwsi’ or ‘Sand’ River).

Further north, near the present Grootmis, Gordon and his party found ‘seven huts

standing together which these wild Bushmen had made of whale bones, all protected

towards the NW. At these huts were found large amounts of the shells mentioned

above. ... We found sea shells everywhere, apparently brought by the Hottentots’ (Raper

& Boucher eds 1988: 258; see footnote 83 on p. 257 re locality). It should be noted,

however, that it was not Gordon who used the term ‘wild Bushmen’, but his editors.

Gordon’s term was simply ‘wilden’: ‘wild people’ (Wilson & Klinghardt 1989: 50)

—possibly in contrast to the ‘tame’ ones who were taken into service by the farmers (e.g.

Burchell 1967: 227).

An interesting observation, made still further north, probably in the vicinity of

McDougall’s Bay, was that there were ‘many large heaps of shells all of the

abovementioned [sorts] and never mussels, although these are very good here’ (Raper

& Boucher eds 1988: 264—their interpolation; see their footnote 87 on p. 260 re locality).

Quite what were the previously-mentioned sorts of shells is not clear, since the only

specific prior mention of shellfish types was ‘rock-suckers’ (Raper & Boucher eds 1988:

261), presumably limpets Patella spp.

Gordon provided a comprehensive description of a camp of the ‘wild people’ that he

found on the north bank at the mouth of the Orange River, which also gives information

on the resources exploited by these people. There were the skins of ‘rock rabbits’ (hyraxes

Procavia capensis), jackals and seals, drying whale-meat, ostrich eggshells, some filled

with water, canna (Sceletiumsp.), eland horns filled with buchu (Agathosma spp., also

other aromatic species of herbs) and fat (Raper & Boucher eds 1988: 269). The illustration

of the camp (Raper & Boucher eds 1988, pl. 52) shows whale vertebrae and a rib, as well

as what are probably limpet shells.

William Paterson (1790: 115-116), who accompanied Gordon, said it was ‘several

species of fish’ that were drying on the branches, rather than whale-meat. He also

mentioned that ‘Their dress is composed of the skins of Jackals and Seals, the flesh of

which they also eat. When it happens that a Grampus [whale] is cast ashore, they remove

their huts to the place, and subsist upon it as long as any part of it remains; and in this

manner it sometimes affords them sustenance for half a year, though in a great measure

decayed by the sun.... They carry their water in the shells of Ostrich eggs and the

bladders of Seals, which they shoot with bows. Their arrows are the same as those of all

the other Hottentots’.

It is of some interest that, although Gordon and Paterson visited this camp towards

the end of winter (20 August 1779), the only plant material found, other than the grass

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT Bil)

and branches of trees used in the hut structures, etc., was canna, much sought after by the

Khoisan because of its narcotic qualities (Smith 1966: 276, under kanna) and buchu, used

medicinally and—as evidently in the present case— mixed with fat for use on the person

because of its pleasant aromatic quality (Smith 1966: 135-141, under boegoe). However, the

people later informed Gordon that their children were almost always away from the camp

‘to collect veld roots, bulbs, etc.” (Raper & Boucher eds 1988: 274), so that the lack of

mention of these and other plant foods in their camp cannot be accorded undue significance.

Gordon was told that the people on that side of the river had all died out, except two

women who were now with them. They denied that this had been caused by eating

poisoned fish, although one of their women had died after eating one cast up on the shore

(Raper & Boucher eds 1988: 272). There is no information as to what prompted this

statement: Gordon made no mention of having heard elsewhere of this sort of thing,

which may possibly be a reference to the killing of marine life as a result of a ‘red tide’ or

phytoplankton bloom.

It should be noted that the claim (Raper & Boucher eds 1988: 256, footnote 81) that

‘The Strandlopers, or “beach walkers” as they were called, were neither Khoi nor San but a

closely related negroid group’, attributed to Nienaber (1988: 867—-correctly 1989: 866) was

notthat author’s opinion but part ofan extract from Van der Horst etal. (1978: 10). Nienaber’s

own view was considerably different (Wilson 1989c). Paterson (1790: 117) commented that

‘Those that remain are distinguished by the name of the Shore Boshmen [sic]’.

DISCUSSION

The evidence of Gordon and Paterson makes it quite clear that the people they

saw were not herders but hunter-gatherers whose subsistence included the flesh and fat

of seals, whales and fish, and, if the illustration of their camp has been interpreted

correctly, shellfish. Terrestrial food resources included ostrich eggs and plant foods,

probably also hyraxes and eland, and the first sentence of the above quotation from

Paterson could be taken as indicating that the flesh of jackals was also eaten.

Although the visit by these two travellers was only a short one during a specific

season—winter—Paterson’s evidence is that the ‘shore Bushmen’ moved along the

coast, since they would otherwise have been unlikely to find the stranded whales he

mentioned. This does not, of course, preclude the possibility that they also went into

the interior, but what is clear is that these people exploited both the marine and

terrestrial resources of the coastal region.

THE EVIDENCE OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES

PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

THE REVIVAL OF THE ‘STRANDLOPERS’

The name ‘Strandloper’ appears to have been revived during the latter part of the

last century, probably as a result of the publication of The Record by Donald Moodie.

PartI, first published in 1838, deals with the period 1649-1690, during which the

Goringhaicona were in evidence (Moodie ed. 1960 passim).

In 1871, a correspondent to The Cape Monthly Magazine, identified only by initials,

continuing the debate on the origin of shell deposits in the cliff-top caves at Cape Point

316 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

that had been carried on sporadically in the magazine since 1858, observed “The tribes of

Hottentots who peopled that part of the country on the arrival of the Dutch were called

the Goringhaicona; to this branch belonged the Strandloopers, Watermen, or Vismans,

so often referred to in the early records. They frequented the coast extending on the west

from Hout Bay, and from Kalk Bay on the east, to Cape Point. They subsisted on fish

and shell-fish; and it is but natural that they should, in the course of ages, have left large

deposits of shells by their kitchen middens’ (‘S. T.” 1871: 174-175).

It is not clear why the writer should have restricted the Strandlopers to the southern

part of the Cape Peninsula when the most frequent references to them in the early records

show them to have been in the vicinity of Table Bay, at the northern end (Moodie ed.

1960 passim; see also above).

In the same magazine the following year, Martin (1872: 55), having mentioned the

presence of shell middens at Kommetyie, Simon’s Town and Miller’s Point, reported that

‘There has lately been sent to the South African Museum a very perfect skull of probably

one of the early Strandloopers, who roamed the beach at Cape Point ages ago’. This skull

(accession no. SAM—AP24), along with many of the other early acquisitions of human

remains from the coastal region, is described in the Museum’s physical anthropology

catalogue as ‘Strandlooper’.

Part of the comment by the historian Theal (1918: 4) on the nomenclature and

identity of the ‘strandlopers’ was given at the beginning of this study. In the

continuing part, Theal drew a distinction between ‘an impoverished people of mixed

Hottentot and Bushman blood, speaking the Hottentot language and wherever

possible following Hottentot customs, who from dire necessity were reduced at times

to eke out a miserable existence’, who were observed by the first Dutch settlers, and

‘The Ancient Shellmound Men’, who were ‘beachrangers, it is true, but that was their

normal mode of existence’.

Theal’s opinion of the identity and economy of these later ‘strandlopers’ appears

more substantiable than that of Elphick discussed above, although his suggestion that

they were biologically, rather than culturally, hybrids must be disputed, as must his claim

that it was ‘dire necessity’ that forced them to ‘eke out a miserable existence’ by exploiting

marine resources. Fortunately, however, the name he chose for the earlier creators of the

shell middens did not find favour. It would have been as confusing—and as mis-

leading—as the one he sought to replace. The ascription of shell middens to the

‘Strandlopers’ of the early records and the application of their name to human remains

found in the coastal region set a precedent that was followed when physical

anthropological and archaeological research began, as is shown below.

CRANIOLOGY

In an early study of the crania of African “Bush races’, Shrubsall (1898: 264) referred

to the crania of three “Strandloopers or coast Bushmen’ and included the craniometric

data for these with those of his ‘Bush’ sample. In a later study, he observed “The earliest

remains of the Bushmen peoples of South Africa would appear to be those of the

Strandloopers found in the caves along the south-eastern seaboard. On cultural grounds

these are said to be of a somewhat different type to the inland Bushmen of the present

day. It therefore becomes a matter of some interest to compare the features of the two’

(Shrubsall 1907: 227).

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT S17

In this later study, Shrubsall kept his measurements and indices for the ‘Strand-

looper’ crania separate from those for the ‘Bush’ crania, and concluded that ‘The

Strandloopers appear in all respects to be a purer group than the Bushmen, and to be

distinct from the Hottentots’ (Shrubsall 1907: 249). The study was based on 21 crania

(not 24 as stated) from the collections of the South African Museum, ‘some of which were

in a fragmentary condition’ (Shrubsall 1907: 228), as well as from those of a Dr

Duckworth, the Anatomical Museum at Cambridge and the Royal College of Surgeons

(Shrubsall 1907: 250-251). The ‘Strandlooper’ crania in the South African Museum’s

collection that Shrubsall used in his study (9 male, 1 ?Strandlooper and 1 ?male, and 3

female) are from coastal contexts that range from as far afield as Port Nolloth in the

north-western Cape to Bloukrans in the southern Cape, not the ‘south-eastern seaboard’

mentioned above. The seven ‘Bush’ crania (3 male, 2 ?male and 2 female) are from inland

localities or have no locality recorded (Shrubsall 1907: 250-251; South African Museum

Physical Anthropology Register: 1, 3).

Shrubsall treated his small sample as if all the individuals were contemporary (none

has been dated subsequently). Moreover, in assigning all the skulls from coastal contexts

to a specific Strandloper category, he ignored the evidence of the early records, which

show that by the early historical period, the Khoikhoi (‘Hottentots’ in his terminology)

occupied the greater part of the coastal region, so that many of them must have died and

been buried there.

The results of Shrubsall’s study are not acceptable by modern standards. His

samples were too small: 14 Strandloper males, | ?male, 1 ?Strandloper, and 7 females (not

6 as stated on p. 240), as well as 5 Bushman males (including 2?male) and 2 females

(Shrubsall 1907: 250-251). Most of the crania were incomplete, only six of the male skulls

(five if the ?Strandloper is excluded) providing all nine of the measurements he used in his

comparisons (p.240), the others yielding from one to eight depending on the

measurement. In the case of the female crania, these nine measurements were provided

in the table on pages 250-251 for six of the seven, but in the table on page 240 Shrubsall

used pooled data for only between three and six crania.

The summary statistics for the Strandloper male and female skulls in Shrubsall’s

table on page 240 do not accord with those obtainable from his table on pages 250-251

(see Wilson 1990: 46). The statistics for the total Bushman sample are based on more

information than is included in the table on pages 250-251, and individual measurements

were not provided for the Hottentot sample.

Shrubsall (1907: 242) provided a table giving the results of his tests of statistical

significance for the pairs of measurements used in his table on page 240. Where the male

crania are concerned, the Strandloper : Bushman samples show a significant difference in

only one of the nine measurements. In the Strandloper: Hottentot samples, there are

significant differences in five measurements, whereas in the Bushman : Hottentot samples,

there are differences in seven measurements.

The results of these tests show the problems inherent in using Shrubsall’s data and of

applying tests of statistical significance to small samples, especially when these are a series

of individual measurements derived from pooled data. They also show that the

Strandloper sample differs very little from the Bushman sample, which calls into question

Shrubsall’s assertion quoted above, that ‘The Strandloopers appear in all respects to be a

purer group than the Bushmen’ (present author’s emphasis) when their measurements are

318 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

statistically significantly different in only one of nine measurements. Moreover, because ~

there are no significant differences between the means of five of the nine measurements in

the Strandloper : Hottentot samples, this suggests that the Strandloper sample is closer to

the Hottentot sample than the Bushman sample is, since the latter differs significantly

from the Hottentot sample in seven of the nine measurements.

Shrubsall’s criterion for assigning the Strandloper skulls to this category was

probably their origin in coastal contexts, but his criteria for distinguishing between

Bushman and Hottentot skulls were not stated. That there is a greater number of

significant differences between the measurements of the crania of the Bushman and

Hottentot samples than there is between the Strandloper: Bushman and Strand-

loper: Hottentot samples suggests that Shrubsall assigned skulls to Bushman or

Hottentot categories on the basis of criteria derived from studies of previous samples

that had already been assigned to their respective ‘races’. It also suggests that the

Strandloper sample would, on metrical, rather than geographical, grounds, be found to

contain both Bushman and Hottentot crania.

Shrubsall’s identification of the ‘Strandlopers’ as distinct from both Khoikhoi and

San found its way into the pioneering monograph on the Stone Ages of South Africa by

Peringuey (1911: 189-201; Shrubsall 1911), and thence into the archaeological and

anthropological literature, both technical and popular. It has proved extremely difficult

to dislodge this concept.

Schapera (1930: 29, footnote 1) commented ‘The term ‘“Strandlooper’” (coast

ranger), applied by several writers on the prehistory of S. Africa to the people associated

with the kitchen middens found along the south and west coasts of the Cape, should be

abandoned, as the latent implication that these people form a distinct racial group is not

justified. For the most part they were merely Bushmen who took to the seashore, so that

we have to do with a particular mode of life rather than with a particular people’.

He accepted, however, that the Strandloper remains from the Tsitsikama (southern

Cape) coast referred to in a series of papers by Dart, Laing, and Gear (references cited by

Schapera) ‘represent a mixture of these coast-dwelling Bushmen and people of the

Boskop type’. Singer investigated the evidence for the existence of a ‘Boskop race’ and

concluded that ‘It is now obvious that what was justifiable speculation (because of

paucity of data) in 1923, and was apparent as speculation in 1947, is inexcusable to

maintain in 1958’ (Singer 1958: 177).

Schultze (1928) showed that the modern Khoikhoi and San are physically sufficiently

like each other, and sufficiently unlike the other peoples of Africa, to warrant their being

classified as a separate race, now known as the Khoisan (Schapera 1930: 5; but see Wilson

1986a: 259-260; 1986c: 17; Morris 1990, 1992). Recent studies of the cranial and postcranial

morphology of human remains in museum and medical school collections (e.g. Hausman

1980, 1984; De Villiers & Wilson 1982; Morris et al. 1987) have tended to show that most, if

not all, fall within the normal range of variation of the Khoisan. Hausman (1980: 161—162;

1984: 270), however, concluded that the crania she identified as being of ‘coastal San’

differed morphologically from those inland, and that there was thus a possibility of a

biologically distinct population living at the coast during the later Holocene.

Morris (1986: 5) questioned the accuracy of Hausman’s identifications, and showed

(Morris 1986, 1987) that the validity of the identifications of most early acquisitions of

human remains in museum and medical school collections cannot be supported, apart

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT B19)

from those of five San and nine Khoikhoi individuals who were known during their

lifetimes (Morris 1986: 6). This is a mere fraction of the collections and he concluded that

‘all that can be assumed is that the known-in-life reference samples provide a range of

variation of Khoisan morphology which cannot be reliably separated into Khoi[khoi] and

San categories’ (Morris 1986: 9).

A major problem with biometric studies such as those of Shrubsall and Hausman is

that, although the geographic location of the skeletal remains is known, sometimes

precisely, in most cases there is little or no information regarding their archaeological

context. This lack of information is aggravated by the fact that very few of these remains

have been radio-carbon dated, so that the samples, or ‘populations’, studied are treated

as if they were all contemporaneous. This ignores the possibility of changes through time

in the genetic make-up of peoples and their consequent physical characteristics.

A further problem is that the early studies appear to have determined, on whatever

basis, the cranial characteristics of the ‘pure’ or ‘typical’ Hottentot and Bushman, so that

any intermediate individuals were classified as ‘Bush-Hottentot hybrids’, as, for example,

in Keen’s craniometric survey of skulls in the South African Museum’s collection. Keen

(1952: 223-224) mentioned that there were two opposing schools of thought regarding

the physical anthropology of the Hottentots and Bushmen, one holding that the two are

so alike as not to be separable into different races, the other maintaining that they can be

distinguished apart. Keen held the latter view, and stated that ‘The characteristic, or

“typical” Bushman crania are easily separated from characteristic Hottentot skulls, as

they show very opposing tendencies’, some of which he mentioned. ‘The “typical”

Hottentot cranium is large ..., narrow in the forehead region and markedly doli-

chocephalic . . . ; while the “‘typical’’? Bushman cranium is small ..., relatively wide in the

forehead region and with a tendency to brachycephaly’ (Keen 1952: 216).

Of the 178 crania Keen studied, he classified 43 (24,2%) as Bushman, 21 (17,4%) as

Hottentot and 104 (58.4%) as Bush-Hottentot hybrid (Keen 1952, table 2). Since the

present study is concerned with the inhabitants of the coastal region, it is worth

mentioning that 44 of the crania were from the ‘southern coastal area and near Cape

Town’, but of these only 4 (9,0%) were identified as Hottentot, whereas 17 (39,0%) were

Bushman and 23 (52,0%) Bush-Hottentot hybrid.

Shrubsall’s measurements were used (Wilson 1990, table 2) to calculate the cranial

indices for his Strandloper and Bushman samples, together with cephalic indices for

living Khoikhoi males from Schultze (1928, table 1) and Bushman males and females

from Dart (1937, appendix). The Khoikhoi males were mostly (75,7%) dolichocephalic

and the rest mesocephalic, whereas the Bush males and females were mostly (75,0% and

61,9%) mesocephalic rather than brachycephalic, the tendency Keen suggested. However,

although none of the Khoikhoi males was brachycephalic, dolichocephaly was present in

the Bush males and females, showing that the latter is not an absolute criterion for

distinguishing between the two groups. On this basis, it may be suggested that mesocrany

was probably one of Keen’s criteria for evidence of hybridization.

Most of Shrubsall’s skulls were mesocranial but, whereas dolichocrany was not

present in only the Strandloper female sample, brachycrany was restricted to the

Strandlopers. On the basis of these criteria, three of the Strandloper males and one of

the Bushman males would have been classified by Keen as Hottentots, another three of

the Strandloper males and one of the females as Bushman, but none of the Bushman

320 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

males and only one of the females; the bulk of the sample (65,4%) would have been

classified as Bush-Hottentot hybrids. Clearly, simple ‘rules of thumb’ such as those given

by Keen are invalid. .

DISCUSSION

Analysis of Shrubsall’s (1907) craniological study has shown that there is no

justification, on the basis of the statistics he provided, for his claim that the sample of

Strandloper skulls was markedly different from that of his Bushman sample. Although

there is no information as to the criteria by which he separated his Bushman and

Hottentot samples, it may be suggested that their separation was on the basis of

metrically determined morphological differences derived from crania attributed to one or

other of the ‘races’, rather than from crania that came from known-in-life individuals.

Later studies, such as that of Keen (1952), seem to have been based on ‘rule of thumb’

concepts of what cranial characters should be found in Hottentot and Bushman skulls, so

that any that did not conform to the ‘ideal type’ were automatically classified as ‘hybrid’.

Keen’s data indicate that the skulls cover the whole range from dolichocrany to

brachycrany, with mesocrany the most common. In other words, the ‘hybrids’ are the

norm, whereas the ‘Hottentots’ and ‘Bushmen’ mark the extremes of the range. In this

regard, it is unfortunate that Shrubsall did not provide complete metrical data for his

Bush and Hottentot samples so that the ranges could be determined. Had this been

possible, it would probably have been found that the ranges overlap to such an extent as

to indicate that they are part of a continuum that contains the ‘typical’ Hottentot at one

end and the ‘typical’ Bushman at the other.

Keen (1952: 224) commented that ‘Crania which in the past have been called

Strandlooper, on account of their being found in association with coastal middens and

rock shelters, are proving to be Hottentots or Bush-Hottentot hybrid types .... For this

reason the term Strandlooper should no longer be used in a racial sense, as denoting a

distinct population group. The Strandloopers are a subdivision of the Hottentot group

with a propensity for living along the seashore’.

Although it is agreed that the term should not be used ‘as denoting a distinct

population group’, it cannot be accepted that, biologically, they ‘are a subdivision of the

Hottentot group’ as distinct from the Bushman group, or that they had ‘a propensity for

living along the seashore’. Keen classified more of the skulls from the coastal region as

Bushman than as Hottentot, which contradicts his statement quoted above. The bulk of

the skulls were ‘hybrids’ and could thus have been the skulls of members of either group.

The evidence suggests that all these people—Hottentots, Bushmen and Strand-

lopers—were part of the same biological group, the Khoisan, and that all three lived

in the coastal region. Aspects of culture and subsistence are discussed in the following

sections.

ARCHAEOLOGY

SITES AND ARTEFACTS

Discussing midden sites, Goodwin (1929: 265-267) suggested that ‘they seem to

represent an inland people, who have taken to a coastal type of subsistence. The term

“Strandloper” has been badly applied to these folk, and it would be better to use the term

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 321

as a verb, implying a strandloping type of subsistence. ... The midden sites often show a

full range of Wilton implements ... and a number of rough instruments, apparently

water-worn boulders, hacked into shape by use (not for use, so far as can be judged) in

removing shells and breaking them open for eating purposes. .. . flesh foods seem to have

been replaced largely by fish [sic], and the bulkiness of the shells compared with their

contents gives an immediate impression of a vast population or a long continued

residence. The populational density most certainly was greater than that of the inland

folk, owing to the higher rainfall of the southern and eastern coastal belts ... and to the

increased supply of vegetable foods directly resulting from this, together with the

abundant shell-fish supplies along the coast. But even with this increase of density, only a

comparatively small number of people could have subsisted in a given area’.

Goodwin then mentioned the evidence of Drury (the South African Museum’s

taxidermist) and Hewitt (Curator of the Albany Museum, Grahamstown and amateur

archaeologist), who had found sea-shells and ‘nacre pendants of marine origin’ in cave

deposits in the interior, suggesting that ‘inland peoples trekked periodically to the coast’.

He seems to have considered that these people from the interior were bearers of the

Wilton artefactual tradition, for he continued:

There is, on the other hand, the fact that many of the midden deposits fail to

reveal Wilton or Smithfield “C” implements, the only stone objects appearing

being the bored stone and the formless unconventionalised stones typical of the

midden folk.... Pottery of the usual type is often associated.... I have in

several instances discovered Wilton implements in middens previously regarded

as sterile, while, on the other hand, I have failed to obtain any small implements

at all from other middens. It is thus possible that many middens are refuse heaps

from an evolved or deteriorated Wilton, which has discarded the microlithic

side of the industry as unnecessary.

One further subject is of extreme importance, but has not hitherto been

sufficiently studied: the possibility of the middens either being of different ages,

or having been made in some instances by peoples of mixed cultures.

Goodwin was perceptive, at that early stage of his archaeological career, in

recognizing that the middens might be of different ages and that they might have resulted

from the activities of different peoples. He did not, however, put his ethnological training

to use, in that he seems to have failed to recognize that the people responsible for at least

some of these middens could have been the Khoikhoi and, in the eastern parts, the

Nguni— people known since the earliest European contacts to have occupied the coastal

region. It is also not clear why he should have restricted what he saw as a population

increase, relative to that in the interior, to the eastern and southern parts of the country.

Based as he was in Cape Town, he must have been well aware of the abundance of shell

middens, in caves and in the open, on the south-western and western seaboard. His

comments on the variable nature of the artefactual content of middens are a part of a

problem that has been addressed subsequently by a number of researchers but has not yet

been satisfactorily resolved.

As mentioned above in the section on the ‘Vismans’, Goodwin (1952: 142) suggested

that the ‘Strandlopers and Fishmen ... were Hottentots and Bushmen, herding and

hunting people respectively who had turned for part of the year at least to the abundant

322 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

sea-food to augment their normal sources of subsistence’. This represents a certain

change from his earlier view mentioned above, that the middens ‘seem to represent an

inland people who have taken to a coastal type of subsistence’ (Goodwin 1929: 265),

although he seems not to have taken cognizance of the elusive “‘Vismans’ who had cattle,

yet were said to subsist by fishing. However, he still did not address the problem of

whether sites with Wilton or ‘non-Wilton’ artefacts could be related to the two different

cultural groups. He also did not discuss why people who had access to terrestrial

resources on a year-round basis, and certainly during the period of their residence at the

coast, as is shown by the presence of the bones of land animals in many middens, should

have found it necessary, or desirable, to collect shellfish. This matter 1s discussed in the

following section.

Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh (1961) discussed what they termed ‘the Umlaas variant of

the Smithfield C culture’, which they observed from 22 sites to the north-east and south-

west of Durban. Terrestrial fauna were said to have been sparse and represented by

isolated bones: ‘In no case did the collection of bones represent a whole animal.’ Fish

were also sparse in some sites and absent from others, whereas shellfish, principally the

brown mussel Perna perna, were abundant (Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh 1961: 137, 139).

The authors considered that the people responsible for these sites ‘were not

predominantly hunters or fishermen’, and that the pebble tools commonly found in

these sites were related to shellfish collecting. ‘If the close association between the pebble

implement and the adoption of a shell-fish diet is accepted, then the Umlaas variant of

Smithfield C is a stone age [sic] illustration of the modification of a culture to suit a

changed environment. ... The Umlaas variant of Smithfield C is regarded as an industry

in the process of changing from what is primarily a hunting culture to a ““beach-comber

culture’ ’ (Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh 1961: 143).

Although these authors were probably correct in associating the pebble tools with

the exploitation of marine resources, their suggestion that the artefacts indicate a

permanent change from one type of economy to another must be questioned. Artefacts

not related to shellfish collecting and preparation are also present, as are the remains of

terrestrial animals, albeit both in relatively small numbers. The artefact collections are

merely a reflection of the activities carried out at the sites and the inventories should not

be expected to be the same as those at inland sites, where there was a greater emphasis on

hunting and plant-food gathering, and none on shellfish collecting.

In recent years, relatively little research has been carried out on Late Stone Age sites

in the eastern part of the coastal region, chiefly because interest has been more focused on

the Iron Age. Most of the earlier excavations (see Cable 1984, table 8) were carried out

before the application of the analytic methods now used, particularly where

quantification is concerned, so that the excavation reports are not particularly useful

by today’s standards.

Horwitz et al. (1991) reported on a salvage excavation in an Iron Age shell midden at

Emberton Way, some 40 km north-north-east of Durban. Charcoal from the deposits was

radio-carbon dated to between 1050 + 60 Bp. (Pta—2879) and 1270 + 60 BP. (Pta—2880)

(Horwitz et al. 1991, table 1). The ceramics consisted mostly of sherds from four Early

Iron Age phases, but Late Iron Age pots and bowls could also be reconstructed (Horwitz

et al. 1991: 13, table 3). The stone from the site consisted mostly of unmodified beach

cobbles, some of which appear to have been used in hearths. Four pebbles showed use as

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 323

hammerstones, and an upper grindstone and part of a lower comprised the rest of the

stone assemblage. The paucity of grindstones suggested that ‘activities involving grinding,

probably associated with the processing of agricultural foods, were not practised at this

site’ (Horwitz et a/. 1991: 16). The authors considered that the hearths and grindstones, as

well as the considerable quantities of pottery ‘are probably related to shellfish processing

activities’ such as baking, steaming or boiling (Horwitz et al. 1991: 23).

Cable (1984) reported on excavations in a site near the Natal south coast and one on

the edge of the coastal plain, as well as on a surface collection from a third.

Umbeli Belli Shelter is 7 km from the coast near Scottburgh, south-west of Durban.

Three Late Stone Age stratigraphic units were recognized, with a maximum depth not

exceeding 200mm. These overlay deposits containing Middle Stone Age artefacts, on

which Cable did not report. Two radio-carbon dates were obtained: 200 + 50 BP.

(Pta—2894) and 1140 + 50BpP. (Pta—2825) (Cable 1984: 86). These dates, together with

the shallowness of the deposit, suggest that the shelter was not continuously occupied,

but they cover the period from the latter part of the Early Iron Age until about a century

before European settlement commenced in Natal. Cable (1984: 86) commented that these

dates ‘are of general interest in that they suggest continued San exploitation of the coastal

belt at a time when occupation of the area by Iron Age communities are [sic] established’.

Borchers Shelter and the adjacent Borchers Shelter Annexe are on the plateau at the

inland edge of the coastal plain, some 17 km from the sea at Port Shepstone, which is

south-west of Scottburgh. Four stratigraphic units were recognized in Borchers Shelter,

of which the lowest contained few artefacts and little charcoal or faunal material. Radio-

carbon dates for the three upper layers range from 100 + 50BP. (Pta—3107) to

3360 + 110 Bp. (Pta—-3110) (Cable 1984: 110). A surface collection of artefacts was

made in Borchers Shelter Annexe, for which a radio-carbon date was not obtainable.

Frequencies of retouched artefacts from all three sites, consisting chiefly of convex

scrapers, were low, ranging from 1,2 per cent of the lithic total at Umbeli Belli to 2,2 per

cent at Borchers Shelter Annexe. Umbeli Belli yielded a much higher frequency of convex

scrapers (92,0% of the total retouched) than either of the inland sites (24,8% and 59,2%),

whereas frequencies of notched scrapers, backed blades and segments were relatively low

at all three sites. Where raw material usage is concerned, there was a fairly even dis-

tribution of quartz, hornfels and CCS (crypto-crystalline silicates, such as agate and

chalcedony) in the retouched artefacts from Umbeli Belli, whereas CCS is the most

common from the two inland sites. Because of the differences in the ranges of the dates

for Umbeli Belli and Borchers Shelter, it is difficult to determine to what extent the

differences in the frequencies of the various retouched artefacts reflect temporal, spatial

or activity differences. It must be borne in mind, however, that the activities carried out at

the two sites differed according to the environments in which they are situated and the

resources available for processing. Bone artefacts were found at Borchers Shelter Annexe

(Cable 1984, table 21) but not at Umbeli Belli, and Cable (1984: 97) suggested that their

absence, ‘highly unusual as it is among Natal Late Stone Age sites’, made it possible ‘to

speculate that hunting techniques in Umbeli Belli’s heavily bushed territory may have

differed from those at sites with more grassland around them in such a way as to make

the use of bone points less common’.

Sampson (1974: 403-438) used the term ‘Strandloper’ to refer to the post- or non-

Wilton sites on the South African littoral and commented that ‘Only a few excavations

324 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

reflect any awareness that the ““Strandloper” concept is based on an ill-defined name that

poses more problems than it answers’. He also pointed out that the term had been applied

to Wilton (i.e. microlithic) as well as non-Wilton (non-microlithic) artefact assemblages

from coastal sites. Sampson accordingly used it as a provisional term to cover the sites he

discussed, observing that ‘If there is a ““Strandloper complex” with regional industries,

insufficient data exist to support such a concept’ (Sampson 1974: 404-405).

With regard to sites on the south-western Cape coast, Sampson (1974: 420)

commented: ‘The presence of stock-herding “‘Hottentots” as revealed by Van Riebeeck

and others further complicates the picture, and it is distressing to note that no definite

“Hottentot” sites can be identified in the archaeological record, so that their origins,

technology, and contribution to late coastal culture remain to be investigated.... An

archaeology of the ““Hottentots” has not yet developed.’

Nearly 20 years later, in the western part of the coastal region only the Kasteelberg

sites can at present be accepted with reasonable certainty as resulting from herder

occupation, on account of the high frequencies of the remains of domestic stock (Klein &

Cruz-Uribe 1989) and the great quantities of potsherds recovered (Sadr & Smith 1991).

There can be little doubt, however, that many of the other sites in the western coastal

region are attributable to the Khoikhoi. The reason for this is that people who inhabited

the area for more than | 500 years before white settlement began must have left other

traces of their occupation. The problem is not so much of the existence of this evidence,

but of correctly identifying it.

Rudner (1968) attributed to the ‘Strandlopers’ all the pottery he studied from the

coastal region between southern Namibia and the south-eastern Cape. The reason for this

appears to have been that ‘the vast majority of ‘“‘Hottentot” pots have been found on

Strandloper sites’ (Rudner 1968: 594). These sites are chiefly shell-midden deposits, 1n the

open or in caves and shelters in the coastal region (Rudner 1968: 591-594). He conceded,

however, that ‘It has not been possible to differentiate between the pottery of the

Strandlopers and the pastoral Hottentots, who also sometimes camped along the coast or

were themselves forced to become Strandlopers’ (Rudner 1968: 611). It may be suggested

that the reason for Rudner’s inability to distinguish between the pots of the Khoikhoi and

those of the ‘Strandlopers’ is that there is no difference between them: the Khoikhoi were

the potters. Potsherds found in sites that cannot be attributed to herders are possibly the

remains of vessels obtained from them by either barter or theft. On the other hand, since

it is only rarely that whole vessels can be reconstructed from the sherds found in a site,

they may be the remains of broken pots collected by the hunter-gatherers for purposes

that are unknown. Kinahan (1991: 44), discussing potsherds from sites in Namibia,

commented that ‘When pottery arrived in the Hungorob it seems to have been distributed

among neighbouring sites, even as broken sherds. Pottery was introduced well in advance

of domestic stock, and was therefore subject to the hunters’ ethic of sharing’.

Kinahan’s archaeological research in two discrete areas of Namibia led him to

conclude that, although pottery was used by pastoralists, it was used for purposes

unrelated to herding. In the Hungorob Ravine in the Daures Mountains or Brandberg,

pottery was used for storing honey and grass seeds obtained from the nests of harvester

ants, and later also for cooking (Kinahan 1991: 76). An increase in the exploitation of

mussels at sites in the vicinity of Sandwich Harbour, south of Walvis Bay, was attributed

to the introduction of pottery into the area during the fourth and fifth centuries of the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT B25

present era (Kinahan 1991: 94). Kinahan (1991: 96) considered that this pottery, which

showed no signs of soot from cooking fires, was probably used for storage. Pottery in the

'Khuiseb River delta in the vicinity of Walvis Bay, from sites dated to within the present

millennium, was described as ‘more robust and functional’ than the earlier ware, and

often thickly encrusted with soot. Kinahan (1991: 96) concluded that, although this

pottery was associated with the remains of domestic stock, it was probably used for

cooking the /nara melon, Acanthosicyos horridus. Kinahan’s conclusions have important

implications for southern African archaeology, particularly with regard to the generally-

held view that pottery is directly associated with pastoralism.

Mazel recovered potsherds from Collingham Shelter in the central Natal interior,

from deposits dated to between 1770 B.p. and 1880 B.p., and commented that, although the

pottery is very fragmented and difficult to define, ‘it is quite unlike the Matola pottery of

Natal’s early farming communities’, the earliest dates for whose sites are about 1650 Bp.

(Mazel 1992a: 26-27). This led him to question his earlier tentativeness in accepting even

earlier dates from other sites in the area and to propose that ‘pottery occurred in the

Thukela Basin region before 2000 Bp. and perhaps even some time between 2200 and

2300 Bp. It wou d also seem that this early pottery not only occurs in the Thukela Basin,

but also appears more or less simultaneously in the eastern part of the subcontinent, from

Swaziland to the northeastern Cape’ (Mazel 1992a: 49).

The first Holocene occupation deposit at Die Kelders, layer 12, yielded 85 per cent of

the 1 118 sherds recovered, but remains of domestic stock were absent (Schweitzer 1979,

tables 11, 27). The absence of sheep or cattle remains from this layer has been confirmed

by the further excavations in the cave during 1992 by G. Avery (pers. comm.). The

pottery from this layer is, with the exception of one vessel (probably the result of using

unsuitable clay), finely made and all of it differs in style from the reconstructable vessel

from layer 2. It also shows no signs of having been used for cooking, whereas some of the

sherds from layer 2 have carbonized material adhering (Schweitzer 1979: 158-168, fig. 3).

Layer 10, from which the earliest sheep remains were recovered, was not dated, but the

date for layers 7/9, 1960 + 95B.P. (GX~—1687), is virtually identical to that for layer 12,

1960 + 85 BP. (GX—1688) (Schweitzer 1979, table 1). The dates thus suggest that sheep

may have been in the area at the time that layer 12 was deposited, but that the people

either did not have access to them or did not bring them to the cave. The case for the

prior introduction of pottery rests on the stratigraphy rather than on the dating and it is

to be hoped that the dates to be obtained for the new excavations will clarify the matter.

The present author is of the opinion that the identification by Sadr & Smith (1991) of

ceramic ‘styles’, such as those attributed to Kasteelberg and De Hangen, is the result of

an unfamiliarity with the wider context of Khoikhoi ceramics, as discussed by Rudner

(1968). The use of parochial names for these ‘styles’ is also to be questioned, particularly

when the ‘styles’ are derived from individual aspects of vessels, such as rim profiles and

decorative patterns, instead of from whole vessels with a number of attributes. In the case

of Kasteelberg, Sadr & Smith (1991, fig. 3) have shown that there was not a single style

but an evolving sequence of styles, which makes questionable their use of the term

‘Kasteelberg style’. The choice of De Hangen as the ‘type site’ for a particular ‘style’ is

singularly inappropriate, since this hunter-gatherer site yielded only 55 rim-sherds and

decorated sherds (Sadr & Smith 1991: 112). Comparison of the sherds illustrated (Sadr &

Smith 1991, figs 5,6) shows, moreover, that a number of the rim shapes and decorative

326 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

patterns are common to both sites. Sadr & Smith (1991: 114) considered that ‘The

distribution of the De Hangen style pots suggest [sic] that their users were exceptionally

widespread’ since ‘Ceramics with the De Hangen style design were collected by Rudner

from as far afield as the Port Elizabeth area’. The range of rim shapes and decorative

patterns in Cape coastal pottery is limited and widely distributed (Rudner 1968,

tables 1, 5). It is the distribution of these attributes that is indicated, not the mobility of

the potters.

On the basis of comparison with the artefacts from the Kasteelberg sites with those

from a few other sites in the south-western Cape, Smith er a/. (1991) suggested that it is

possible to distinguish between hunter-gatherer and herder sites in the post-2000 BP.

period. The former are said to contain more retouched stone artefacts, generally on fine-

grained raw materials such as silcrete, and relatively few potsherds and remains of

domestic stock by comparison with sites attributed to herders. The latter sites, as well as

having relatively more potsherds and remains of domestic stock, yielded few retouched

stone artefacts, the majority of the stone being quartzite and/or shale flakes and chunks.

The validity of these identifications was questioned by Schrire on the basis of three

main criteria: the invariability of the ‘signatures’ of hunter and herder groups and whether

the sites studied by Smith er a/. (1991) ‘fell neatly into one or other group’; the plausibility of

the criteria they used in their reinterpretation of her site of Oudepost I (see below); and how

it could be determined that ‘these characteristics encode cultural status, and not some other

feature such as time or site type’ (Schrire 1992: 62-63). In her table 1, Schrire summarized

the appropriate data from Smith e¢ a/.’s sites and showed that there is a considerable degree

of overlap in the contents of the sites identified by them as hunter or herder. There is also

internal variability in the content of sites assigned to one or other group.

Where the comparison with Oudepost I was concerned, Schrire (1992: 63) pointed

out that this had been carried out on the basis of only one of Smith et al.’s sites,

Vlaeberg 3. Although the frequencies of formal tools and silcrete were similar, Schrire

drew attention to the great internal (1.e. stratigraphic) variability of the frequency of

silcrete in the Vlaeberg3 sample. Schrire also contended that comparison of a single

aspect of the fauna from the two sites, the fish, was invalid because the bulk of the food

debris at Oudepost I had been generated by the (Dutch) colonists who had occupied the

outpost.

With regard to her final point, Schrire (1992: 63) raised the possibility that when

herding was introduced to the Cape, it might have been adopted by local hunters. She

mentioned that none of the sites studied by Smith er al. showed ‘alternate or even

sequential occupation by herders and hunters’ and commented that ‘If this absence

proves widespread, it implies that an amazingly rigid territorial system prevailed in the

south-western Cape for the past 2000 years, with everyone sticking to their own sites’,

even if some were in close proximity. This led her to ask why, if such had been the case,

there had been tension between the two groups.

Schrire & Deacon (1989: 112) concluded from an analysis of the indigenous artefacts

at the former Dutch East India Company outpost on the Churchhaven Peninsula near

Saldanha Bay, called Oudepost I by the authors, that these artefacts were to be attributed

to the Khoikhoi, who were historically recorded as having been in contact with the Dutch

at the outpost. This attribution was questioned by Wilson et al. (1990: 123) who, amongst

other things, drew attention to the admission by Schrire & Deacon (1989: 110) that there

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT B24]

was ‘well-attested redistribution of material due to dune mole activity’. Wilson er ai.

(1990: 123) pointed out that, apart from the potsherds, which they conceded were of

Khoikhoi origin, none of the artefacts illustrated was any different from those recovered

from deposits dated to before the advent of pastoralism in the western and southern

Cape, and that there was nothing to show that even the potsherds found at the site

resulted from the activities of the Khoikhoi. They therefore concluded that the evidence

for the attribution of the indigenous artefacts to the Khoikhoi was circumstantial and

could not be supported.

In their reply to Wilson er al., Schrire & Deacon (1990: 124) cited ‘an extensive

analysis of the taphonomy of Oudepost I in a paper that had not been available to the

other authors at the time that they submitted their comments for publication. Study of

this paper (Schrire et a/. 1990) confirms, rather than refutes, the contention by Wilson et

al. (1990: 123) that ‘the indigenous artefacts were not found in their primary depositional

context’. In the abstract of their paper, Schrire et a/. (1990: 269) mentioned that ‘The site

revealed very little stratigraphy and a complex taphonomic history’; and six times in the

paper they referred to the disturbance of artefacts at the site, both horizontally and

vertically, ‘by mole rats, people and weather’ (Schrire et a/. 1990: 270, 271 (twice), 274,

276, 298). In an attempt to determine whether the indigenous artefacts were, in fact,

contemporary with the exotic ones, Schrire er al. (1990: 276) excavated 34 metre-square

test pits over an area of some 2 500 m’, in which they found ‘no trace of an indigenous

midden’. This, they considered, ‘helped us to reject the hypothesis of unwitting

intermixture, by confirming the integrity of the association of colonial and indigenous

artefacts. A far more elegant contribution to this problem may be found in the highly

similar distribution of indigenous and colonial artefacts. Both concentrate markedly in

and around the lodge and fort, suggesting strongly that both parties visited and used the

site at the same time’.

The absence of an indigenous midden does not satisfactorily demonstrate that

there were no indigenous artefacts scattered about—the result of previous or

subsequent visits by hunter-gatherers or herders—that became incorporated with the

‘colonial’ artefacts as a result of the Dutch occupation of the outpost and their

various activities there. That these indigenous artefacts ‘concentrate markedly’ in and

around the buildings is likewise no guarantee of their contemporaneity with the

‘colonial’ ones. On the contrary, it can be argued that their presence in the buildings

indicates that they relate to occupation of the site by the indigenous inhabitants,

whether hunters or herders, after the Dutch had abandoned it. Excluding the 21

‘chunky, bruised’ pieces that Schrire & Deacon (1989: 108) considered were probably

attempts by the Dutch to make gunflints out of local stone, only 314 indigenous stone

artefacts were recovered, of which the bulk (79,9%) was debris (Schrire & Deacon

1989, table 1). It seems unlikely that the indigenous visitors to the outpost would have

engaged in artefact manufacture while there, and highly improbable that they would

have done so inside the buildings while these were still occupied by the Dutch. Most

importantly, Schrire & Deacon (1990) provided no new support for the claim in their

earlier paper that the artefacts were to be attributed to the Khoikhoi who visited the

outpost. Thus, until Schrire and her colleagues provide substantive evidence that the

indigenous artefacts from OudepostI are indisputably attributable to the Khoikhoi,

this matter must remain in doubt.

328 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Sampson (1974: 437) considered that ‘there is some reason to suspect that the

Strandlopers represented [by cultural and human skeletal material from coastal sites] are

an extremely ancient and isolated Stone Age group, briefly influenced by Wilton ideas

(and the genes of the “Wilton population’). He did not, however, explain from whom

this group had been isolated, nor why they should have been influenced only briefly by

‘Wilton ideas’ and genes. Pace Shrubsall (1907) and others, there is no skeletal evidence

to support the existence of more than one biologically, or genetically, distinct Stone Age

population in the western part of the coastal region. There is also no evidence to support

the suggestion that the culture of people in the coastal region was any different from that

of people in the interior, making due allowance for temporal and regional differences

such as, for example, between the pre-Wilton, Wilton and post-Wilton lithic industries on

the temporal level, and the Wilton of the coastal region and the Smithfield C of the

Central Plateau on the regional level. All the available evidence points to people with a

common hunting and gathering economy prior to about 2000 Bp. and to the addition

after that time of pastoralism, which was practised by only some of the population. As

was shown above, the herders shared a broadly similar biological relationship with the

hunter-gatherers into whose territory they moved; and here it must be stressed that the

assumption that pastoralism was introduced into the coastal region by people other than

the aboriginal inhabitants of the area, and not as the result of acculturation, has yet to be

verified (Wilson 19894; Schrire 1992; etc.).

A suggestion similar to Sampson’s (1974) was also made by Inskeep (1987: 303). In

an attempt to explain the apparently abrupt introduction of the Wilton industry at

Nelson Bay Cave (NBC), Inskeep proposed that “The NBC Albany people were year-

round residents at the coast, and the “Wilton” occupation (quartz and chalcedony,

segments and small scrapers) represents inland dwellers induced by environmental

constraints in the interior ... to begin a pattern of seasonal movement to the coast

around 6000 B.p., where, for perhaps as little as two months a year, they shared the

resources with indigenous “Albany” populations until 4500 BP. when, as a result of

environmental amelioration in the interior, the need for seasonal transhumance (to the

coast, at least) was reduced and their visits became less frequent, eventually ceasing

altogether at around 3300 Bp., leaving the coast for the sole (year-round) occupancy of

the descendants of the original “Albany” population’.

It may be suggested that the introduction of the Wilton at Nelson Bay Cave was not

as abrupt as Inskeep considered. The retouched artefact or ‘formal tool’ component of

the deposits underlying Inskeep’s excavations (Deacon 1984, table 13) shows small but

increasing numbers of ‘backed microliths’ as well as segments and borers to be present

from at least layer RA onwards. Charcoal from this layer was dated to 6070 + 125 BP.

(UW-222) and from the underlying RB to 8070 + 240 Bp. (UW-181) (Klein 1972: 202).

Deacon (1984: 62, 68) suggested that, because the interface between RA and RB had not

been dated, the ‘break’ between these layers ‘should be considered more apparent than

real’.

Similarly low but increasing frequencies of retouched artefacts were also recorded

from layers 13-10 of Byneskranskop 1 (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, fig. 14, table 7).

Layer 13 was not dated but layer 14 was dated to 9760 + 85 Bp. (Pta—1587) and layer 12

to 7750 + 90B.p. (Pta—2347) (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, table 1). Deacon (1976,

tables 3, 10) recorded a similar transition at Melkhoutboom at much the same time as

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 329

at Nelson Bay Cave and Byneskranskop 1. It is thus arguable that these deposits, like

layers RA—IC of Nelson Bay Cave, contained what Sampson (1974: 298) called the ‘Early

Wilton’, and that Inskeep was misled by the low frequency of retouched artefacts in the

lower layers of Nelson Bay Cave into thinking that the Wilton ‘arrived’ at that site only at

about 6000 B.p., when the ‘Classic Wilton’, as Sampson (1974: 298) called it, became

evident.

Inskeep’s suggestion that an independent Albany population co-existed in the cave

with Wilton visitors appears to be based on the superficial resemblance between the pre-

Wilton Albany industries and those of the ‘post-climax Wilton’, both of which are

notable, in contrast to the intervening Wilton, for their relative lack of retouched stone

artefacts other than scrapers and, in some cases, a relative abundance of bone artefacts.

Also common to the pre-Wilton assemblages and some of the post-Wilton ones is an

apparent preference for quartzite in place of the more siliceous materials like silcrete and

chalcedony. This non-microlithic quartzite element is also present in Wilton assemblages,

which presumably gave rise to the suggestion by Inskeep that the resident ‘Albany’

population co-existed with the ‘Wilton’ people at the time that the latter were at the coast.

It is highly improbable, though, that two populations with distinct norms of artefact

manufacture could co-exist so closely as to share the same cave for several thousand years

without some degree of cross-culturation. It must also be asked why, if the Albany tool-

kit was adequate for the tasks for which the tools were made, it was necessary for the

more elaborate and extensive Wilton tool-kit to be manufactured while these people were

at the coast.

An equally important question that must be answered before Sampson’s and

Inskeep’s hypotheses can be accepted, is from where in the interior did the Wilton people,

who lived at the coast between about 6000 and 3300 B.p., come. Sites in the eastern and

southern Cape interior such as Wilton (Deacon 1972), Melkhoutboom (Deacon 1976),

Boomplaas (Deacon et al. 1978; Deacon 1984) and Buffelskloof (Opperman 1978), to

mention some of the better known, all have the same Albany: Wilton: ‘post-climax

Wilton’ sequence as Nelson Bay Cave.

Though there may be no ready explanation for the development of the Wilton from

the Albany and its replacement by an Albany-like industry, it should be remembered that

there was a similarly ‘atypical’ development in the Middle Stone Age: the Howiesons

Poort industry (see Sampson 1974: 231-242), which saw the addition of a range of

artefact types not presaged by anything in earlier assemblages and which subsequently

disappeared. Some of these types, such as segments, trapezoids and obliquely backed

pieces, were only ‘reinvented’ in the Wilton, albeit in microlithic form.

Another question that needs to be answered is why, if conditions in the interior were

so unfavourable as to constrain the populations of that region to move to the coast, they

needed to do so for only as little as two months a year, as suggested by Inskeep (1987).

Such a scenario would help explain the continued occupation of the interior sites

mentioned above, but evidence for a major seasonal deterioration in the environment,

which is what Inskeep’s scenario suggested, is wanting. Cockroft ef al. (1987: 172, fig. 6)

suggested that, during the period 9000-4000 B.p., most of southern Africa was moist, that

the southern Cape coastal region was wetter than at present, and that ‘Regional

variations in climate do not appear to have been marked’, although the south-western

Cape was drier than at present. The period mentioned covers the Albany: Wilton

330 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

transition and most of the time of Inskeep’s scenario. More specifically, Cockroft et

al. (1987: 172) quoted the observation of Street & Grove (1976) that ‘The climates of

most of Africa at 6000BP. were a great deal moister than they are today’; and,

according to Zubakov & Borzenkova (1990: 295), the period 6200-5300 BP. was that

of the ‘most considerable Holocene warming’. Increased temperature and precipitation

would have had an effect on the vegetation, both in the interior and at the coast, and

changes in the vegetation would also have affected animal life and, consequently, the

lives of the people who depended on these. Schweitzer & Wilson (1982: 175-183,

table 26) showed that, in the case of Byneskranskop 1, ‘technological change is not

concomitant with economic change’ and this must be true of other sites. It has yet to

be demonstrated, however, to what extent environmental change in the Holocene was

responsible for the changes observable in the Albany and Wilton economies, or

whether these were not, wholly or in part, due to cultural change such as that, for

example, resulting from the introduction of the bow and arrow, the time of which has

yet to be determined (see Noli 1993).

At Byneskranskop1 the introduction of the Wilton, at about 8000B.P., was

accompanied by an increase in the use of marine resources, particularly shellfish, that

was even more marked some 1500 years later. During this period, but not simul-

taneously, there was a change in the overall size range of the land mammals brought back

to the site, from a predominance of large medium animals over 100 kg adult weight to a

range below this (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, tables 17,26). The period from about

10000-6000 B.P. was one of rising sea-levels and a marine transgression (Flemming 1977:

i, 81, 143-145; Morner 1978: 5—6; Yates er a/. 1986) and the reaching of what Morner

termed the ‘climatic optimum’.

On the basis of micromammalian fauna recovered from the deposits, Avery (1982,

table 45) interpreted the climate of the Byneskranskop area as becoming generally

warmer during this period, though with an episode of harsh climatic conditions around

6000 B.p. The topography of the coast near Byneskranskop is such that a maximum rise of

3 m in sea-level would have extended the area of the estuary of the Uilkraals River, but

would not have brought the shore that much closer to the cave to allow for the suggestion

that it was this factor that persuaded the cave’s occupants to go to the trouble of bringing

fairly considerable quantities of shellfish back to the cave. It is possible that, prior to

about 6000 B.p., the coast in the vicinity of the site did not consist of sufficient rocky shore

to provide adequate supplies of shellfish, although it is evident from the inventory

(Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, table 18) that all the species present from that time on were

also available previously.

Although the evidence provided by Inskeep’s (1987) excavations at Nelson Bay Cave

allowed him to suggest that the environment was suitable for year-round occupation

from at least 10000 B.p., and shellfish were exploited well before that time (Klein 1972,

fig. 5), this was not the case at all sites in the coastal region. At Byneskranskop | shellfish

were a relatively late addition to the diet, and Elands Bay Cave was abandoned between

about 7800 and 38008. (Parkington 1987a: 7) and again between about 2900 and

1500 Bp. (Parkington er al. 1988, fig. 3.5). Although it is not necessary to invoke

‘environmental determinism’ as the sole reason for the differences mentioned above,

environmental change certainly seems to have played a part in the changes observable in

the hunter-gatherer economy during the Holocene. It is to be hoped that future

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 331

archaeological and palaeoclimatic research will help to fill the gaps in our knowledge that

exist at present, and help solve the overall problem.

Sampson (1974: 435) concluded that ‘Because the term “Strandloper”’ refers to a

highly developed set of littoral exploitation strategies, it obviously has too broad a

meaning to be applied to a related group of lithic assemblages. Strandloper strategies

were employed by the makers of the Oakhurst [= Albany], Coastal Wilton, and later

sites. Certainly there is no single ““Strandloper industry” and a terminology for later non-

Wilton assemblages is needed’.

Pointing out that ‘a relatively simple Oakhurst-like flaking technology was practised

on several middens during the Wilton period’, Sampson (1974: 435-436) could not agree

with the view of other researchers, such as Deacon (1970, cited by Sampson as 1969c),

Inskeep (1967), Maggs & Speed (1967) and others, that ‘such sites must represent a

specialized or seasonal activity of the local population’. According to this view, ‘adjacent

middens and inland caves containing Wilton assemblages ... would represent yet another

aspect of the same population’s activities’. Sampson disagreed, observing that ‘The range

of faunal material from Wilton and non-Wilton middens is identical: shellfish collecting 1s

invariably supplemented by fishing and hunting of all available game animals. The same

range of subsistence activities took place on both kinds of midden. Thus, the differences

in artifact content are more likely to reflect two distinct stone-flaking traditions that

represent two independent populations. Obviously, they exploited the littoral by using

every available food source’.

It is not clear what evidence there is in the Holocene assemblages from the southern

and south-western Cape coastal region for the ‘two distinct stone-flaking traditions’

mentioned by Sampson and suggested by Inskeep. Clearly, different flaking techniques

would have been used in the manufacture of the retouched microliths that are

characteristic of the Wilton and the crude flakes and flaked cobbles or ‘heavy edge-

flaked pieces’ (Deacon 1984: 378) that are a common feature of shell middens but are also

found in Wilton deposits (e.g. Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, table 6, fig. 12; Deacon 1984,

table 12). These need not, however, imply distinct flaking traditions, and certainly not

‘independent populations’.

The tools needed for shellfish collecting and processing need not be as complex as

those required for other activities, such as hunting, the manufacture of clothing,

ornaments and implements and, perhaps, plant food collecting and processing. A cobble,

or perhaps a bone spatula, would suffice for the removal of limpets Patella spp., and a

spatula for perlemoen (abalone) Haliotis midae, Venus ears or siffies H. spadicea, and

chitons Dinoplax spp. and other genera of Polyplacophora. Mussels and other bivalves,

as well as gastropods other than those mentioned above, can be collected individually by

hand or, in the case of colonial bivalves such as the ribbed, black and brown mussels

Aulacomaya ater, Choromytilus meridionalis and Perna perna, in bulk by the use of an

implement such as a digging stick. Cooking opens the shells of bivalves, or weakens the

ligaments that hold the valves together, so that they are easily opened; most gastropods

are also easily removed from their shells after cooking. Perlemoen flesh could be removed

by using a sharp stone or bone flake to cut the adductor muscle and the flesh tenderized

by pounding it with a cobble. These, then, would represent the basic tools needed for

shellfish collecting. Any other artefacts found in midden deposits would relate to the

other activities mentioned above.

332 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Rudner & Rudner described ‘a local Late Stone Age development’ in which the

common factor, or ‘type implement’, was an artefact they said Goodwin called a ‘slug’

(Rudner & Rudner 1954: 103). Of the 10 sites included in their paper only one, Het Kruis

near Piketberg, is not coastal. Rudner & Rudner (1954: 106-107) considered these ‘Sandy

Bay industry’ assemblages to be similar to ‘Smithfield N’ assemblages from Natal,

although the artefacts in the former were generally smaller than those in the latter. They

considered that the people concerned were perhaps from inland who, ‘at certain seasons

or during drought periods’, came to the coast to live on shellfish and that end-scrapers,

‘mainly used for scraping the skins of game, now mainly substituted for by shellfish’,

disappeared from the tool-kits. They also suggested the possibility that ‘Sandy Bay was

the end of a migration from the south coast, during which the industry became more and

more specialized, to reach its most developed form at Sandy Bay. There are no traces of

this industry among the middens along the coast to Saldanha Bay (which is a focus for

the Wilton Culture) or beyond’.

The suggestion that end-scrapers disappeared from the assemblages because they

were not needed is not borne out by the inventories (Rudner & Rudner 1954: 106), which

show these to be present in all the collections, albeit in small numbers, from the sites from

Hangklip West to Het Kruis. They are absent only from the collections from Hangklip

East, Hawston and Arniston, the three sites to the east of the others. Moreover, Rudner

& Rudner (1954: 103) reported that Keen (1952) had mentioned that ‘bones of seal,

antelope, buffalo, hyena and baboon’ had been found in the Sandy Bay | midden.

Sampson (1974: 414), reviewing the ‘Sandy Bay industry’, described these artefacts

as ‘worked-out adzes’ and commented ‘Whereas these forms are certainly present in

Wilton samples, they are not recorded as a dominant form’. However, as the inventories

(Rudner & Rudner 1954: 106; Sampson 1974, table 69) confirm, adzes outnumber

scrapers at seven of the 10 sites, only Hawston, Arniston and Het Kruis having more

scrapers than adzes.

Mazel & Parkington (1978) reviewed the conclusions reached by Rudner & Rudner

(1954) and Sampson (1974) and then reported on the artefact assemblages from

excavations in the Andriesgrond rock-shelter in the Olifants River Valley, a surface

collection from in front of the site and another from Warmhoek, across the valley. Mazel

& Parkington (1978: 382, table2) pointed out that, in the excavated sample, ‘adzes

outnumbered scrapers quite markedly’ and that the surface collections “showed the same

picture of adze domination’. There are, however, differences in the relative frequencies of

these artefacts in the three samples. In the Andriesgrond excavated sample, there are

46,9 per cent more adzes than scrapers, whereas in the other two samples there are only

10,5 per cent and 6,7 per cent more. None the less, these frequencies are in marked

contrast with those from the surface collection at Vensterklipkop in the coastal plain

between the mountains and the sea and those from the excavations in the coastal Elands

Bay Cave. In the Vensterklipkop sample, scrapers outnumber adzes by more than 5: 1,

and in the Elands Bay Cave sample by almost 12:1. That large quantities of wood

shavings and underground plant debris, as well as a ‘fairly extensive’ set of wooden

artefacts were also found in the Andriesgrond excavations, made it ‘tempting to conclude

that whilst at Andriesgrond prehistoric populations took the opportunity to manufacture

and maintain wooden tools from the woody plants that abound in the local fynbos

vegetation’. The authors also considered that ‘it appears that there is some correlation in

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 333

this region between high adze frequency, plant food gathering, woody plant resources

and wood-shavings’.

At Byneskranskop 1, one of the few long-sequence Late Stone Age sites in the

coastal region with adzes, these were rare in the Albany levels (layers 18/17—13: 1,2% of

the site total), uncommon in the first half of the Wilton (layers 12-6: 14,5%) but

abundant thereafter (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, fig. 14, table 7). In layer 5, dated to

3900 + 60 Bp. (Pta-1571) (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, table 1), adzes accounted for

42.3 per cent of the layer total of retouched pieces, and in layer 4 for 38,1 per cent. In

layers 3-1, when there was a marked decline in the frequencies of other retouched pieces

relative to the underlying layers, adzes outnumbered scrapers by a factor of between

1,7: 1 in layer 3 and 1,2: 1 in layer 1. The indication is thus that adzes were in greater use

from the ‘climax Wilton’ onwards, but do not appear to have been affected by the

apparent general decline in the frequency of other retouched artefacts that occurred at the

site in the post-Wilton period.

The Late Stone Age deposits in the nearby coastal cave site of Die Kelders yielded

62 retouched pieces, of which only six were scrapers, and there were no adzes (Schweitzer

1979, table 15). Adzes were not found in Klein’s excavation at Nelson Bay Cave (Deacon

1984, table 13), and Inskeep (1987: 140) recorded only two from his excavations,

commenting that they did not look like those illustrated by other researchers and, ‘in the

sense that most workers currently use the term in South Africa, adzes may be said not to

occur in Nelson Bay Cave in the deposits under discussion’.

None of the “Sandy Bay industry’ sites described by Rudner & Rudner (1954) and

discussed by Sampson (1974) has been dated and the limited artefact inventories suggest

that sampling was selective. The sites were not systematically excavated according to

modern criteria: Rudner & Rudner (1954: 105) stated that they had been collecting

material from the Gordon’s Bay midden for years. What they do indicate, however, is the

degree of inter-site variability and the need for caution in considering undated sites as

comparable on the basis of shared artefact types, such as the adzes that were used to

define the ‘Sandy Bay industry’. The Byneskranskop | evidence (Schweitzer & Wilson

1982, table 7) is that there is a temporal factor involved in the changes in the frequencies

of adzes relative to scrapers and/or other retouched artefacts, but whether this has to do

with changes in environment making certain artefact types redundant, or with cultural

changes in the traditions of artefact manufacture, cannot be determined from a single site.

Almost a whole issue of the South African Archaeological Bulletin was devoted to

discussion of spatial and temporal variability in the Late Stone Age of southern Africa,

with a paper by Parkington (1980) as the basis for discussion. The 14 papers commenting

on Parkington’s, and his reply, are too diverse to be summarized here, but they serve to

highlight the variability of approaches to, and consequent interpretation of,

archaeological assemblages.

Jacobson (1987a) studied the sizes of ostrich eggshell beads from 18 sites in

Namibia. Only seven of these, Wortel and the Kuiseb (= !Khuiseb) sites, are in the

coastal region, but since the rest are south of the areas occupied (at present) by black

farmers and pastoralists, all the sites may reasonably be attributed to the Khoisan,

although the presence of the Dama, originally a biologically Negro people who are

today largely assimilated into the Nama, should not be overlooked. Jacobson (1987a:

56) divided the assemblages into three types. TypeI assemblages contain Wilton

334 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

artefacts but no pottery. TypelII have artefacts similar to those of TypelI, but

generally include small potsherds. Type III, which include all those from the coastal

sites and were attributed by Jacobson to herders, ‘are characterized by a lack of

formal stone artefacts except, perhaps, for scrapers, but with abundant pottery’.

Jacobson (1987a, table 1) provided statistics for the diameters of the beads from these

sites that show that, with one exception (Kuiseb site K24), the mean and maximum

diameters of the beads from the Type III sites are greater than those from the Type I

sites. The two TypelIl sites are problematic and Jacobson was unable to assign the

Geduld site to any of his types, so that these are excluded from the present discussion.

Although Jacobson (1987b) later provided data for beads from ‘the lower herder

component’ of the Geduld site, which contained potsherds, he still did not assign it to

any of his three assemblage types.

Beads from Type I sites have diameters that range from minima of 3,0-4,0 mm to

maxima of 5,5—-7,5mm, with means of 4,6-5,2mm. Beads from Type III sites have

minima of 4,0-5,0 mm, maxima of 6,5-13,5 mm and means of 5,4-8,5 mm. Sample sizes

are generally small, ranging from 4 to 170, and are mostly too small for meaningful

testing of the significance of the difference of the means of the paired samples. However,

application of the Student’s ¢ test by the present author (unpublished data) showed that,

at p = 0,5, the means of the paired Type I samples are not significantly different. Type III

samples with means of 6,0 mm or less are significantly different from those with means of

8,0 or 8,5 mm. There is thus less internal consistency in the Type III samples than in the

Type I samples. Although size distributions (e.g. histograms) were not provided for the

samples, Jacobson’s table 1 shows that at least the minimum diameters of the Type II

samples are within the range of the Type I samples. It seems from Jacobson’s figure 2 that

only about a third of the Type III K26 sample (mean 6,8 mm) are larger than those of the

Type I sample from LNC spit 6 (mean 4,9 mm). Thus, although the beads from Type III

sites are generally larger than those from Type I sites, their ranges overlap, to an extent

that needs to be determined before it can be fully accepted that these differences are really

significant.

Using the analogy of modern Kalahari San women, who made larger beads for other

people than they would make for themselves, Jacobson (1987a: 58) suggested that the size

distributions observed in TypesI and III beads ‘could provide a stylistic marker

documenting the appearance of Khoe [= Khoikhoi] pastoralist society as known

historically’. The implication of this, that in the past the Khoikhoi did not make beads for

themselves but obtained them from the San, is one that will be extremely difficult to

substantiate. Even if beads that are larger than those in pre-pottery assemblages are

found exclusively in assemblages with pottery, the only valid assumption that can be

made is that the people responsible for the pottery assemblages had a preference for

larger beads than did the people of the pre-pottery assemblages; and here it must be borne

in mind that assemblages containing potsherds are not de facto attributable to the

Khoikhoi (see also Smith et a/. 1991: Kinahan 1991: 44).

Concluding a discussion on the age and use of tidal fish-traps, Avery (1975: 113)

suggested that ‘fish-traps within the [south-western coastal] area represented at least

initially a new concept introduced and utilized by pastoralist groups’. Avery’s suggestion

was based on the dating of the introduction of pastoralism, at that time considered to be

between 3000 B.p. and 1500 B.p., and information regarding Cenozoic sea-levels (Tankard

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 335

1975) that has since been superseded (e.g. Flemming 1977; Morner 1978; Yates et al.

1986).

As mentioned above, there is evidence for a post-Pleistocene rise in sea-level causing

a marine transgression that reached its maximum at about 6000 B.p., with a return to

present sea-level by about 2000 Bp. If fish-traps existed before 2000 B.p., as suggested by

Goodwin (1946), they would have been built in the then intertidal zone, but would have

been moved or abandoned as the sea-level rose or fell. All extant fish-traps must therefore

date to after 2000 B.p. Given this, it may be suggested that the association of fish-traps

with the similarly-dated introduction of pastoralism is fortuitous. Wikar in 1779 reported

that the Khoikhoi of the Orange River knew how to fish with hooks, “but usually they

catch fish with cages made of withes of karee-wood’ (Mossop ed. 1935: 115). (According

to Coates Palgrave (1977: 491), karee wood Rhus viminalis is still used in the area for this

purpose.) Thompson (1827: 290) said that those lower down the river, near its mouth,

used rush mats in place of nets. However, Somerville, who was at the Orange River in

November 1801, observed that ‘To catch fish the Bosjiesmen enclose part of the river with

heavy stones in the dry season, that the fish may be ensnared and left by the water when it

swells and ebbs the subsequent season’. In addition, he mentioned that they also used

wicker baskets for the same purpose, or by making large fires on the river bank that

attracted fish, which were then speared with barbed assegais (Bradlow & Bradlow eds

1979: 79). There is, of course, no evidence of the antiquity of these practices; and if the

Khoikhoi were immigrants from the interior, unless they had previous experience of

building weirs such as those described by Somerville that were used by the San, they

would have had to develop and learn to use an entirely new technique for trapping fish. It

seems more reasonable, however, to assume that, if the Khoikhoi did make and use tidal

fish-traps, they would have learned to do so from the indigenous San of the areas into

which they moved.

DISCUSSION

The foregoing serves to highlight the lack of consensus among archaeologists when

dealing with sites in the coastal region. It seems that too little attention has been paid to

temporal and regional variation and that the ‘Strandloper concept’ of people subsisting

solely on marine resources dies hard in the minds of some researchers. It also seems that

too little consideration has been given to the probability that shell middens represent but

one facet of the people’s subsistence strategies, whether these people were hunter-

gatherers, herders or farmers.

Where the artefact industries found in coastal sites are concerned, as yet too little is

known about the precise nature and distribution of the pre- and post-Wilton industries

for hypotheses such as those of Sampson (1974) and Inskeep (1987) to be acceptable.

Moreover, the differences in these industries between those of the pre-Wilton and the

post-Wilton, as well as between those within each group—need to be examined in greater

detail, since it seems that the ‘continued existence’ of an Albany tradition during and after

the Wilton is based only on a number of similarities.

Late Stone Age lithic assemblages from the eastern part of the coastal region, such as

those described by Cable and discussed above, appear to differ from those of the western

part mainly in that the former contain notched scrapers, which the latter lack; and adzes

were reported only from Borchers Shelter Annexe (Cable 1984, table 5). Apart from the

336 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

notched scrapers, the artefacts from these eastern sites would not seem to be out of place

in Wilton assemblages, both in morphology and in the low frequencies of retouched and

utilized pieces relative to total counts. In addition, bone artefacts appear to be less

common in eastern coastal assemblages than in western ones.

A matter that needs to be considered is whether, if the earliest pastoralists had only

sheep, they had the mat-and-wattle huts that were such a commonly-described part of

their impedimenta in the historical period. According to the records (e.g. Kolb 1738: 181),

the frames and mats of which these huts were made were transported, along with pots and

other baggage, on the backs of oxen. Clearly, sheep would have been unsuitable for this

purpose, and it must therefore be asked what sort of shelter the sheep-herders used prior

to the introduction of cattle into the region. Although there is no incontestable evidence

for the use of caves and rock-shelters by pastoralists, the apparent lack of transport

animals in the early period of pastoralism provides a good argument in favour of the use

of such places.

A problem that needs to be addressed in the whole context of herder : hunter-

gatherer interaction is how, if the herders were alien immigrants into the territories of the

hunter-gatherers, they were able to establish themselves there. One possibility is that the

herders arrived in such numbers that the relatively few hunter-gatherers were no match

for them. There seems to be, however, no archaeological evidence, in the form of a great

number of Kasteelberg-type sites, to support such a suggestion, although it must be

accepted that many, if not most of these have been destroyed by agriculture and other

changes in land-use. An alternative possibility is that if the numbers of the first herders

were only small, the hunter-gatherers did not perceive them as constituting a threat and

perhaps even saw their arrival as a potential benefit, in that they could obtain sheep from

them, and perhaps pots as well, if the hunter-gatherers had not already learned how to

make them. It may have been only later, when the herders and their livestock — possibly

by then also including cattlke—-became so numerous as to threaten the traditional

livelihood of the hunter-gatherers, that they realized what had happened, but by then it

was too late. The Goringhaiqua suffered a similar experience with the Dutch at Table

Bay, and this was increasingly the fate of Khoikhoi further afield as Dutch settlement

expanded. (See also Smith (1986: 38-40) for discussion of relationships between hunters

and herders.)

Another problem is that, no matter how well archaeological deposits are excavated

or how many radio-carbon dates are obtained, present techniques are incapable of

detecting other than major breaks in occupation. Noli (1989: 96), discussing sites in the

Koichab River region of Namibia, suggested that sporadic occupation of sites is not

detectable and that ‘The scenario which the archaeological record is likely to suggest is

one of continuous occupation during an extended period of favourable conditions’. It

seems that further refinements in excavation techniques are needed, as well as detailed

analyses of greater numbers of dated artefact assemblages from sites in the coastal region.

The greatest lack, however, is in sites that can unquestionably be ascribed to the

Khoikhoi.

The early records are lamentably inadequate as sources of information regarding the

artefacts of the Khoikhoi and San. It is insufficient for archaeological purposes to know

that they used bows and arrows, assegais, digging sticks and so forth. These were, as far

as the evidence goes, common to both groups; the same is probably true of all the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 337

artefacts found in midden deposits, even pottery, though this was possibly less available

to the San than to the Khoikhoi. Prior to the arrival of the voyagers and settlers from

Europe, very little metal seems to have been available to the Khoikhoi and, presumably,

even less to the San; and what there was was used for ornaments. The Khoikhoi would

thus have been obliged to use the same raw materials as the San: stone, bone, wood and

plant fibres, though they may possibly have had less use for ostrich egg-shells as

containers since they were able to make, and transport, clay pots. That the Khoikhoi

herders had the same basic needs for food and clothing as the San hunter-gatherers calls

into question the suggestion by Smith er a/. (1991), discussed above, that the differences in

the artefactual content of the sites whose contents they studied are indicative of two

different cultural groups. Discussion of this matter will, however, have to wait until all the

artefacts from the Kasteelberg sites have been analysed and published. Then, too,

perhaps the stone artefacts from Oudepost I can be assessed.

It was observed above that there is no incontestable evidence that the early

pastoralists of the coastal region were not local hunter-gatherers who became accul-

turated through contact with pastoralists in the interior. This is effectively the method

that Elphick (1977: 11-12) proposed for the evolution of the Khoikhoi in their north-

eastern ‘homeland’, from which he claimed they migrated into the Cape coastal region

and elsewhere. The chief archaeological evidence in favour of the coastal pastoralists

having been immigrants from elsewhere has been that, wherever the earliest pottery is

found, it is well-made. However, Kinahan’s (1991) evidence from Namibia and Mazel’s

(1992a) from Natal is that well-made pottery is found in deposits that antedate the

evidence for pastoralism or agriculture. There is no evidence of tentative attempts to

reproduce an unfamiliar technique, which suggests the arrival in the coastal region of

hunter-gatherers from elsewhere who were already familiar with the potter’s craft.

Further research is needed in this regard, especially including attempts to find deposits

that will enable the route(s) by which pottery and pastoralism were introduced into the

coastal region, and by whom.

SUBSISTENCE IN THE COASTAL REGION

Introduction

According to Waselkov (1987, table 3.6), South Africa has the world’s oldest record

of shellfish collecting in any quantity, dating back some 130000 years at Klasies River

Mouth. Yet, on 29 October 1653, some 18 months after the establishment of the Dutch

settlement on the shore of Table Bay and at least 1 500 years after the introduction of

pastoralism into the coastal region, a party of soldiers who had returned from Saldanha

Bay reported that ‘They had met many elephants, rhinoceros, elands, harts, hinds, and

other game’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 39). It must thus be asked why, in a land until recently so

abundant in large terrestrial mammals (Skead 1980), people chose to collect shellfish, an

occupation that seems more labour-intensive than the hunting of, say, a large antelope.

Even if it is assumed that the collecting was done by women, their energies would have

been better spent in collecting plant foods in order to offset the potential danger of

protein poisoning (see below). The archaeological evidence is, none the less, that people

did collect and consume considerable quantities of shellfish, and it is thus pertinent to

discuss the matter of subsistence needs and strategies.

338 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Prior to the advent of the European settlers, the southern African coastal region was

occupied by three groups with differing resource bases: hunter-gatherers, who subsisted,

initially at least, solely on indigenous resources; pastoralists, who had access to imported

domestic stock as well as to indigenous resources; and farmers, who initially cultivated

exotic crops and exploited indigenous terrestrial and marine resources, later adding

domestic stock to these. It is therefore appropriate to consider the archaeological

evidence for the subsistence of each of these three groups.

Hunter-gatherers

In common with the rest of the world, hunting and gathering was the basic

subsistence mode of the peoples of the southern African coastal region for most of the

existence of humankind. Very little evidence, however, has survived for the subsistence

activities of the people who lived in the region for most of the million years or so of its

human prehistory and whose existence is attested to chiefly by the stone tools they made

and used.

Where the Early Stone Age is concerned, Sampson (1974: 127-134) observed that:

‘All the evidence suggests that the Acheulian economy was based on the hunting of

available game near permanent water supplies such as river banks, lake shore or

swamp.... There is clearly no evidence to suggest specialized hunting of a few selected

animals. It appears that any available meat supply was exploited, and the Acheulian

hunting ability apparently extended to the largest and most dangerous animals among the

African fauna.... Whereas the bones of lesser game could be obtained by scavenging

from carnivores, the presence of the very large animals (presumed to be beyond the

hunting capacity of carnivores) must reflect organized hunting and probably trapping by

man.... If the faster antelope species were hunted rather than scavenged from carnivore

kills, it must be assumed that stalking and the use of the throwing spear had become

developed skills by this stage.” Sampson also commented that there was ‘some hint’ that

plant foods were also collected during this period, and that fire was used ‘for warmth and

possibly cooking meat’.

The scanty evidence on which Sampson based his observations comes mainly from

the interior, with the coastal region represented only by the artefacts and fossil bone

assemblages from Elandsfontein, south-east of Saldanha Bay. Sampson (1974: 127)

remarked that ‘these were surface finds open to all the usual criticisms, including the

possibility that they are artificial clusters caused by sand-dune deflation’. However, after

studying the fauna excavated from the ‘Cutting 10’ site at Elandsfontein, Klein (1978: 82)

concluded that ‘the sum of the evidence suggests that people were involved in the

Cutting 10 occurrence as butchers of ungulates that died or were killed as they came to

drink at a nearby waterhole. Some of the ungulates were perhaps killed by large

carnivores, and people and other predators may well have scavenged each other’s kills.

The scatter of artifacts and bones probably reflects not only carcass dismemberment from

hominid butchering and carnivore feeding, but also the kicking of objects across the

surface of the site by later ungulates coming to the waterhole to drink’.

Klein’s conclusions thus generally support Sampson’s, although he was more

sanguine than Sampson about the association of the artefacts and faunal remains. The

faunal list (Klein 1978, table 1) does not include any marine species and it is not clear

whether, at the time the material was deposited, Elandsfontein was within the coastal

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 339

region as it exists today, or whether the sea was more distant. Klein (1978: 71)

commented that the fauna indicated wetter conditions and a much larger grass

component than is present in the modern fynbos vegetation.

Hendey (1974, table 6) published a list of the mammalian fauna that includes

remains from the whole site and is thus more comprehensive than Klein’s. The list also

does not include any marine mammals, and there was no mention of any other marine

fauna such as shellfish. Hendey did not comment on the relationship of the site to the

present coastline, nor did Butzer (1973) in his geological re-evaluation of the site; but on

the basis of Klein’s comments given above, it is possible that the coast was at least as far

away during the Acheulian as it is now (about 20 km). Whatever the case, Elandsfontein

is to be interpreted as relating to specialized activities on the coastal plain, namely the

hunting and scavenging of terrestrial mammals, rather than as one or more campsites to

which food was brought from elsewhere.

Klein & Cruz-Uribe studied the bovids from the Elandsfontein main site. Their

conclusion was that this is not an archaeological site in the strict sense, but a natural

occurrence ‘where many agents probably contributed to the bone accumulation and

where their effects are difficult or impossible to separate’ (Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1991: 74).

They considered, however, that an attritional mortality profile as poor in juveniles as that

at Elandsfontein would, in an archaeological context, probably reflect human scavenging,

‘but there is nothing to indicate that people were important in shaping the bone

assemblage’.

Avery (1988) reported on other sites at Elandsfontein that can be identified as the

remains of hyaena nursery dens, with circular concentrations of bone and numerous

coprolites, as well as others that he considered to be places where large mammals had

died, probably from natural causes rather than as a result of being killed by predators,

including humans.

As mentioned above, the Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at Klasies River

Mouth (Singer & Wymer 1982; Voigt 1982) yielded the oldest record of the exploi-

tation of shellfish in any quantity. Waselkov (1987: 123-124) distinguished between

the ‘small quantities’ of shell found at Terra Amata in France (c. 300000 B.p.) and the

‘shell middens’ of the South African coastal region (c. 130000—30000 B.p.). Marine shell

from the Klasies River Mouth excavations was only selectively retained: G. Avery

(1990 pers. comm.) said that only whole shells were kept, which vitiates any discussion

of the role of shellfish in the diet of the caves’ occupants. Thackeray (1988) published

details of the marine shell recovered from H. J. Deacon’s 1984-1987 excavations at the

site, a sample total of 13 532 that is considerably higher than those published by Voigt

(1982, tables 13.3-13.7). Thackeray did not provide frequencies for the various species,

but it is evident from his figure 1 that the brown mussel Perna perna was dominant in

all but MSATII, with frequencies generally exceeding 50 per cent of the unit total,

whereas in Voigt’s table 13.4 this species never reached that figure. In passing, it must

be pointed out that Thackeray’s table 2, which lists the taxa ‘in descending order of

relative abundance’, omitted both P. perna and Turbo sarmaticus, the latter generally

being third in order of relative abundance according to his figure1l. In the

circumstances, discussion of the contribution of shellfish to the diet of the occupants

of the Klasies River Mouth caves is better left until publication of full information on

the fauna from H.J. Deacon’s excavations.

340 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Brink & Deacon (1982) published information on an MSA shell midden at Herolds

Bay near George in the southern Cape. Their list of mammalian fauna (table 1) is small: 9

(or 11) individuals, of which 6 (or 7) were bovids and one a Cape fur seal Arctocephalus

pusillus. The only information provided on shellfish was a comment (p. 32) that Perna

perna was the dominant species ‘but a number of other taxa are represented’. The report

on this salvage excavation thus contributes little information on the subsistence activities

of the ‘Middle Stone Age strandlopers’ (p. 38) who occupied this site, beyond showing

that they exploited both terrestrial and marine resources.

Marine shell and fish remains were not found in the MSA deposits of Die Kelders

cave excavated by Schweitzer (1970: 138). However, G. Avery (1993 pers. comm.) has

advised that small quantities of at least three species of marine shell were recovered

during the 1993 excavations, some of it associated with ash features that are probably

hearths. The mammalian fauna from the earlier excavation (Klein 1975, table 1) includes

26 Arctocephalus pusillus and four Cetaceae (whales and/or dolphins). This shows that the

cave was relatively close to the sea at some time(s) during the 30 000 years or so of its

sporadic human occupation in the Pleistocene (Volman 1981: 199). Klein (1975: 266)

considered that the absence of the remains of fish and flying sea-birds from the Klasies

River Mouth and Die Kelders MSA deposits and their presence in the Late Stone Age

(LSA) deposits of these sites suggested that ‘active fishing and fowling may have been

beyond the technological capabilities of MSA peoples’ and that “MSA peoples exploited

coastal resources less effectively than LSA peoples in the samme habitat’.

Klein (1976) reported on the faunal remains from the Duinefontein 2 MSA site,

about 4km north of the village of Melkbosstrand. The fauna in Klein’s table 1 1s

exclusively terrestrial, although G. Avery (1990 pers. comm.) advised that there was at

least one bone of a jackass penguin Spheniscus demersus. Surface-collected material from

the vicinity of the site included the remains of a probable Arctocephalus pusillus. Klein

(1976: 19) concluded that the fauna, which includes a number of extinct species, 1s

‘probably earlier Upper Pleistocene at youngest (older than 40 000 years) and may even

be later Middle Pleistocene (older than 125 000 years) in age’. It is thus possible that the

Duinefontein site indicates some exploitation of marine resources by MSA people.

Volman (1978) excavated MSA shell-midden deposits at the Hoedjies Punt and Sea

Harvest sites at Saldanha Bay. The faunal sample from the latter (Volman 1978, table 2)

was small, but included the remains of an A. pusillus, the vertebra of an unidentified fish,

a bank cormorant Phalacrocorax neglectus and shellfish, mostly limpets Patella spp.

(88,3% of the sample total of 212). Thus, despite Klein’s comments cited above, the Sea

Harvest site may provide the earliest evidence in southern Africa for fishing and fowling,

some 60 000 to 70 000 years ago (Volman 1978: 911), although it is also possible that the

fish and bird bones were picked up on the shore.

Evidence for the exploitation of the resources of the coastal region during the late

Pleistocene and Holocene (LSA) is more abundant than for the preceding periods.

However, as far as can be ascertained, the shellfish from almost every site has been

sampled in such a way that only a relatively small proportion of the total amount

excavated was retained, and the sampling methods differed from excavator to excavator.

For example, Schweitzer (1979: 187) reported that in the excavation of the LSA deposits

at Die Kelders ‘all the shell from parts of selected grid squares and natural stratigraphic

units that remained after sieving on a 3-mm-mesh sieve’ was retained. In contrast, in his

eat

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 34]

excavation of the Stofbergsfontein shell midden near Saldanha Bay, Robertshaw (1978:

143) passed all the excavated material through sieves with meshes of 12mm and 3 mm

‘and the shell from the 12 mm mesh sieve [was retained] from approximately every third

bucket. The shell in the 3mm mesh sieve was sampled only occasionally’.

Sampling shell, understandable though it may be because of its large numbers in

shell middens, militates against any attempt to determine with any accuracy the relative

contribution of shellfish to the diet of the people responsible for the deposits (e.g.

Buchanan 1988). At best, it serves only to characterize the shellfish component; at worst,

particularly when the bulk of the sample is retained from only a large-mesh sieve, it

introduces a bias in favour of the more robust shell types, such as those of the gastropods,

and against those of the more fragile ones, particularly the colonial mussels. Tests on two

samples of excavated mussel hinges or umbones, the part used for counts, that had been

kept separate after sorting, according to whether they were from the 12-mm or 3-mm

mesh sieve, showed that close on 93 per cent of the black mussel Choromytilus merid-

ionalis hinges passed through the 12-mm mesh sieve, and 84 per cent of the brown mussel

Patella perna (Wilson 1990: 175). The bias resulting from selective sampling is evident

in the differences between Voigt’s (1982) and Thackeray’s (1988) shell samples from

Klasies River Mouth mentioned above. Klein (1972: 185-186) reported that shell

samples from his excavation at Nelson Bay Cave were taken only from the fraction

remaining on the half-inch (12,5 mm), or larger, mesh sieve, which led to ‘systematic

under-representation of molluscs with more friable shells, especially of the mussels’. He

also commented that analysis of unsorted shell samples had shown that ‘a small, but

significant’ proportion of the mussel fragments with umbones was smaller than

12,5mm. Klein considered that although the resultant bias allowed the results of the

shell analysis to be used only ‘in a gross way, to establish the relative importance of

mussels vs. other molluscs ... since the same bias was introduced into samples from all

the middens, comparisons of samples as among middens are still meaningful’. In view

of the high percentage of umbones that passed through the 12-mm sieve in the

examples given above, Klein’s conclusion must be questioned. Although it is true that

the two samples tested may not be representative of all middens, it is not necessarily

true that preservation of shell in all the units of a deposit is identical, so that the bias

resulting from excluding the fraction that passes through the 12-mm sieve is not a

constant. Given these problems, it is inappropriate to comment in any detail on the

shellfish samples from the coastal sites, particularly where they appear to provide

evidence of changes in the proportions of species represented.

Global warming in the late Pleistocene resulted in rising sea-levels and the flooding

of the previously-exposed continental shelf (Dingle & Rogers 1972). This must have

caused the retreat of the terrestrial fauna, including people, and the drowning of the

latter’s campsites. It also brought about changes in the environment of sites that were

previously in the interior but, by about 11 000 years ago, were within reach of the coast

and its resources. Klein (1989 pers. comm.) advised that there was minimal marine shell

in the Brown Shelly Loam deposits at Nelson Bay Cave, which are lated to

11950 + 110Be. (UW-177), but that from the Crushed Shell Midden layer, dated to

11540 + 110B.e. (UW-162), shell was relatively abundant (dates from Klein 1972: 202).

Apart from a doubtfully identified individual in the basal LSA layer, Arctocephalus

pusillus made its first appearance in the Crushed Shell Midden layer (Klein 1972, table 1).

342 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

At Elands Bay Cave, which was sporadically occupied for about 30 000 years, the first

marine shell lenses also appear at about 11000B.P., with fish and A. pusillus remains

somewhat earlier (Parkington 1981: 344, fig. 12.4, table 12.3). The evidence from these

two sites suggests that the exploitation of marine resources was probably the

continuation of a practice developed long before, and that the appearance of the

remains of these resources in the cave deposits reflects their greater accessibility, resulting

from the increased proximity of the sea. Occupation of Nelson Bay Cave continued into

the Holocene (Klein 1972; Inskeep 1987), whereas Elands Bay Cave was abandoned

between about 7800 Bp. and 3800 Bp. (Parkington 1987a: 7), probably as a result of the

Holocene marine transgression (Flemming 1977; Yates et al. 1986) having made the cave,

or the marine resources of the area, inaccessible; the same happened at the nearby

Tortoise Cave (Robey 1987: 310, table 1).

Summarizing the evidence from the Oakhurst Shelter in the George district of the

southern Cape, Goodwin (1937: 321-323) mentioned that the ‘Smithfield B’ midden

deposits consisted ‘mainly of Oyster and Razor (So/en sp.) shells’ and that, although

fishbones had not survived, two burned fish otoliths ‘suggest that fish were eaten, though

the means of catching them were inadequate’. In the lower levels of the ‘Smithfield C’

deposits, there were ‘regular piles’ of the white mussel Donax serra but still few fishbones.

In the upper levels, the black mussel Choromytilus meridionalis was the more common

species, but “There is no reason to presume a change in the sea fauna, as all these shells

are common today. The cave-dwellers more probably changed their source of supply’. In

the ‘Developed Wilton’, the basis of subsistence is ‘mainly shell-fish, tish and animals....

At the Wilton level begins a marked increase in fish-bone, suggesting that efficient means

of catching fish had been evolved’. The shelter is some 10 km from the coast and charcoal

from the ‘carbon floor’ separating the ‘Smithfield B’ and ‘Smithfield C’ deposits was dated

to 7910 + 70 Bp. (Pta—377) (Deacon 1979: 31). On the basis of similar dates from

Melkhoutboom, Nelson Bay Cave and Byneskranskop | (see above), the ‘carbon floor’

may be taken as marking the Albany: Wilton transition. The change within the

‘Smithfield C’, from the solitary, sand-dwelling white mussel Donax serra to the colonial,

rock-dwelling black mussel Choromytilus meridionalis, is interesting and may be evidence

of the populating by the latter of rocky shores accessible to the cave occupants

consequent on the post-Pleistocene marine transgression. It is unfortunate that, in

keeping with the practice of the time, there was no quantification of the faunal data so

that the apparently increasing contribution of shellfish and fish could be assessed.

Byneskranskop 1, which is situated about halfway between Nelson Bay Cave and

Elands Bay Cave—but, unlike them, not directly on the coast (Schweitzer & Wilson

1982, figs 1, 5)—provided evidence of a temporal pattern of marine resource exploitation

different from those of the other two sites. Although the site was initially occupied during

the terminal Pleistocene (12730 + 185 B.p., I-7948) and was probably never more than

10km from the sea (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982: 10, table 1), the evidence for the

exploitation of marine resources before about 8000 B.p. is sparse. Less than 0,5 per cent of

the marine shell (all of which was retained) came from the earlier deposits in layers 19-13,

only a third of the 15 seals, and 3 per cent of the relatively few fish (Schweitzer & Wilson

1982, tables 15, 18, 20; see also summary in table 26). Although the radio-carbon dates

for layer 1 suggest that the lowest sub-unit of this layer should probably have been kept

separate from those overlying, the wide range of dates, from 3220 + 45 Bp. (Pta—1631) to

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 343

255 + 50 Bp. (Pta—1864), indicates that the cave was occupied relatively little after about

3000 Bp. The period of major occupation of the cave, and of the exploitation of marine

resources, thus coincides more or less with the first period that Elands Bay Cave and

Tortoise Cave were abandoned. The topography of the coastal plain in the vicinity of

Byneskranskop is such that the Holocene transgression would not have brought the sea

appreciably closer to the cave, although changes in the vegetation may have occurred

(Avery 1982, table 45). The time when shellfish began to play a more important role in the

lives of the people of Byneskranskop | is roughly coincident with the transition from a

predominance of large-medium mammals (> 100 kg live mass) being brought to the site

to a predominance of very small (<10kg) and small (10-25 kg) ones (Schweitzer &

Wilson 1982, tables 17, 26). This phenomenon, the evidence for which was summarized

by Schweitzer & Wilson (1982: 153-163) and Klein (1983), appears to have been common

to most sites in the south-western and southern coastal belt and in the interior of the Cape

Fold Mountains region, and to have been approximately coincident with the

development of the Wilton artefact tradition. Schweitzer & Wilson (1982: 163)

commented that ‘The reason for the general similarity of procurement patterns in the

later Holocene cannot, however, be ascribed to climatic change inducing a general

homogeneity in the ecology of the regions in which the various sites are located. It seems

that there must be an overriding factor that is probably cultural, possibly demographic,

but such an assumption cannot be tested until a greater body of information is available,

from more than single-site observations, on patterns of human distribution and land-use’.

The change in technology after about 3500 B.p., marked by a reduction in the number

and range of retouched stone artefacts and the apparent reversion to an ‘Albany-like’

tool-kit, which was discussed in the previous section, does not appear to have been

accompanied by a change in the subsistence base. The evidence for this period is much the

same as that for the preceding ‘Wilton’, as indicated by the faunal lists for sites like

Nelson Bay Cave (Inskeep 1987, tables 56-58 and 61), Byneskranskop | (Schweitzer &

Wilson 1982, tables 15, 18 and 20) and Elands Bay Cave (Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1987,

table 2, fig. 2; Poggenpoel 1987, table 1). This is not to say that there was no change at all,

but rather that there was no major change, such as that observable between the faunal

lists of the earlier and later Holocene. Parkington (1987a: 11) stated, however, that the

‘megamiddens’ of the west coast fall into the 3000-2000 B.p. period (see also his fig. 2).

Unless this is indicative of a major population increase in this part of the coast, for which

there is no other evidence, it seems to suggest a greater reliance on shellfish than in the

preceding or succeeding periods. This matter is discussed further in the following section.

After about 2000 B.p., when pastoralism was introduced into the coastal region, there

would have been increasing competition between the hunter-gatherers and the herders for

the use of the land and its resources. The evidence for the early part of this period is by no

means clear, but the indications are that the earliest herders had only sheep, cattle being

introduced some centuries later (Schweitzer 1979: 202-203; Smith 1987: 393-394). It is

also not clear whether this early evidence for pastoralism reflects the incursion into the

coastal region of people along with the domestic stock, or whether it reflects the gradual

adoption by local hunter-gatherers of the ‘pastoralist package’ (Wilson 1986c, 19895).

Whatever the case, by the time of early white settlement, the hunter-gatherers appear to

have been restricted largely to the mountainous areas bordering the coastal region,

whereas the pastoralists controlled the coastal plain. Parkington (1984: 167-168)

344 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

concluded that ‘the appearance of pastoralism, reflected archaeologically in the inclusion

of ceramics and particularly sheep bones into prepastoral contexts, resulted in the

reorganization of hunter gatherer life into a pattern that survived to be historically

described as soaqua. The visible elements of this life-style were greater use of isolated and

fairly rugged parts of the landscape and the broadening of the resource base (Smith 1983)

to include, or perhaps to emphasize, reliable and widespread but small food parcels such

as underground geophytic corms, caterpillars, locusts, termites, a variety of shellfish,

tortoises and rock rabbits. In some parts of the landscape alliances, or arrangements,

were made with local pastoralists, and a certain amount of stock raiding helped

supplement protein inputs from game hunting’.

Parkington (1984: 164) used the term soaqua ‘not as denoting a tribe but rather, in

lower-case letters, as denoting a behavioral complex’. Although Parkington’s description

of the soaqua life-style is in the main acceptable, the major change seems to have been the

loss to the hunter-gatherers of access to the whole of their previous territories and the

resources these contained. The degree of loss or restriction would have depended on their

relationship with the pastoralists, which was sometimes hostile, sometimes not. The

resource base changed from that of the pre-pastoralist period only as regards access to the

various resources and by the probably occasional addition of domestic stock. In the post-

settlement period, the white settlers with their guns were able to act more effectively than

the Khoikhoi against the poisoned arrows of the ‘Bushman’ stock thieves who, by the end

of the first quarter of the eighteenth century, probably included increasing numbers of

Khoikhoi detribalized and impoverished by the plagues that affected them and their

livestock (Elphick 1985: 37-40, 229-234).

Relatively little information is available regarding the evidence for subsistence from

hunter-gatherer sites in the eastern part of the coastal region. Cable (1984, table 8) listed

only eight reports on sites in the coastal region of Natal published between 1934 and 1978

(see also Mazel 19924). Most of these dealt mainly with the artefactual content, with little

or no mention of the fauna.

Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh (1959) reported on the excavation of a shell midden at

the Ingane (= Ngane) River mouth, some 3 km north-east of Umkomaas on the Natal

south coast. The deposit, which was not dated, contained stone, bone and shell artefacts

as well as one NC3 (Iron Age) potsherd, which the excavators considered to be intrusive.

Terrestrial faunal remains were sparse, but included the mandibles of three unidentified

small antelope. Marine fauna were represented by fish-bones and shellfish, of which

Mytilus (= Perna) perna was said to be the dominant species (Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh

1959: 46-52). The excavators considered this midden (A) to be ‘entirely different from the

more common Early Bantu middens of the Natal coast’ and assigned it to the ‘Developed

Wilton’, on the basis of the similarity of the artefacts to those from the Oakhurst shelter

(Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh 1959: 55).

The comments by these authors on ‘the Umlaas variant of the Smithfield C Culture’

(Schoute-Vanneck & Walsh 1961) were discussed in the previous section, and all that

needs to be added here is that the evidence from these Natal coastal Late Stone Age sites

reflects an economy directed primarily at shellfish collecting, with a lesser emphasis on

fishing and the hunting of terrestrial mammals.

The deposits from Umbeli Belli, the artefacts from which were discussed above,

contained relatively few mammalian remains, of which the largest individual category

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 345

was bovids, chiefly the small blue duiker Cephalophus monticola (9) and Cape buffalo

Syncerus caffer or domestic cattle Bos taurus (4) (Cable 1984, table 13). Marine shell was

also present, but this was generally not quantified except for Perna perna, of which there

were 848 hinges, and of which the total shell weight accounted for over 95 per cent of the

site total of marine molluscs (Cable 1984, table 14). Cable (1984: 102) considered that

the small quantity of shellfish present in the deposits resulted from the site’s distance

from the coast, but that ‘the significance of the shellfish remains at Umbeli Belli is to

indicate the site’s role as a home-base site near enough to the sea to allow the

exploitation of coastal resources on a regular basis, but with a rich and varied

terrestrial catchment providing the bulk of the resources actually consumed on-site’.

The fauna from Borchers Shelter was not quantified, but Cable (1984: 121) reported

that Cephalophus monticola was estimated to account for more than half of the

mammalian fauna. Small quantities of highly fragmented marine shell were also

recovered, of which Perna perna appeared to be the most common (Cable 1984: 123).

Fish remains were found at both sites but, where these were identified, they consisted

entirely of fresh-water species (Cable 1984: 102, 123).

Davies & MacDonald (1978: 462-463) briefly mentioned marine fauna found in a

shell midden at Umhlanga Rocks, a short distance up the coast from Durban, which was

dated to 250 + 35B.p. (Pta-163). Mussels (P. perna) were said to have been more

abundant in the upper part and oysters (Striostrea margaritacea) in the lower, whereas

the top spit contained the bones and scales of many small fish. Pottery was absent from

the deposit, and the only artefacts were small pebbles that the excavators thought were

probably used for opening the shells. Davies & MacDonald (1978: 463) considered that

these factors suggested that the midden should be ascribed to the San rather than to the

Neguni. If this ascription is correct, it supports the evidence of Umbeli Belli, of quite late

access to the coast by the hunter-gatherers of the region.

In a report quite remarkable for the time in its attention to detail, Chubb ef a/. (1934)

described excavations in a cave at the mouth of the Umgazana (= Mngazana) River,

some 16 km south-west of Port St Johns on the Transkei coast. The excavators identified

30 ‘strata’ in the deposit, some of which were archaeologically sterile. Stone, bone and

wooden artefacts were found throughout the deposit, which also contained potsherds

from Stratum 14 upwards (Stratum | was the basal unit).

All the occupation layers contained abundant marine shells, mostly Perna perna, but

also Patellaspp., Haliotis sp. (given as H.natalensis but probably H. spadicea), and

‘several species’ of oysters. Fish remains, chiefly those of the musselcracker (more likely

Sparodon durbanensis than Cymatoceps nasutus, since the former prefers the sandy habitat

offshore from the site (Smith & Smith 1966: 50-51)), were also abundant in some of the

strata. Terrestrial animals were represented by the bones of unidentified antelope, buffalo

Syncerus caffer, warthog Phacochoerus aethiopicus, bush-pig Potamochoerus porcus, as

well as a single rock hyrax Procavia capensis and an unidentified monkey (either the

vervet monkey Cercopithecus aethiops or the blue monkey C. mitis).

Plant remains consisted of the estuarine eel-grass Zostera capensis and ‘parcels’ of

the folded leaves of the ‘wild banana’ Strelitzia augusta (now S. alba) and, in Stratum 26,

twigs of a littoral dune bush Passerina ericoides. No explanation was given for the

presence of these flora, but the first two were probably used as bedding, whereas the third

may have been the material used for making wooden pegs of the kind found in the

346 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

deposit. Barrow (1806: 142) recorded that the seeds of Strelitzia reginae were eaten “by the

Kaffers and Hottentots’.

In keeping with the practice of the time, there was no quantification of material, but

the impression gained from the presence of Late Stone Age artefacts throughout the

deposit is that this was a hunter-gatherer site rather than one attributable to Iron Age

farmers. The site is interesting in that it appears to span the periods before and after the

arrival of the farmers, as indicated by the absence of potsherds from the lower strata and

their presence in the upper. Apart from these, there is no evidence of any change in the

artefactual or faunal content of the deposit, which suggests that the presence of the

farmers had little impact on the hunter-gatherers who occupied the cave, although they

may eventually have been responsible for its abandonment. Other sites, like Umbeli Belli

and Borchers Shelter, also provide evidence that hunter-gatherers continued to occupy

the coastal region after the farmers had established themselves there.

Pastoralists

The earliest dated evidence for the presence of pastoralists in the coastal region, at

about 2000 B.P., came from the cave site of Die Kelders (Schweitzer & Scott 1973;

Schweitzer 1979) and an open-station shell midden at Hawston, some 30 km to the north-

west (Avery 1974). The evidence is in the form of the bones of domesticated animals:

sheep at both sites, and cattle as well in the upper layers of Die Kelders, dated to some

300-400 years later (Schweitzer 1979: 203, tables 1, 27). Slightly later dates were recorded

for the Kasteelberg sites (Smith 1987: 393), where sheep also preceded cattle (Klein &

Cruz-Uribe 1989). In the previous section, it was pointed out that the presence of

potsherds is not de facto evidence that a site was occupied by herders, and the same

applies to the remains of domestic stock. Pots and livestock were available, by fair means

or foul, to hunter-gatherers in the area and it is thus necessary to exercise caution in

interpreting their presence in sites. As mentioned above, Cable (1984: 97) pointed out that

Iron Age potsherds are commonly found in Late Stone Age sites in Natal and it is thus

equally likely that Khoikhoi potsherds are present in San sites in the western part of the

coastal region. As also mentioned previously, Kinahan (1991: 44) suggested that pottery

appeared in central Namibia before pastoralism, and that potsherds were collected by the

Namib hunter-gatherers and dispersed over several sites.

Whether the herders of the coastal region were immigrants, or whether they were

‘acculturated’ former hunter-gatherers, was discussed briefly above, as well as elsewhere

(Wilson 1986c, 19895; Morris 1990: Smith 1990), but at present there is insufficient

information available for this matter to be resolved with any certainty. If the early

herders had only sheep, they may not have had the mat-and-wattle huts that were so

typical of them in the historical period and which were transported on their pack-oxen.

They may therefore have lived in caves and rock-shelters for at least part of the time,

although firm evidence to support this is wanting. The present topography around Die

Kelders is such that access to the cave is difficult enough for humans, let alone sheep, and

impossible for cattle. It is, of course, possible that the topography has changed

considerably since the cave was last occupied some | 500 years ago: in fact, that may have

been the reason for its abandonment. Caves are generally, however, impractical places in

which to kraal domestic stock for any length of time. Apart from difficulty of access,

many of them are small, Die Kelders and Elands Bay Cave being notable exceptions; and

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 347

there would have been problems with access to water and feed unless the animals were

taken out daily. If, on the other hand, the animals were kraaled outside the cave, they

would have been in danger from predators unless they were constantly guarded. The little

bay to the east of Die Kelders could have provided a reasonably safe place to kraal

livestock overnight, but access would have been difficult, particularly for cattle.

Klein & Cruz-Uribe (1989: 90-92) hypothesized that if the two Kasteelberg sites

were ‘specialized stockposts/sealing stations’, where the sheep were concerned they

‘would expect the middens to contain mainly young males and postprime females’. The

reason for this was that if the herders were culling their flocks, they would select young

males, since rams do not produce milk and only a few are needed for breeding purposes;

and ewes that were no longer fecund could also be used for food. Klein & Cruz-Uribe

were, however, unable to determine the sex of most of their samples, so they analysed the

mortality profiles of the sheep from Die Kelders and the two Kasteelberg sites. They

found that their prediction regarding adult sheep was not borne out by the profiles for

Die Kelders and Kasteelberg B, where adults are less common than at Kasteelberg A.

They also found that there is a statistically significant difference between the age profiles

of the sheep from Kasteelberg A and Kasteelberg B and between those from Kasteel-

berg A and Die Kelders. In the Kasteelberg B and Die Kelders samples, the bulk of the

sheep were in the first 20 per cent of life-span. In the Kasteelberg A sample there was a

wider distribution, up to about 70 per cent of life-span, though there were still more in the

first 20 per cent group (Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1989, fig. 8). Klein & Cruz-Uribe (1989: 91)

concluded, however, that occupation of Kasteelberg A ‘was less seasonally focused than

at either KBB or Die Kelders, and it could have extended into a portion of the year when

the people had to rely more on sheep and less on wild animals (especially seals)’.

The open nature of the sites and the relatively large number of sheep and cattle

remains (Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1989, table 1), make it possible to accept that the

Kasteelberg sites were occupied by herders, but there is another interpretation that can be

made of the age profiles of the sheep from Kasteelberg B and Die Kelders. This is that,

male lambs and post-prime ewes being the least necessary to the maintenance of the

flocks, they are the most suitable for barter with, or payment for service by, hunter-

gatherers (see also Smith 1990: 10-11). As mentioned above, neither of these sites has a

large number of adults that could be identified as possibly being post-prime ewes (beyond

40-50% of life-span: Klein & Cruz-Uribe 1989: 90), but there are not that many at

Kasteelberg A, either. The table suggests that about a quarter of the total of aged

individuals is in this age-group, and their distribution is not suggestive of the killing of

sheep of specific age-classes within this group.

Kolb (1738: 171) commented that the Khoikhoi ‘let the Bulls run with the Cows, and

the Rams with the Ewes the Year round. By which Means their Herds encrease [sic]

apace, their Ewes yielding them constantly Two Lambs in the Year’. He also commented

(Kolb 1738: 185-186) that, despite the great numbers of cattle slaughtered by the

Khoikhoi during the ceremonies attending their rites of passage (called by him

Andersmakens, a corruption of the Dutch anders maaken, to make different, or to

change), ‘their Herds often encrease too fast, and are greater than they can conveniently

tend or find Pasture for’. In such a case, they would dispose of their surplus to the

Europeans, or else to other Khoikhoi, from whom they would obtain tobacco, dagga

(Cannabis sativa) ‘or some other wanted Commodities’, even though the exchange rate

348 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

was much lower than they would demand on other occasions. “And if yet there remains

an Excess, they charitably and very cheerfully distribute it among their own Poor.’

Although it may be doubted that occasions such as the last arose more than rarely,

particularly in the early period, it suggests a method of redistribution of wealth and a

subsistence strategy that would be beneficial to both donor and recipient. In this regard,

the example of the Little Chariguriqua, who were formerly herders for the Cochoqua,

may be mentioned, although they were accused of having later stolen the livestock

entrusted to their care (see above). Whether this practice was also extended to hunter-

gatherers who had a clientary relationship with the herders cannot now be determined,

but it suggests a method by which hunter-gatherers could have become herders in their

own right (see also Smith 1985).

Although the Khoikhoi were recorded in the early historical period as having killed

seals (Thom ed. 1952: 176) and caught fish with spears (Moodie ed. 1960: 93), there

appears to be no reference to the inhabitants, other than the ‘Strandlopers’, having

collected and eaten shellfish. However, although full information regarding the fauna from

the Kasteelberg sites is still to be published, Smith (1987: 393-395) reported that

Kasteelberg A contained ‘large quantities of shellfish’. There was no mention of any in

Kasteelberg B, but Smith (1991 pers. comm.) advised that this is also a shell midden, and

bigger than Kasteelberg A. If these sites are accepted as being pastoralist sites, then they

provide evidence that shellfish were part of the Khoikhoi diet; thus it is reasonable to

assume that at least some of the shell middens of the post-2000B.p. period are also

attributable to the Khoikhoi. The problem here will be to identify these sites with any

certainty. The mere presence of potsherds and/or the remains of domestic stock is no

guarantee of a site being the result of herder subsistence activity and, as mentioned in the

previous section, the artefacts themselves provide no evidence of the identity of their users.

Parkington (1984: 159) commented that ‘the impression is gained that stock owners

seldom hunted bovids for food but most frequently hunted carnivores in organized

drives, partly to obtain desirable skins and partly to rid their herds of troublesome

predators’. This impression was presumably gained from the early records, but these are

far from complete with regard to the information archaeologists and ethnographers

might desire. Kolb (1738: 203), although not always the most reliable of recorders,

observed that

‘The Victuals of the Hottentots are the Flesh and Entrails of Cattle and certain Wild

Beasts, with Fruits and Roots of Several Kinds. But setting aside the Sacrifices . . .

and other Andersmakens, the Hottentots rarely kill Cattle for their own Eating but

when they are at a Loss for other Sustenance. The Cattle they devour between the

Andersmakens, are, for the most Part, such as die naturally ....

When, betwefe]n the Andersmakens, Death, by Disease or Old Age, does not

furnish them with Carcasses from the Herds, and the Men are not contented with

Fruits, Roots, and Milk, provided wholly by the Women, they go a hunting or (if

they live near the Sea) a fishing. They always hunt in Troops. Sometimes they bring

Home a great Deal of Venison and sometimes they return without’.

Schreyer (1668 in Raven-Hart 1971: 122-123) described the hunting of elephants,

and the trapping of rhinoceroses and hippopotami in pitfalls; also “Elands, deer,

steenbuck go there in great herds. To catch them the Hottentots surround them with

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 349

many men and draw these together little by little so that they enclose them, and

sometimes they have a good catch’. He also mentioned that in the summer the Khoikhoi

killed ‘all sorts of wild beasts come to drink from the hollows in which the water has

collected ... since often the water in the hills is dried up’. Thus, although it is not clear

whether the Khoikhoi hunted regularly or only occasionally, perhaps seasonally, there

are records that they did hunt; the evidence from the Kasteelberg sites (Klein & Cruz-

Uribe 1989: 84-85, table 1) also provides support for the ethnohistorical information. At

Kasteelberg, the numerical emphasis is on small bovids the size of grysbok or steenbok

Raphicerus spp., with few small-medium ones if the sheep are excluded, and more large-

medium bovids (Cape hartebeest Alcelaphus buselaphus) than large after deduction of the

cattle from the totals for this size group. Wild bovids are, however, not as commonly

represented as domestic ones, and the most numerous of all the mammals is the Cape fur

seal Arctocephalus pusillus, which indicates the importance of at least one other marine

resource to the occupants of these sites. It will be interesting to study the full faunal

tables, including those for shellfish and fish, when these are published but, in the

meanwhile, the evidence is that herders in the coastal region exploited the natural

resources of both land and sea in addition to their domestic stock, though perhaps not to

the same extent as the hunter-gatherers did.

Farmers

Compared with that available for the Late Stone Age peoples of the western part of

the southern African coastal region, relatively little archaeological information has been

published on the subsistence of Iron Age farmers of the eastern coastal region. Also,

much of what has been published is subject to the same caveat as applies to the post-

2000 B.p. Late Stone Age sites: that the presence of potsherds and the remains of domestic

animals are no guarantee that the sites that contain these can be indisputably attributed

to the people with whom they are more usually associated.

Hall (1981: 148) observed that ‘In addition to domesticated cereal crops, other

resources were clearly of importance to the Early Iron Age farmers of the coastal areas.

Some of the Group | sites are marked by fragmentary molluscan remains as well as by

pottery sherds, indicating that the nearby marine fauna was exploited. This may perhaps

have been a further reason [besides the initially nutrient-rich soils] for the concentration

of settlement along the immediate coastline. In addition, the coastal forests would have

provided a variety of edible wild fruits as well as habitats for small animals which could

have been either hunted or trapped. It would seem unlikely, however, that domestic

livestock were important. ... there is no evidence for cattle in this phase of the Early Iron

Age elsewhere in southern Africa. In addition, ecological considerations make it seem

unlikely that cattle had much of an economic role. Little grazing would have been

available until the process of shifting agriculture was well advanced and secondary

grasslands had become established. Such a change in the biotic structure could only have

taken place after a sustained period of Iron Age farming’ (present author’s interpolation,

taken from Hall’s preceding paragraph).

Faunal remains from Iron Age sites appear to be rare: Voigt (1980: 94-95) reported

that only 27 pieces of bone from Maggs’s excavation at Mjonzani near Durban (Maggs

1980) were submitted for identification and, of these, only two tooth fragments came

from the Early Iron Age deposits. Voigt (1980: 94) considered that the tooth fragments

350 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

might have been those of domesticated cattle Bos taurus but that ‘neither fragment was

large enough to unequivocally assign it to this species, so that undeniable evidence for the

presence of domesticated cattle in this early period of the Natal Iron Age is still lacking’.

A radio-carbon date of 1670 + 40B.p. (Pta—-1980) was obtained from charcoal in the

Early Iron Age deposits (Maggs 1980: 75). The few bone fragments from the Late Iron

Age deposits included B. taurus, the small blue duiker Cephalophus monticola and

fragments of bovids the size of sheep or goat; Voigt (1980: 94) commented that ‘The

presence of Cephalophus monticola indicates hunting or snaring activities in forested or

thicket areas’.

MacKay (1980: 95-96) reported that most of the marine molluscs came from the

Late Iron Age midden features at Mjonzani, only six of the total of 388 shells or

fragments of shells having come from the Early Iron Age deposits. All that can be said of

the Early Iron Age sample is that it includes the land snail Metachatina kraussi, the oyster

Crassostrea (now Striostrea) margaritacea, and the brown mussel Perna perna. The Late

Iron Age sample was dominated by P. perna (82,7% of the sample total), but included a

few individuals of other species. MacKay (1980: 95) commented that the Early Iron Age

midden 2 was contaminated by Late Iron Age material ‘and in both cases there were very

few shells, therefore this cannot be taken as proof of shellfish exploitation during the EIA

occupation. However, evidence from other, similar sites is positive in this respect and it is

probable that most shell as well as bone has weathered away over the intervening

1 700 years’.

The artefacts from the Emberton Way shell midden (Horwitz et al. 1991) were

discussed above. The mammalian fauna was sparse, consisting of a few bones of small

antelope (the possibility that one of these was that of a sheep is to be doubted), a suid, a

genet, and rodents. The remains of tortoise, unidentified crustaceans, a number of fish

and a few birds were also present (Horwitz et a/. 1991, table 4). The shellfish fauna was

dominated by P. perna, which accounted for 86,6 per cent of the sample, with limpets

Patella spp. (9,8%) and a range of other species making up the balance (Horwitz et al.

1991, tables 5 and 6). Statistical tests on mussel hinge lengths led the authors to conclude

that there was no clear evidence of excessive exploitation having caused a reduction in the

size of the shellfish collected. They also considered that there was no evidence to support

the possibility that an increase in species diversity in the midden pointed to a reduction in

the availability of mussels (Horwitz et al. 1991: 22-23).

On the basis of studies of modern shellfish exploitation in Transkei and the

distribution of Iron Age sites in Natal, Horwitz er al. (1991: 24-25) suggested that the

Emberton Way midden reflected changes in the use of the site. In the earliest, Matola,

phase, the site was used as a collecting station from which the shellfish were taken back

whole to the nearby settlements. In the subsequent Msuluzi-Ntshekane phases, the

settlements were further from the coast, and the shellfish were processed at the coast and

only the edible portion taken back to the settlements.

Cronin (1982) reported on an Iron Age midden site at Mpame in Transkei, dated to

1310 + 60 BP. (Pta—2019) and 540 + 55 Bp. (Pta—2017), so that the site encompasses both

the Early and the Late Iron Age. He did not provide separate information for the two

phases and commented that ‘The Mpame midden represents the remains of hunting,

fishing and shell collecting activities’ (Cronin 1982: 38). The faunal sample was

dominated by Perna perna ‘which forms over 90% of the shell debris’ and other animal

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT Bil

remains, “occurring especially in the lower layers’, included fish and terrestrial wild

animals (Cronin 1982: 38) but no domestic ones. Cronin (1982: 38-39) suggested that

“Home bases or villages were probably not located along the shore but in the immediate

hinterland close to arable soils’. Thus, even if the evidence for pastoralism and agriculture

is lacking, it may be assumed to have formed the major part of the subsistence base of the

Late Iron Age people, with hunting, fishing and shellfish collecting providing the bulk of

the protein during the Early Iron Age. Cronin (1982: 39) commented that ‘Early Iron Age

groups, it is thought, indulged in intermittent but regular shell collecting based on a tidal

cycle and primarily aimed at the harvesting of the Perna perna mussel’.

The best faunal evidence for the Late Iron Age in the coastal region comes from

Mpambanyoni, where Robey (1980) excavated parts of two middens. Mpambanyoni is

about 5 km downstream from Umbeli Belli Shelter (Cable 1984: 86), which was discussed

above. Midden A was dated to 885 + 50 Bp. (Pta—2534) and 980 + 50 BP. (Pta—2527),

whereas Midden B yielded a date of 930 + 50 BP. (Pta—2528), thus dating the sites to the

early part of the Late Iron Age (Robey 1980, table 4).

The sample of terrestrial fauna was not large but included the remains of an elephant

Loxodonta africana and a possible cow or ox Bos taurus. The most common animal was

the blue duiker Cephalophus monticola, of which 12 or 14 were represented, most of them

juveniles (Robey 1980: 154, table 1).

The marine fauna included the remains of two seals Arctocephalus pusillus, 75 fish, of

which the small Clinidae (25) were said to be the most common, and over 3 000 shellfish,

96,1 per cent of which were Perna perna (Robey 1980, tables 1-3). Robey (1980: 155)

commented on the wide range of the lengths of the mussel valves, 18-146 mm, which

suggests that these shellfish were not being individually selected, and that immature

individuals were collected along with those of a suitable size.

Robey (1980: 163) observed of the people responsible for the middens, that ‘They

almost certainly lived a settled life, practised agriculture and probably herded cattle.

However, hunting, fishing and gathering of shellfish, mainly the brown mussel Perna

perna, must have made an important contribution to their diet’. He also commented on

the presence of fish, ‘as a taboo exists today on the eating of fish among the coastal

Nguni’. C. Nongwana of the Albany Museum (1991 pers. comm. to L. Webley, and from

her 1991 in litt. to the present author) said that this is not a taboo, but rather an

avoidance. Mahola (1990: 14-15) observed that ‘AmaPondo of the Transkei coast and

amaXhosa of the Ciskei have for very many years lived in close proximity to the sea and

yet are not known as fishing people. They collect shells for tribal ornaments. Their lack of

interest is purely religious’. He considered this to result from the belief among the

amaXhosa that ‘seas and rivers are dwelling places of ‘“‘the people of the river’’, the

abantu bomlambo’ who are very powerful and dangerous if disturbed; he concluded that

this is why the amaXhosa and amaPondo know so little about fishing. ‘Even today those

who go out on trawlers to fish take these jobs in desperation for employment. ... Their

job demands of them to be greasy, dirty and fishy and subsequently their morale becomes

very low. This physical and moral degeneration is believed to be the result of japan

with the underworld where they do not belong.’

There is no information as to the antiquity of this belief, but it seems unlikely to be

of recent origin and may indicate the immigration of the southern Nguni from the

interior, rather than along the coast. A Transkeian oral tradition relates that the

352 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

ancestors of these people entered the region from the interior into the Mzimvubu River

drainage basin (Feely 1987: 67). J. B. Peires of the University of Transkei (1991 in itt.)

said that local informants had told him that the dislike of (rather than taboo against)

eating fish is due more to their resemblance to snakes than to ‘a general refusal to disturb

the sea’, in which the abantu bomlambo do not live, dwelling rather in rivers. Under

normal circumstances, people do not eat shellfish as they do not like the taste, but poor

people eat them when they are hungry, as they do roots and bark.

The evidence for the Iron Age in the coastal region, limited though it may be, 1s that

the farmers, whether engaged only in agriculture (Early Iron Age) or in pastoralism as

well (Late Iron Age), also made use of the natural resources, terrestrial as well as marine,

of the coastal region.

Discussion

If Early Stone Age people collected shellfish, they and their Middle Stone Age

descendants may have done so to supplement the protein they obtained by hunting, at

which they may not have been very proficient, and scavenging. Late Stone Age people

were, it seems, proficient at hunting and trapping terrestrial mammals as well as seals, in

addition to collecting tortoises, the remains of which are generally abundant in

archaeological sites. They, at least, appear to have had little or no need to collect shellfish,

and it must therefore be presumed that they did so from choice.

Yesner (1980: 729-730) pointed out that shellfish ‘exist as a highly concentrated

resource, are easily collectable by all segments of the human population with a minimum

of energy input, and often serve as an emergency buffer during times of relative food

scarcity’; he considered that shellfish collecting is not labour-intensive, but did not

explain why. It may be suggested that, considering yield in terms of effort, collecting

shellfish is labour-intensive—perhaps more correctly, labour-expensive—though the

degree of effort varies according to the type of mollusc being collected. Sessile and

colonial bivalves like mussels can be fairly easily removed in large numbers with the aid of

an implement such as a digging stick, but will then include numbers of small individuals

with little or no food value. Gastropods, which are generally distributed more sparsely

than mussels, must be collected individually. Although in this case the reward in terms of

flesh mass is determined by the collector’s selectivity and may thus be greater than that of

the unselective removal of mussels, the effort involved is greater than that of collecting

mussels. Osborn (1980: 740-741) pointed out that ‘shellfish are small-body-sized food

resources and exhibit high shell-to-meat ratios; protein and energy content is low,

processing time is high’. He mentioned that a white-tailed deer with a live weight of 64 kg

contains more calories than a tonne of Mytilus sp. shellfish, and that a llama of 90 kg live

weight yields 12,58 kg of protein or the protein equivalent of 135 259 mussels with a live

weight of 4 329 kg. The mean of 31.3/kg for Osborn’s mussels is low compared with about

300/kg for Perna perna from the Transkei coast (Bigalke 1973: 173), or 287/kg for the

flesh weight of Choromytilus meridionalis (Kinahan 1991: 92), so that his live weight

probably includes the shell. The weight equivalent of the deer would be a male bontebok

Damaliscus dorcas dorcas and that of the llama would be eight male steenbok Raphicerus

campestris (Smithers 1983: 613, 640), so that an 11-kg male steenbok would have a weight

equivalent to about 3 300 Perna perna or 3 150 Choromytilus meridionalis. Griffiths (1981,

table 1) gave the composition of dry whole black mussel C. meridionalis as 91,44 per cent

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 393

shell, 8,39 per cent flesh and 0,17 per cent byssus. This is certainly a low flesh yield in

terms of the whole mollusc that must be collected; however, the dry flesh had an energy

value of 19,5 kJ/g.

An experienced hunter would probably expend little effort in erecting a snare to trap

a steenbok but he might have to travel some distance from the camp to find a suitable

place, and the rewards would not be immediate or guaranteed. On the other hand,

women and children could go to the shore at low tide and in a relatively short time collect

a quantity of mussels sufficient to provide a meal for the band. Griffiths (1981: 107)

reported densities of C. meridionalis in the range of 5500-6000/m7, and Zoutendyk

(1989: 18) those of Perna perna in excess of 5 000/m7. These are for mussels of all sizes,

and if they were collected en masse, a number of juveniles with little or no food value

would be included. None the less, and despite the fact that the steenbok’s flesh might have

been the preferred food, the mussels would provide the certainty of sustenance, so that

even if their collection was more labour-expensive than the snaring of a steenbok, in

terms of survival it would have been worth the effort. The fact that the occupants of

Byneskranskop | carried over 25 000 shellfish a minimum of 6km back to the site, and

the people of Umbeli Belli and Borchers shelters lesser quantities over greater

distances—17 km in the case of Borchers Shelter—-demonstrates that they considered

worthwhile the expenditure of energy, both in the collecting and in the transporting.

Osborn’s (1980) information supports the contention that the labour cost of shellfish

collection is high in terms of flesh yield, but shellfish are generally a more reliable food

source than antelope, regardless of cultural preferences. If the day’s hunting were

unsuccessful, marine resources would provide an alternative source of protein that would

justify the amount of time and energy spent obtaining it by collecting shellfish and rock

lobsters or by fishing. These resources are, however, not always available, for example,

during the high seas that result from storms and gales, when the intertidal and subtidal

zones may be inaccessible for a week or more, although there is always the possibility that

items, even as large as whales, will be washed ashore. The advantage of living in the

coastal region is that there are two resource zones, the sea and the land, one of which will

always be open for exploitation.

The archaeological record does not provide any evidence for periods when terrestrial

foods were scarce, although it is possible that during the course of the year, chiefly in the

winter, carbohydrate-rich plant foods may have been. However, as is discussed below,

marine fauna are not an appropriate dietary alternative to plant foods, so that the

seasonal unavailability of the latter cannot be adduced as even a partial explanation for

seasonal occupation of the coastal region or for the exploitation of marine resources. It

must be mentioned that, although there is evidence that coastal sites were occupied

during certain times of the year, there is no evidence to show that they were not also

occupied during the rest of the year.

The archaeological evidence for all the groups except those who lived during the

Early Stone Age, for whom comprehensive information is lacking, is that they exploited

the marine and terrestrial resources of the region, the hunter-gatherers most of all, the

herders and early farmers perhaps less so, and the later pastoral-agricultural peoples

possibly least of all. The nature of these patterns of exploitation can be seen to have

varied through time and in space, though the reality of the latter can be demonstrated

only through intensive regional surveys, such as those being carried out in the western

354 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Cape (Parkington 1987a). Single-site investigations have been, and will continue to be,

useful in providing information on southern African archaeology and site-specific

resource exploitation, but they cannot provide the desired information on changing

patterns of land-use and resource exploitation over a wider area, such as the presumed

territories of the inhabitants. There appears to be less difficulty in distinguishing between

sites in the eastern coastal region that were occupied by hunter-gatherers and those

occupied by farmers than there is in distinguishing between hunter-gatherer and herder

sites in the western part. This is largely because these last two groups seem to have shared

a common artefact technology, but perhaps also because ‘typical’ herder sites, like those

at Kasteelberg, are still mostly undiscovered or have been destroyed by agriculture and

other forms of development.

The presence of the remains of fish and shellfish in Iron Age deposits, related to the

modern avoidance of marine resources, fish in particular, raises questions as to the

correctness of the ascription of midden sites to the early Nguni. The chief difference

between Stone Age and Iron Age middens is that the former contain stone artefacts,

which are generally lacking from the latter, apart from grindstones. Potsherds, on the

other hand, are found in both Stone Age and Iron Age deposits. At present, there seems

little reason to doubt the correctness of the ascriptions, but the matter needs to be

considered further.

If the suggestion by Horwitz et al. (1991), that changes in site use can be observed,

can be substantiated by evidence from other Iron Age sites at the coast and in the interior,

this will provide useful information on Iron Age subsistence behaviour.

Discussion of subsistence, as indicated by dietary inferences from stable isotope

analyses of human bone, is continued below.

SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES: SEASONAL MOBILITY VERSUS SEDENTISM

The seasonal mobility hypothesis

For many years, conventional archaeological thinking has been that the coast was

visited seasonally as part of the annual round of hunter-gatherers, who spent the other

part of the year in the interior. Put at its simplest, the ‘seasonal mobility hypothesis’

(Parkington 1972) postulates that, because of a shortage or even absence of plant foods in

the interior during the winter, hunter-gatherers would have been constrained to spend

that period at the coast, where they could supplement their diet with marine foods, and

where the climate was more tolerable. This hypothesis was derived from a number of lines

of evidence (summarized by Inskeep 1978: 105-114): the absence from, or paucity in,

coastal deposits of the remains of edible plants and their presence in deposits in the

interior along with inflorescences of grasses used for bedding that indicate summer

occupation; the age at death of pups of the Cape fur seal Arctocephalus pusillus that

indicate their dying in the winter; and similar studies on juvenile rock hyrax Procavia

capensis from sites in the interior that indicate their death during the summer (see also

Parkington & Poggenpoel 1971; Parkington 1972, 1976a, 1977; Deacon 1976; Schweitzer

IFO ete.):

More recently, as Parkington (1987a: 18-19) put it, “The original model of seasonal

movement has been modified and challenged, giving rise to a new generation of research

projects with particular spatial, temporal or methodological emphases’. Basically, the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 355

change has been the recognition that the pattern of seasonal movement was not

rigid summer in the interior, winter at the coast— but that it was adapted to changes in

climate and environment such as those, for example, resulting from changes in sea-level

that would have increased or reduced the distance of living sites, particularly caves, from

the sea. These changes would have affected the availability of resources and consequently

the scheduling of visits to certain areas. As examples of these, Elands Bay Cave was

abandoned for about 4000 years during the mid-Holocene (Parkington 1987a: 7),

probably as a result of the marine transgression that occurred during this period making

marine resources inaccessible, whereas Nelson Bay Cave appears to have been suitable

for year-round occupation for at least the last 10 000 years (Inskeep 1987: 293).

Demographic changes would also have played their part, especially those resulting

from the introduction of pastoralism to the coastal region during the last 2 000 years and

the expansion of white settlement during the last 300 years (Parkington 1984). Another

factor recognized is that seasonal movement may not have been just between the coast

and the interior, but that some groups may have moved between the winter rainfall region

of the western and south-western Cape and the summer rainfall region to the east and

north-east (Parkington 1987a: 7). Parkington et al. (1988: 28) drew attention to the higher

frequencies of hornfels and altered dolerite (presumably the ‘shale’ and ‘other’ of their

table 3.1) in the Pleistocene deposits of Elands Bay Cave. They suggested that these raw

materials were brought in from east of the Cape Fold Mountain Belt and that ‘the most

frequent kind of stone tool made from hornfels, a knife-like tool or scraper, resembles the

concavo-convex scrapers which are widespread in the interior’. An implication of this,

they suggested, might be that ‘Pleistocene groups ranged over larger areas than their

Holocene descendants’. )

An aspect of the seasonal mobility hypothesis that seems not to have received the

attention it deserves is that, whereas many inland sites have yielded evidence that their

occupants had some sort of contact with the coast, coastal sites do not provide evidence

that their occupants were people who also lived in the interior, the Pleistocene evidence

from Elands Bay Cave cited above being the exception rather than the rule. Marine shell

has been found at sites in the interior, such as Melkhoutboom (Deacon 1976: 51), Wilton

(Deacon 1972: 31), Boomplaas (Deacon et al. 1978: 54), De Hangen (Parkington &

Poggenpoel 1971: 19), Observatory Shelter at Sutherland (Lloyd Evans et al. 1985: 106),

and even as far inland as Koffiefontein in the Orange Free State (Humphreys 1970:

108-110), which is some 500 km from the nearest point on the coast. Although it is

possible that the shell from some of these sites, which is often in the form of ornaments,

could have resulted from trade or gift exchange with people living nearer the coast, there

appears to be nothing in the Holocene deposits of coastal sites that could not have been

obtained from the coast itself, or from a few kilometres inland.

Sealy & Van der Merwe (1986a: 142), whose isotopic analyses of human skeletons

from the Cape coastal region are discussed below, pointed out that the evidence for

seasonal occupation is based on positive indicators and that it ‘does not address the very

difficult problem of showing that winter occupation of the mountains and summer

occupation of the coast did not occur’. Where sites in the coastal region are concerned,

they contain many food items that are not season-specific: shellfish, adult mammals, rock

lobsters and fish among them. A case can be made for filter-feeding bivalves such as

mussels having been avoided during the summer out of fear of poisoning by eating them

356 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

when they had been toxified as a result of a ‘red tide’, specifically, dense blooming of the

phytoplankton Gonyaulax catenella (Branch & Branch 1981: 108-110). Other phyto-

plankton blooms de-oxygenate the water and can cause mass mortality of marine life but

are not toxic and may have been welcomed by people at the coast when they occurred.

However, eating grazing gastropods, fish and rock lobsters during and after a toxic ‘red

tide’ would not have lethal results; and terrestrial mammals and reptiles, also marine and

terrestrial birds, would have presented no such problem. The remains of these are found

in most coastal deposits and it needs to be demonstrated that they did not provide the

resource base at times when mussels and the like may have been avoided. Sealy & Van der

Merwe (1986a: 143) pointed out that, since ‘mussels can remain toxic for months after a

red tide episode, one might argue that it would be unsafe to eat them without full-time

knowledge of coastal waters’. Although this is true, it need not require full-time

occupation of the coast for this knowledge to be acquired. Experience would have taught

the people that it was generally unsafe to eat mussels during the summer, and they may

thus have avoided them then as a matter of course, whether or not there was any evidence

of a toxic red tide having occurred, particularly as there was a variety of other shellfish

available, although not in the same concentrations as mussels.

Parkington (1977: 155) considered significant the reports of late eighteenth-century

travellers, such as Barrow, Sparrman and Thunberg, that the Khoisan used ‘uyntjestyd’

(‘the time of the little onions’, 1.e. bulbs and corms: late winter/spring) as a seasonal

marker, since these plant foods were important in their diet. He commented: ‘This is a

record of the importance of corms, the recognition of their fluctuating availability and of

their value above and beyond the economic sphere.’ It should be noted, however, that

none of these early writers reported that ‘uyntjestyd’ was marked by large-scale migration

from the coastal region to the interior, which should have been the case if the seasonal

mobility model holds good. The absence of such evidence suggests that the availability of

geophytes in the coastal region was sufficient for the needs of the occupants of the area.

Parkington (1987a: 11) mentioned that radio-carbon dates for Elands Bay Cave,

Tortoise Cave and Spring Cave point to their not having been occupied during the period

between about 3000-1700 B.p., ‘whereas all dates for megamiddens except two come from

this time interval’ (see Parkington 1987a, fig. 2). These ‘megamiddens’ are described

(Parkington 1991: 333) as accumulations of shell ‘some tens of thousands of cubic metres

in volume’ on top of or behind the dune cordon immediately behind flat platforms of

intertidal rock that were the habitat of extensive mussel colonies. “There are very few

animal bones, stone or bone tools, no features such as stone emplacements or hearth pits

and the shellfish component is usually about 85% black mussel (Choromytilus

meridionalis).’ Parkington (1991: 333-334) commented that it was ‘difficult to imagine

groups of people pursuing such a restricted life-style [as that indicated by the contents of

the megamiddens] with no release for a thousand years or more’. He suggested, therefore,

that sites consisting of extensive stone tool scatters in deflation hollows in the coastal

plain should, with the megamiddens, be considered as ‘parts of a single settlement

system’. The sites cannot be directly dated, but their artefactual component was said to be

‘similar in composition to dated assemblages older than 2 000 years’. Study of the rather

limited inventories for 21 of these scatters, as well as the frequencies of the raw materials

used for retouched artefacts (Manhire 1987, appendices 5, 6), suggests that they could be

assigned to any part of the Wilton period, that is, to any time in the last 8 000 years or so

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 357

(cf. Deacon 1972, 1984; Deacon 1976; Schweitzer & Wilson 1982), not just to the period

of the megamiddens. They could, in fact, equally well be assigned to the earlier period,

7800-3800 B.p.. when Elands Bay Cave and Tortoise Cave were also unoccupied, and

reflect subsistence activities in the coastal hinterland at a time when marine resources

were not available, or caves at the coast not accessible.

Parkington (1991: 334) further suggested that the megamiddens were collecting

points ‘scheduled for spring tide days and thus reflect episodic and restricted visits by

people focussed at least partly on the terrestrial resources of the coastal plain. Such

episodes could have been of 3 or 4 days duration and may have been seasonally restricted

or not’.

Plausible though this suggestion is, it must be pointed out that evidence is wanting

for the exploitation of ‘the terrestrial resources of the coastal plain’. As mentioned by

Parkington, the megamiddens contain very few bones of terrestrial animals, and the

absence of faunal remains from the artefact scatters provides no clue as to the

exploitation of food resources of any kind at these sites. Moreover, that the megamiddens

consist mostly of C. meridionalis, which is susceptible to toxification during a ‘red tide’,

makes questionable Parkington’s suggestion that the visits that resulted in their creation

‘may have been seasonally restricted or nof (present author’s emphasis). Branch &

Branch (1981: 109, fig. 140B) said of ‘red tides’ that ‘Although they come and go

unpredictably, their frequent appearance on the west coast of southern Africa usually

follows a pattern’. Their figure shows that ‘red tides’ are most prevalent in summer and

least so in winter, but can occur at any time if conditions (upwelling and favourable wind

conditions) are suitable.

Parkington (1991: 334) continued with the observation that ‘the situation after about

1 700 years ago is markedly different; in such sites, potsherds and animal bones occur.

Coastal sites between 300 and 1 700 years old in the western Cape may be in or out of

rock shelters, are usually small, perhaps 10-100 m? in volume, have substantial quantities

of both marine and terrestrial animal bones as well as artefacts and include bedding

patches, hearths, post holes and pits. The variety of location, foodwaste composition and

artefactual assemblages makes these sites better candidates as temporary domestic camps

and certainly implies a radically different coastal settlement response than that of the

previous millennium. Combined with the far smaller volume of actual midden, the later

phase might reflect longer residential visits to the coast by fewer people. The

correspondence between the appearance of domestic animal bones and pottery in sites

and the distinct shift in settlement details at about 1 700 years ago has prompted us to see

the appearance of pastoralists as the key factor in promoting the change’.

In contrast to Parkington’s suggestion of longer stays at the coast during this period,

Buchanan (1988: 95) concluded from his reconstruction of prehistoric diet for the period

1800-300 Bp. that the duration was ‘about 10/11 days per visit if visited regularly once a

year and a maximum duration to any annual visit of about one month’. Buchanan’s

reconstruction was extensively analysed by the present author (Wilson 1990, appendix). It

was found that almost half (44,6%) of the energy (kilojoule) values from which Buchanan

(1988, table 5.6) derived his total energy budget cannot be accounted for on the basis of

the archaeological data he provided and are therefore merely speculative. The accuracy of

Buchanan’s calculations, which were based on extrapolations of estimates and means and

the application of externally-derived data, was questioned. It was also shown that the

358 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

methods by which Buchanan computed the energy values for each of the components

contributing to the total energy budget contain two or more detectable cumulative error

factors, as well as other probable ones that were not detected (see also Noli 1986). The

magnitude and direction (i.e. under- or overestimate) of the computation errors cannot be

calculated on the basis of Buchanan’s data, but serve to make questionable his total

energy budget and thus any conclusions drawn from it. Also open to question is

Buchanan’s assumption that all the sites in an area were to be attributed to the same small

group of people. In the case of the Elands Bay area, the deposits in Elands Bay Cave,

Tortoise Cave and Spring Cave are contemporaneous, and it 1s difficult to accept that

they would all have been occupied simultaneously by Buchanan’s estimated average of

18 people (Buchanan 1988: 95).

The major weakness in Buchanan’s reconstruction is that he divided the total energy

budget equally among the members of a single hunter-gatherer band and for each of the

1 500 years covered by his reconstruction. Given that Buchanan (1988: 10) chose to ‘focus

on the period from 1800 to 300 Bp. characterised by the presence of pottery’, i.e. by the

presence of the Khoikhoi in the region, he did not take into consideration the almost

certainly increasing effect that the herders must have had on the lives of the hunter-

gatherers and their access to the resources of the coastal region, since this is where the

Khoikhoi mostly established themselves. It must be conceded, however, that a meaning-

ful method of allocating the resources on the basis of probably diminishing access to them

would be extremely difficult to devise and substantiate.

Humphreys (1987: 34) questioned the utility of the seasonal mobility hypothesis and

suggested that current models ‘represent idealized abstractions that in all probability do

not reflect what actually happened in the past’. He used statistics on rainfall from the

northern Cape and Botswana to show that this is so variable that generalizations such as

‘average rainfall’ are meaningless in real-life terms, and that the availability of standing

water can be crucial in determining hunter-gatherer exploitation strategies (Humphreys

1987: 35-36). Historical observations of hunter-gatherers in the northern Cape during the

last century provided evidence that, even in this relatively arid environment, these people

were more or less permanent residents in their territories (Humphreys 1987: 36-37).

Humphreys (1987: 37) concluded that ‘we might not be justified in assuming that seasonal

mobility was a strategy adopted universally throughout southern Africa. If the latter

proposition is true, we have a situation where we are looking for evidence that not only

does not exist but which, even if it did, could probably not be isolated’. Parkington (1991:

332) commented that ‘The seasonal mobility hypothesis should not be taken to apply to

regions more than 100 km inland’.

The effects of changes in the weather, such as long droughts and recurrent drought

cycles that could cause the abandonment of an area, possibly for decades, would

normally not be detectable in the archaeological record. The effects of such episodes

would have been countered by what Humphreys (1987: 36) termed ‘adaptive processes

(the cumulative effects of adaptive behaviour)’. However, Humphreys, who considered

archaeological sites to be a reflection of these adaptive processes, doubted the ability of

archaeologists ‘to be able to isolate ““average’’ adaptive behaviour within the broad

expanse of adaptive processes’.

Although archaeologists refer to material in sites as being in situ, it has actually all

been disturbed by the activities of the occupants of the site, both during and subsequent

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 359

to the occasion when the material was deposited. No matter how meticulously sites are

excavated, current methods are not capable of demonstrating that parts of the deposit

(e.g. layers) relate only to a specific season, for all that they may contain specific seasonal

indicators. It is even to be doubted that if, for example, mussels were eaten only during

the winter months and other shellfish during the summer, this would be detectable

archaeologically. Concentrations of individual shellfish species are sometimes found in

coastal deposits, but these relate to specific meals rather than to specific seasons.

Another factor in the seasonal mobility hypothesis that must be questioned is

whether marine resources are an appropriate dietary replacement for plant foods. This is

discussed in the following sections.

Isotopic analyses of human bone as indicators of prehistoric diet

A challenge to the seasonal mobility hypothesis was provided by Sealy (1986, 1989)

and Sealy & Van der Merwe (1985, 1986a, 1987, 1988), who investigated prehistoric

human diet by means of analyses of the ratios of stable isotopes of carbon ('*C and 13°C)

found in human bone. They suggested that these ratios can be used to determine the

proportion of marine versus terrestrial foods consumed by the individuals whose skeletal

remains they studied. The results of their investigation led them to claim that some of the

people whose remains they analysed had spent their whole lives at the coast.

The analytical processes and their rationale have been fully discussed by these

authors and for the purposes of this study it is only necessary to state they considered

that, in a biome with a C; flora, a more positive 8'°C value of around —11°/,, in human

bone collagen is taken to be indicative of a marine diet, whereas a more negative value of

around —21°/,, is taken to be indicative of a terrestrial diet. Sealy & Van der Merwe

(1986a: 141) suggested that the percentages of marine versus terrestrial foods eaten could

be calculated as

100% marine diet at —16.5°/,, + diet-collagen spacing of +5.1°/,. = bone

collagen 51°C value of —11.4°/,,

100% terrestrial diet at —24°/,, + diet-collagen spacing of +5.1°/,. = bone

collagen 5'°C value of —18.9°/,,

50% marine, 50% terrestrial diet at —20.2°/,, + diet-collagen spacing of

+5.1°/,, = bone collagen 8'°C value of —15.1°/go.

Sealy’s first paper (1986) dealt with 19 human skeletons for which radio-carbon dates

had been obtained, 12 of which came from coastal contexts and seven from inland

contexts. Those from the coast had 6'°C values ranging from —11,2°/,, to —17,4°/oo;

whereas the values for those from the interior ranged from — 16,0°/,, to —19,0°/o, (Sealy

1986, tables 20, 21). This led to the conclusion that ‘inland dwellers consumed very little

marine-based food, whereas coastal dwellers ate considerable amounts’ (Sealy 1986: 89).

Sealy & Van der Merwe (1986a: 142), whose paper dealt with 14 of the same skeletons,

concluded that ‘the isotopic data clearly do not support the prevailing seasonal-mobility

model .... Most of the indicators used to demonstrate summer occupation of the

mountains and winter occupation of the coast are positive indicators. The case for both

phenomena is fairly convincing but does not address the very difficult problem of showing

that winter occupation of the mountains and summer occupation of the coast did not

occur. This is the crux of the problem’.

360 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

This dietary interpretation was questioned by Parkington (1986) and marked the

beginning of a debate largely restricted to the three (Parkington 19875, 1991; Sealy & Van

der Merwe 1986b, 1987, 1988, 1992). The current outcome of the debate is that, whereas

the protagonists of each point of view have made minor modifications to their arguments,

they remain committed to the correctness of their beliefs and unconvinced of that of the

other side.

Sealy (1989, table 5) provided isotope values derived from human bone from

33 males and 29 females, as well as for eight juveniles and four individuals whose gender

could not be determined. Where the males are concerned, five had values of —12°/,, or

more positive and four had values more negative than —15,1°/,,, the most negative value

being — 16,6°/,,. In the case of the females, three had values of —12°/,, or more positive

and eight had values more negative than —15,1°/,,, with the most negative value

—17,9°/,,. In other words, 88 per cent of the males and 76 per cent of the females

consumed more marine foods than terrestrial foods, and more males than females did so.

This is hardly consistent with the general image of a hunter-gatherer society. The four

males with the most negative values and six of the females were dated to 2010 + 50 BP. or

younger, which allows for the possibility that some of them might have been Khoikhoi,

but the indication of a fairly heavy reliance on marine foods is not consistent with what

one would expect of a herder society, for all that Kasteelberg provided evidence of

apparently extensive exploitation of shellfish and seals (see above, in the section on herder

subsistence). The Kasteelberg sites yielded only a single juvenile burial, with an isotope

value of —15,9°/,,, (Sealy 1989, table 5). A. B. Smith (1990 pers. comm.) said that these

were the remains of a girl of about eight years.

Kinahan (1991, table 4.2) published details of the 51°C values of six skeletons from

the #Khisa-//gubus herder site near Walvis Bay (see below, in the section on the

~ Aonin). Four were females, one a male and one was unidentified as to gender. The

values for five of the six ranged from —11,3°/,, to —14,9°/,., indicating a greater

reliance on marine foods than on terrestrial ones, although Kinahan (1991: 114)

considered that these values indicated “an emphasis on animals which feed on browsing,

although evidently grazers were important’. The remaining skeleton, no. 5, a female with

an estimated age at death of 40 years, yielded a value of —7,4°/,,, more than a third more

positive than the value of —11,4°/,, given above as indicating a 100 per cent marine diet.

Kinahan, however, did not comment on this evident anomaly.

Sealy & Van der Merwe (1992: 462) stated that ‘We have made it clear from the first

that we do not believe 5'°C values can be interpreted in terms of the exact percentages of

different foods eaten’. This contradicts their statement quoted above, in which they gave

the values for fully terrestrial and marine diets and one for a half-terrestrial : half-marine

diet. It also calls into question subsequent statements (Sealy & Van der Merwe 19865:

148: 1987: 263; 1988: 93) that a 8°C value of —11°/,, (or, in their 1988 paper, —12°/,,)

was indicative of a wholly (or largely) marine diet.

Sealy & Van der Merwe (1992: 462) also stated that ‘no-one knows exactly how, or

to what extent, carbon in different components of foods (proteins, fats and

carbohydrates) is translated into bone tissue. This is likely to be a very complicated set

of problems, requiring a major effort to solve’. In the circumstances, it is probably wiser

to reserve judgement on the efficacy of the analytic process in the interpretation of

prehistoric diet until the problems have been solved.

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 361

Francalacci (1989: 109) observed that “Trace element analysis is a useful tool for

reconstructing the dietary habits of ancient human populations, but its relative reliability

and the various technical aspects of the method are still debated’. The method thus

appears to be at much the same level of development as isotope analyses and to have the

same potential as these for investigating prehistoric human diets; it could be used as a

control against which to check the results of isotope analyses. Discussing the potential of

the method, Francalacci mentioned that high levels of zinc found in human bones

indicated that marine molluscs were an important food source to the people whose

remains he studied. It would therefore seem to be of interest, and probably of value to

researchers such as Sealy & Van der Merwe, if trace element analysis were integrated into

their palaeodietary research as a complement to their isotope analyses.

The problem of proteins

That people lived exclusively, or more or less exclusively, on marine foods was

questioned by Noli & Avery (1988) on physiological grounds (see also Parkington 1991:

336-338). Discussing the role of the major dietary components—carbohydrates, fats and

proteins—they pointed out that, although there is no limit to the amount of carbo-

hydrates and fats that can be consumed safely, this is not the case where proteins are

concerned. Moreover, it was clear from the various case studies cited by Speth (1987) that

‘consumption of lean meat alone led to symptoms of starvation and protein poisoning

within a week, diarrhoea within 7-10 days, severe debilitation within 12 days and the

possibility of death within weeks’. Thus, despite uncertainty about the maximum amount

of protein that can be consumed with safety, ‘it is clear that people cannot survive long on

protein alone, and, furthermore, that there are severe limitations on the amount of

protein-rich foods that can, in the short term, safely be consumed by humans’. They also

considered that the amount of protein, about 400 g, estimated by Speth (1987) to be the

daily maximum that could be consumed safely, to be ‘an overestimation of the ability of

humans to utilize protein as a major source of energy and [which] would not have been

possible for long’, due to the physiological and metabolic factors they mentioned (Noli &

Avery 1988: 396-397).

Noli & Avery (1988: 399) mentioned further that Krueger & Sullivan (1984) had

suggested ‘that carbon isotopes do not reflect the total diet in humans, but only the

protein component. This would mean that the use of plant foods would not register

isotopically. If this is indeed so, it is not surprising that the majority of values for coastal

people reflect a very strong marine diet’.

Pointing out that ‘It would have been particularly dangerous on the coast to live on

the flesh of shellfish, fish and marine mammals for longer than a few days without the

inclusion of a carbohydrate- or fat-rich source of energy’, Noli & Avery (1988: 399)

concluded that ‘in view of this, existing hypotheses and dietary reconstructions which

assume that coastal hunter-gatherers were able to subsist entirely on protein-rich diets for

protracted periods extending over months, need to be reassessed’.

Speth (1989: 330-331) cited a personal communication from G. F. Cahill jun. that

the apparent upper limit of lean flesh mass that the body can safely handle ‘is about 300 g

or roughly 50 per cent of one’s normal total daily caloric intake’, although conceding that

‘The precise nature and value of this limit, however, remain poorly documented and

controversial’.

362 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

Perhaps the most important aspect of Speth’s paper is the attention he drew to the

need to offset the effects of potential protein poisoning by including, in particular, large

amounts of fat in the diet. Proposing that about 300 g of protein, or SO per cent of total

per capita daily caloric intake under normal, non-stressful conditions is ‘the approximate

upper limit that can be consumed safely on a sustained basis’, Speth (1989: 333-334)

pointed out that “The extent to which this threshold varies among foraging populations

because of genetic factors, or is affected by the absolute amounts or relative proportions

of fat and carbohydrate in the diet, remain[s] unknown’ and that ‘input from medical and

nutritional specialists, as well as more detailed long-term studies of protein intakes

among foragers in different ecological settings and under different dietary regimes are [sic]

critically needed to clarify this issue’.

Speth (1989: 334) cited Stefansson (1944: 90; 1956: 31, 212-213), who had

experimented with living on an all-protein diet and suffered ill-effects, but not when he

lived on a diet of pemmican, as arguing that the ideal mixture for pemmican was ‘about

one pound of fat for every six or seven pounds of lean meat’, which is a minimum of

12,5 per cent of fat in the total meat and fat mixture.

It must be borne in mind that marine fauna, whether molluscs, fish or mammals, do

not consist entirely of protein, and that the human digestive system is capable of adapting

to different diets. Little has been published on the biochemical constituents of southern

African molluscs, particularly with regard to those species that are the most common

components of shell middens: limpets Patella spp., mussels. Choromytilus meridionalis,

Aulacomaya ater and Perna perna, also perlemoen (abalone) Haliotis midae, and

alikreukel or top-shell Turbo sarmaticus. Lombard (1977, table 11) gave information for

T. sarmaticus showing that in the samples of this gastropod he analysed, the protein

content was in the range 63,75-79,62 per cent (mean 71,07%), fat 3,90—6,15 per cent

(mean 4,95%) and carbohydrate 2,88—17,68 per cent (mean 11,11%). Seasonal variation

was observed, with protein values at their lowest in mid- to late summer

(February—April), and at their highest in spring to early summer (September—

November). Waselkov (1987, table 3.4) provided similar data for various shellfish

species and in every case the protein content considerably exceeded the combined fat and

carbohydrate content.

P. Zoutendyk of the Coastal Processes and Management Advice Department, Council

for Industrial and Scientific Research, Stellenbosch (1990 pers. comm.) mentioned that,

during gametogenesis, mollusc gonads produce relatively large amounts of lipids. The

eating of sexually mature shellfish during this period would therefore help alleviate the

debilitating effects of a high-protein intake. However, little research has been done in this

regard and, as far as is known, none with regard to its application to human diet.

Whether the relatively low amounts of fat and carbohydrate indicated by Lombard

and Waselkov would have been sufficient to mitigate the effects of a high intake of

protein, especially over an extended period, is a matter for dieticians to determine; but a

problem here is that a living population on which to test this might not have the same

physiological ability to metabolize such foods as did the indigenous populations who may

have lived in this way. It is arguable, however, that people who lived on a high-protein

diet for part of the year and a high-carbohydrate diet, or even a ‘balanced’ one, for the

rest of the year would probably have had problems in making the necessary physiological

adjustment from season to season, unless the transition was gradual.

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 363

In 1654 it was recorded that ‘Herry’s allies’, presumably the Goringhaiqua, ‘were

busy melting oil from the blubber of the dead whale, (which they preserved in the dried

trombas [the giant kelp Ecklonia maxima] . . .) with which they explained that they grease

themselves, and if they get bread from us, dip it in and thus eat’ (Moodie ed. 1960: 46).

Dapper (1668 in Schapera ed. 1933: 57) commented that ‘The Saldanhars or Cochoquas

and other neighbouring Hottentots live in the dry summer on their cattle, but in the

winter on certain roots growing in the ground in the rainy season’. None the less, there is

evidence that fats and carbohydrates were part of the diet of the Khoisan, and it is

unlikely that the faunal remains from archaeological sites represent only the protein

intake of the people responsible for the deposits or, for that matter, their whole diet.

DISCUSSION

Goodwin (1946: 5) reported that he had ‘watched a man collect, cook and devour a

petrol-tin full of shell-fish’. On that basis, he calculated that in a year six people would

accumulate over 50 m°* of uncompressed shell or 5m? of compressed shell; he concluded

that ‘It is clear that a considerable bulk of fish shell [sic] does accumulate’. If Goodwin’s

calculations are anywhere near accurate, they provide good support for the suggestion

that people did not eat shellfish throughout the year—at least, not in those quantities.

Were they to have done so, it is likely that the middens that have accumulated during the

past 2 000 years or so since the sea reached its present level would be considerably bigger

than they are, and coastal caves, which generally have a longer history of occupation,

would have been filled rapidly. This does not, of course, mean that Goodwin’s suggestion

can be used to support the seasonal mobility hypothesis, especially since there is no

accurate information regarding the size of the groups who lived in the coastal region

during the course of its human occupation, or of the size of their territories.

The extensive Holocene shell midden deposits in Die Kelders cave were accumulated

during a relatively short period of about 500 years (Schweitzer 1979, table 1). There are at

least three ways in which this could have happened:

1. they are the result of year-round occupation of the site by a small group;

2. they accumulated as a result of shorter, perhaps seasonal, visits by a larger group than

the hypothetical permanent occupants;

3. they were deposited by groups, possibly of the same size as those in (2), who made

short but frequent visits, e.g. for a few days once or twice a month during the period

around spring tide, when the shellfish would have been most accessible at low tide.

Schweitzer (1979: 206) mentioned that dune molerats Bathyergus suillus, the most

common mammal in the Die Kelders faunal assemblage, are most active during July

(winter). Although this could lead to the suggestion that the site was occupied during the

winter, it does not prove that this was the only time the site was occupied; there is no

other evidence to support or refute any of the three possibilities outlined above. In

contrast, in the nearby site of Byneskranskop 1, it took some 12 000 years for about 3m

of deposit to accumulate. Even allowing that this site is not a shell midden, the slow rate

of accumulation makes it improbable that the site was occupied more than sporadically,

perhaps only as a way-station en route from the coast to elsewhere, as indicated by the

presence of marine fauna. It may also have been occupied by people travelling in the

opposite direction, but the deposits contain nothing specific to support this. The

364 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

information from Elands Bay Cave, mentioned above, provides evidence of long-term

changes in exploitation of the resources of the area but, as also mentioned above, Sealy &

Van der Merwe (1986a: 142) pointed out that this does not provide evidence of non-

occupation of the site outside the winter months.

It is evident that, whether or not isotopic studies such as those of Sealy & Van der

Merwe do accurately reflect the type of protein, marine or terrestrial, or combinations of

both, attempts at reconstructing the diets of the indigenous peoples must give

consideration to the probability that fats and carbohydrates played an essential part in

their diet. The fact that many coastal deposits, whether in caves or in the open, contain a

sometimes considerable terrestrial component cannot be ignored; and if isotope values for

dated skeletons do not accord with the evidence from similarly-dated archaeological

deposits, then the isotopic interpretation needs to be re-evaluated. However, it must be

borne in mind that there is not a one-to-one correlation between the dietary component

of archaeological debris and the diet of a similarly-dated skeleton, which can only be

inferred. This problem is accentuated by the probability that, whether or not people lived

at the coast temporarily or permanently, they did not always occupy, or return to, a single

site, so that their total diet cannot be determined accurately.

Schwarcz (1991: 273) commented that ‘For maximum effectiveness, any isotopic

paleodiet study should be preceded by an archaeological, archaeo-botanical and -zoo-

logical study to define the list of foods that were actually consumed’ (present author’s

emphasis). Although there is generally little problem in compiling a list of the fauna

found in archaeological sites, the opposite is true where the flora are concerned,

particularly in the coastal region. Although the scarcity or even absence of plant remains

in deposits in the coastal region has been taken as supporting the seasonal mobility

hypothesis, it is likely that the contribution of plant foods will always be underestimated

because of preservation factors, a matter that is touched on in the following section. A

further problem is to determine, from the total of potential dietary components in an

area, what was actually consumed. As a somewhat extreme, but none the less pertinent,

example, Noli (1986: 38) queried the contribution of a hippopotamus to the diet of the

people responsible for the Hailstone Midden at Elands Bay, when this animal was

represented by a single sesamoid. The isotopic studies show, at best, a ratio of marine to

terrestrial proteins: they do not provide information about seasonality except in so far as

they appear to show that, at certain periods, people may have spent more time at the

coast than the seasonal mobility model suggests.

It is open to question as to whether either the Khoikhoi or the San actually needed to

supplement their diets with marine foods: choice, rather than need, is more likely to have

been the determinant, given the archaeological evidence that there seems always to have

been an adequate supply of terrestrial animals of one kind or another. In the terminal

Pleistocene and early Holocene, the transition from extensive grasslands to more closed,

shrubby or forest vegetation seems to have reduced the availability of gregarious bovids

and equids in the coastal region (Klein 1980). This may have resulted in a greater

dependence on marine foods after about 8000 B.p., as indicated by the evidence from

Byneskranskop 1, although at Nelson Bay Cave there was apparently quite a

considerable input from this source some 3000 years earlier. It was mentioned above

that Inskeep (1987) considered Nelson Bay Cave to have been suitable for year-round

occupation from about 10000BP., that Byneskranskop 1 was possibly only a transit

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 365

camp, and that Elands Bay Cave was abandoned for at least two periods during the

Holocene. Observations of this kind need to be integrated into wider regional studies,

with good information on site occupation (dating) and use, including the resources

exploited. Consideration also needs to be given to the likelihood that changes in resource

exploitation were culturally, rather than environmentally, determined.

If problems and lacks, such as those mentioned by Speth (1989), exist with regard to

extant populations, extrapolation of such data as are available and may be obtained in

the future, and their application to the extinct populations studied by archaeologists, can

produce results that, at best, will be only conjectural. Isotopic studies such as those

undertaken by Sealy (1986, 1989) and Sealy & Van der Merwe (1985, 1986a, 1986, 1987,

1988, 1992) and discussed above, offer a provocative challenge to conventional

archaeological interpretation; however, Speth’s comment that ‘input ... [is] critically

needed to clarify this issue’ (Speth 1989: 334) needs to be reiterated.

ARCHAEOBOTANY — PLANT REMAINS FROM COASTAL SITES

Plant foods are an obvious dietary resource to mitigate the effects of a high intake of

protein, and there is abundant ethnobotanical evidence for the use of plant foods, both

endemic and exotic, by the indigenous peoples of southern Africa (e.g. Watt & Breyer-

Brandwijk 1962; Smith 1966; Archer 1982; Fox & Norwood Young 1982). There is also a

fair amount of archaeological evidence in this regard, but most of it comes from sites in

the interior (e.g. Parkington & Poggenpoel 1971; Deacon 1976; Mazel 1992a). Very little

evidence has come from sites at the coast or in the coastal region and, as mentioned in the

preceding section, this has provided one of the major arguments in support of the

seasonal mobility hypothesis.

Excavations by W. J. J. van Rijssen in a shelter in the Great Brak River valley, some

4 km from the coast, yielded considerable quantities of plant remains, mostly of species of

Iridaceae, but also including seeds, those of the yellowwood Podocarpus sp. among them

(personal observation; Van Rijssen in prep.). In contrast to Byneskranskop 1 and,

apparently, Oakhurst, both of which are further from the coast than the Great Brak

River shelter, this site yielded relatively little marine shell.

Liengme (1987, table 5) listed 25 plant species found in the deposits in Elands Bay

Cave. Of these, 11 are edible, or could be, depending on their species, which was generally

not given. Information as to the stratigraphic location of these residues was also not

given, but they are presumed to date from after the second hiatus, or after about 3800 BP.

(Parkington 1987a: 7).

The only plant remains recorded from the deposits in Die Kelders cave were small

patches of the estuarine eel-grass Zostera capensis (Schweitzer 1979: 206) which is not

known to be edible. The quantities were too small for it to have been used as bedding and

the reason for its presence is unknown. However, in the course of the new excavations

carried out in the cave during 1992 by G. Avery, quantities of seeds were recovered, at

least one kind being of an edible species (personal observation). Further information will

become available when the samples have been analysed.

Plant remains were recovered from throughout the deposit at Byneskranskop 1,

except the basal layer (Schweitzer & Wilson 1982, table 23). These include five, and

possibly more, edible species. However, although the bulk of the sample from this site

366 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

was not analysed, the total amount recovered was small relative to the amount of faunal

material (personal observation). Thus, though preservation factors should not be

overlooked, it seems that plant foods, or those with preservable residues, were not an

important factor in the diets of the occupants while they were in the cave.

Inskeep (1987: 210-212, table 55) recorded the presence of only four edible or

possibly edible plant species in the Holocene upper levels of Nelson Bay Cave. The seeds

represent only a proportion of the 114 that were recovered, and only 18 Watsonia sp.

corm bases were found. The Nelson Bay Cave evidence also suggests that there was not a

great reliance on plant foods, although in all the cases cited preservation factors should

not be overlooked. Inskeep’s table 15 gave the seasonal availability of these plants, which

covers all the months of the year according to species. As mentioned previously, Inskeep

(1987: 293) considered that Nelson Bay Cave was suitable for year-round occupation

from at least 10000 Bp.

The most common plant remains in Inskeep’s excavation were those of Jatropha

capensis (Inskeep 1987, appendix 46). The part present was not specified, but the number,

54 in two adjacent squares of Unit 131, with four more in other units, suggests that these

were seeds. Watt & Breyer-Brandwik (1962: 420-422) reported that the sap of J. capensis

(Euphorbiaceae) contains hydrocyanic (prussic) acid and has been used as an internal

remedy for tuberculosis and other respiratory ailments, also for the treatment of

ringworm. However, the seeds of other Jatropha species, also poisonous if eaten raw or in

quantity, after being lightly roasted and the pericarp removed, have been used as

purgatives.

DISCUSSION

The sparse botanical evidence from these sites does little to counter the seasonal

mobility hypothesis or to refute the claim that coastal peoples had a more or less

exclusively marine diet. It is certainly not true to say that, from the archaeological

literature, ‘It is ... clear that terrestrial hunter-gatherer diets included large amounts of

plant foods, with meat providing a supplement rather than a regular staple’ (Sealy et al.

1987: 2715). Protein-rich foods, whether of terrestrial or marine origin, are not an

appropriate dietary substitute for the vitamins, carbohydrates and fibre obtainable from

plant foods. More research needs to be carried out with regard to the range and seasonal

availability of the numerous edible plant species within the coastal region, including those

that leave no residues. The problem here is that, no matter what might be assumed to have

been eaten, or for which there is ethnographic evidence, unless the remains of such plants

are found in archaeological deposits, the case for such use cannot be convincingly argued.

Of 40 species of plants eaten by the modern inhabitants of the Kamiesberg region in the

north-western Cape interior (Archer 1982), only about 10 would leave detectable

residues, or might do if preservation was good. Similarly, the remains of only about half

of the two dozen plants recorded during Simon van der Stel’s expedition to Nama-

qualand in 1685-1686, as being used by the Khoikhoi for food or medicinal purposes

(Waterhouse 1932; De Wet & Pheiffer eds 1979), would be likely to be preserved.

Grevenbroek (1695 in Schapera ed. 1933: 188) observed that it was the men’s

duty to prepare the winter's supply of food, ‘to wit wild almonds [Brabejum

stellatifolium| ... roots of the larger arum [Zantedeschia aethiopica] ... and various

bulbs. [They], in their spare time, and as a hobby, expose these nuts and roots to the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 367

sun, and roast them with a little fire, and when they have thus become fit to stand the

passage of time they bestow them in ditches and caves, as if in a storehouse’ (present

author’s interpolations).

There is no evidence for the use of storage pits anywhere in the southern to western

Cape coastal region, other than those found during Van Rijssen’s excavations in the

shelter in the Great Brak River valley (Van Rijssen in prep.; personal observation). It

seems, though, that it would require more than a spare-time occupation or ‘hobby’ to

collect, prepare and store a quantity of these foodstuffs sufficient to last even a small,

extended-family group for the four or five months of the Cape winter and until the new

crop could be harvested.

There is also the problem of how many plant species are capable of being stored. The

fruit of the so-called sour fig Carpobrotus edulis (actually one of the Mesembryanthe-

maceae) can be dried, and it is probable that the corms of the Iridaceae and the rhizomes

of Zantedeschia aethiopica could be stored, as suggested by Grevenbroek’s observation,

but information is not available as to their palatability in such a condition, or their

durability. Several of the pits in the Great Brak River valley shelter appear to have been

lined with the outer casing of Boophane disticha bulbs (or another large species of the

Amaryllidaceae) and contained bundles of the leaves of Iridaceae as well as corm scales

and bases. Most of the trees and shrubs whose seeds were found in the sites mentioned

bear fruit in the spring or summer, but it is doubtful that their berries could be stored for

any length of time.

A major problem that also needs investigation is the agent(s) of introduction, which

could be animals, birds, the wind, as well as humans.

Archaeobotany is another field in which much work still needs to be done. In this

regard, techniques for the recovery of microbotanical remains need to be applied more

consistently than is the case at present. Research in this field should also include the study

of plants that were recorded as having other than dietary uses, such as for medicinal

purposes or the manufacture of clothing and equipment.

ETHNOGRAPHY — THE #4AONIN

In the context of the debate on whether people did, or could, live more or less

exclusively on marine foods, it is pertinent to provide information on recent coastal-

dwelling people in southern Africa. Budack (1977) studied the #Aonin or ‘Topnaar’, a

small Nama Khoikhoi tribe living in Namibia in the vicinity of Walvis Bay. Among them

also lived a few Dama, people originally of Negro stock who have integrated with the

tribe physically as well as socially (Budack 1977: 2).

Sydow (1973) published a useful and interesting synthesis of the history of these

people, from what was apparently the first contact by Dutch from the Cape in 1670 (see

Moodie ed. 1960: 307-308; also 362-363 for a visit in 1678) until the nineteenth century.

Nienaber (1989: 135-156) consulted a wider range of sources than did Sydow and

drew attention to the wide range of interpretations that have been made of #ao, ‘top’. He

concluded that, whatever the claims made regarding the former prosperity of the

# Aonin, by the time they were specifically identified, in the early nineteenth century, they

were an impoverished and socially degraded people who had acquired their nickname

from their habit of fleeing to the mountaintops to escape their enemies, who robbed them

of their goats and cattle.

368 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

The #Aonin formerly consisted of two sections, the !Khuisenin, ‘!Khuiseb people’,

who lived further inland along the !Khuiseb River and came to the coast only seasonally,

and the Hurinin, ‘sea people’, who lived near the coast (Budack 1977: 12). The

'Khuisenin had large and small livestock and when they came to the coast did not fish,

but concentrated on harvesting the ‘nara melons Acanthosicyos horridus (Cucurbitaceae)

that grow wild among the dunes. The flesh of these can be eaten while fresh

(November—April) and the seeds dried and stored for later use. The Hurinin had no

livestock and harvested not only the /nara but also the produce of the sea (Budack 1977:

7, 13-14).

The Hurinin fished by means of traps made of baskets or weirs woven of rushes, by

spearing, or by catching with the bare hands. The flesh of stranded whales and dolphins

was also much appreciated, as were fish washed up after being killed by ‘red tide’. Budack

(1977: 37) reported that none of his #Aonin informants had ever observed or heard of

any cases of poisoning such as can result from a toxic ‘red tide’, and a study of

21 dinoflagellates from the area revealed none that appeared to be toxic. (Kinahan (1991:

112) mentioned that the floor of the Walvis Bay lagoon is periodically disturbed by

eruptions of sulphuretted hydrogen, which cause mass mortalities of fish.) Seals were

clubbed, turtles, sea-birds and flamingoes caught and their eggs also eaten, as were

various species of shellfish, notably limpets Patella spp., brown mussels Perna perna and

white mussels Donax serra. Only a few shellfish were eaten at the beach, the bulk being

taken to the dwellings, which were inland: ‘Settlements next to the beach were unknown’

(Budack 1977: 14—36).

DISCUSSION

The evidence is that the Hurinin, the #Aonin who lived near the coast, had an

economy that was largely marine-based but also included an important terrestrial

component, the /nara, which provided a year-round supply of vegetable food. Watt &

Breyer-Brandwijk (1962: 345) reported that Acanthosicyos horridus 1s rich 1n protein, the

‘cake’ yielding 61,3 per cent, whereas the seeds yielded 44,28—46,30 per cent of a light oil.

Dentlinger (1977, unnumbered and unpaginated table) provided the following

information:

Protein Fat Carbohydrate

Flesh (fresh) 1,4% 1.9% 11,1%

Flesh (cake) 11,2% 15.4% D/O

Seeds 30,7% 57,0% 34,0%

the cake being the boiled and sun-dried flesh, from which much of the fat was allowed to

drain (Dentlinger 1977: 28). Fox & Norwood Young (1982: 165) stated that the seeds,

which were dried and used for winter consumption, tend to become rancid after a time.

However, the cake, rolled or cut into strips, lasts for years.

Kinahan (1991: 98) cited information from A.S. Wehmeyer (in /itt.) that the fresh

melon yields 265 kJ/100g, which compares favourably with 231 kJ/100g for Donax

serra. The dried cake yields up to 1 342 kJ/100 g, whereas the seeds yield as much as

2 709 kJ/100 g. The /nara is thus a rich source of food energy.

There is a great difference in the protein content of the cake given by the two sources,

which makes it difficult to evaluate the role of the /nara in the diet of the Hurinin. If

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 369

Dentlinger (1977), rather than Watt & Breyer-Brandwijk (1962), provided the correct

analysis, the amount of oil or fat may have been adequate to compensate for the ingestion

of plant and animal protein. It may also be that the relatively high oil or fat content of the

seeds moderated the effects of the protein ingested in the pulp and the marine foods.

However, oil and fat derived from fish and marine mammals were also important items in

the diet of the Hurinin. Budack (1977: 20-21) reported that fish oil was extracted from the

heads of ‘salmon’ (according to Kinahan (1991: 110), the salmon-like cob Argyrosomus

hololepidotus) by boiling, but the mackerel Scomber japonicus was called tana-tsiib or

‘headache’, because it is very fat and it was believed that eating too much of it could cause

a headache. Oil rendered from the blubber of whales ‘was chiefly used for food’, mixed

with ground dried fish; the fat of seals was also eaten (Budack 1977: 26, 29).

In the light of the current debate regarding the effects of excessive protein intake, it is

unfortunate that a more complete study of the diet of the Hurinin was not undertaken.

Appended to the information regarding the preparation and use of the sun-dried flesh of

whales and dolphins is the comment that ‘In earlier times it was also crushed in a mortar

and mixed with vegetables’ (Budack 1977: 26). Dentlinger (1977: 29-30), who studied the

'Khuisenin of the interior, mentioned that these people ate maize meal and bread as well

as, occasionally, other wild plant foods. This suggests that the ‘nara may not have been

the only plant food eaten by the Hurinin, but information in this regard was not

provided.

Budack (1977: 2) mentioned that other Khoikhoi tribes still refer to the #Aonin as

'Naranin, */nara people’, and commented: ‘The term !Naranin has a slightly derogatory

connotation. Other Khoe-khoen look down on the #Aonin, because the latter, like the

Bushmen, are dependent on veldkos for a considerable part of the year.’ This is a rather

surprising, and perhaps somewhat recent, attitude since there is abundant evidence in the

early records that the Khoikhoi also ate veldkos (wild plant foods) (e.g. Kolb 1738: 162,

204, 207, 209; Moodie ed. 1960: 396, 404, etc.; Raven-Hart 1967: 33, 100, 128-129, 180,

etc.; Thunberg in Forbes ed. 1986 passim). However, Dentlinger (1977: 31) commented

that ‘Being dependent on nara implies being poor, and being poor implies having no cash

to buy more desirable commodities ... and dependence on nara has become an indication

of low social status’.

Kinahan (1991: 87-122) studied the archaeology of the !Khuiseb delta and found that

the archaeological evidence contradicted Budack’s (1977) observation that pastoralists did

not exploit marine resources. The site of 4 Khisa-//gubus is in the dunefield within 8 km of

Walvis Bay and was occupied after the middle of the eighteenth century (Kinahan 1991: 100,

103). It yielded the remains of a total of some 2 500 fish, predominantly the sea barbel

Galeichthys feliceps, as well as those of whales, dolphins, seals, penguins and cormorants,

whereas domestic stock was represented by minimum estimates of 28 sheep/goats and five

cattle (Kinahan 1991: 110-112). Kinahan (1991: 117) considered that the site, with its

important waterhole, was a post for trading with the Europeans, and cited the evidence of

early visitors, who noted that domestic stock were absent from herder camps near the coast,

so that they had to wait several days before the animals were brought from stockposts in the

interior. As mentioned previously, Kinahan (1991: 107) considered that pots were used for

cooking /nara flesh prior to making it into cakes.

The disparities between Kinahan’s archaeological evidence and Budack’s ethno-

graphic observations are probably the result of chronological differences: Kinahan (1991:

370 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

122) commented that, by the early years of the present century, ‘the nomads were no

longer independent herdsmen, but dispossessed vagrants and squatters’.

Whatever the case, the Hurinin appear to provide evidence that it is possible to

survive on a high-protein and largely marine diet along with, apparently, a relatively high

intake of animal and vegetable fats or oils, although a complete analysis of their total diet

would be necessary to confirm this. It seems, though, that because the Hurinin lived

within reach of the coast, and had done so for some time, their bodies were adapted to the

efficient metabolism of the foods they ate.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this study was to examine the evidence relating to the ‘Strandloper

concept’: that there were people who lived on the southern African coastline by

beachcombing and who were of a different race from those also recorded as having lived

there. The information provided by the early travellers and settlers was dealt with first

because it antedated the development of anthropology in the subcontinent and thus set

the scene for subsequent physical anthropological and archaeological interpretations.

The first indigenous inhabitants seen by the voyagers from Europe, at Mossel Bay in

1488, were undoubtedly herders, but the identity of the second group, seen at St Helena

Bay in 1497, is not clear. On the basis of the information provided, some of which was

evidently added later, they appear to have been hunter-gatherers— there was no evidence

of domesticated animals; however, the men were away from their home base, so that the

absence of livestock cannot be accorded undue significance. That they wore copper beads

in their ears is made more problematic in the light of the apparent lack of possession of

metal by the herders in the western coastal region until they started bartering their

livestock for it with the European voyagers. Later, it was found by the European settlers

that the territory of the Little Namaqua, to the north of most points of early contact, was

evidently the source of all the indigenous copper, which appears to have been restricted to

them. The men of St Helena Bay may thus have been Namaqua who left their beasts at

their kraal, or they may have been hunter-gatherers who had by some means acquired

copper ornaments from the Little Namaqua. The limited dietary evidence is that the

people met at St Helena Bay subsisted on both terrestrial and marine resources.

For more than a century after Da Gama’s visit to St Helena Bay, the descriptions of

the indigenous people of the coastal region were exclusively of people who can be

identified as herders. From early in the seventeenth century, however, the presence was

recorded in the Table Bay area of a small group of people who had no domestic animals

of their own and were said to subsist on what they could find along the shore, together

with the roots of certain plants. These were the people who became known to the first

European settlers as ‘Strandlopers’, ‘Watermen’ and ‘Vismans’ and whose Khoikhoi

name was Goringhaicona. It is not clear whether these people were outcasts from

Khoikhoi tribes or whether they were former hunter-gatherers who had established some

sort of clientary relationship with the Goringhaiqua, who occupied the Cape Peninsula,

or a mixture of both, but their name, meaning ‘children of the Goringhaiqua’, clearly

implies subordinate status. It was pointed out that the observations on the Strandlopers

before 1652 were only partial, being based on what was seen when ships called at Table

Bay. It was suggested that the way of life of this group may have been a response to the

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT Swill

perceived advantages of being the first to make contact with the voyagers and by acting as

intermediaries in the bartering process, both then and after the establishment of the white

settlement. Their way of life, as described, was typical of neither hunter-gatherers nor

herders, and the later documentary information is that they were either absorbed into the

service of the settlers or moved away from the area. Certainly, by the early eighteenth

century, when the Khoikhoi way of life was shattered by the plagues that affected them

and their livestock, the Strandlopers had ceased to exist as a visible entity. The only other

records of Strandlopers, at Saldanha Bay and east of the Peninsula during the latter part

of the seventeenth century, are sparse and inconclusive except in so far as these men were

mostly recorded as not having possessed domestic animals, although on occasion there

were herders in the area. Information on the diet of these people was not provided.

The observations of Gordon and Paterson (see page 313-315) in the north-western

Cape coastal region during the late eighteenth century, although also only partial, were of

hunter-gatherers living there who subsisted on marine and terrestrial foods, but it is not

clear whether they were permanently or only seasonally resident at the coast. The

evidence is, however, that they were not restricted to the mouth of the Orange River, but

moved along the coast as well as some distance into the interior.

It was suggested that the ‘Strandloper concept’ was probably revived in the

nineteenth century by the publication of the first part of Moodie’s The Record (1960), at a

time when people were beginning to interest themselves in the anthropology and

prehistory of the Cape. It was almost certainly from this source that the name

‘Strandloper’ found its way into the registers of the South African Museum, whence it

was adopted by Shrubsall (1907, 1911) in his studies of South African crania, and by

Peringuey (1911) in the earliest local study of the South African Stone Age.

It was shown that, statistically at least, there is virtually no difference between the

male ‘Strandloper’ and ‘Bushman’ crania that Shrubsall used in his study, an observation

supported by his own statistics. Because all the ‘Strandloper’ crania came from coastal

contexts, it is presumed that this was Shrubsall’s reason for assigning them to this

category, but there is a lack of information regarding the provenance of the ‘Bushman’

and ‘Hottentot’ crania. These may well have been assigned to their categories on the basis

of previous metrical studies, perhaps of living populations, rather than on the basis of

their having been those of individuals who had been known in their lifetimes. Shrubsall’s

summary statistics indicate that the range of the individual measurements for each group

overlaps that of each of the other two groups and, if nothing else, provide support for

Schultze’s (1928) conclusion that the ‘Hottentots’ and ‘Bushmen’ form a biological group

that is distinct from all the other peoples of Africa but cannot be separated into

individual sub-groups. It was also shown that, on the basis of Keen’s criteria for the

identification of ‘“Hottentot’ and ‘Bushman’ skulls using their ‘typical’ cranial indices, the

‘Strandloper’ males in Shrubsall’s sample could be classified as ‘Hottentot’, ‘Bushman’

and, mostly, “‘Bush-Hottentot’ hybrids, whereas the females were ‘Bushman’ or also

mostly hybrids. These early craniological studies do not support the suggestion that the

Strandlopers were a race distinct from the Khoisan.

Information on cultural aspects of coastal populations, as indicated by artefact

assemblages from archaeological sites, was surveyed. It is considered that there is still too

little knowledge of the nature and causes of the variability, both spatial and temporal,

that can be observed in these assemblages for a valid distinction to be made between

312 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

hunter-gatherer and herder sites. It was suggested that more work needs to be done,

particularly with regard to the assemblages of the ‘post-Wilton’ of about the last

3 500 years, which appear to resemble those of the pre-Wilton Albany industry. There is

no evidence to support the existence of a population in the western coastal region that

was technologically distinct from any other contemporary population in the region, even

after the advent of pastoralism some 2 000 years ago. Information on the technology of

the pastoralists, other than their pottery, is for the most part not yet available and must

await publication of that from the Kasteelberg sites and others that may yet be

discovered. The present evidence, however, is that the pastoralist tool-kit lacked the wide

range of formally retouched stone tools that characterize the Wilton industry, and which

started to diminish well before the herders arrived in the coastal region.

Since the major basis for the identification of the Strandlopers in the early records,

other than their not possessing domestic stock, was their supposedly miserable

subsistence mode, it was appropriate to consider the archaeological evidence for

subsistence. The overview showed that, almost without exception, sites in the coastal

region that contain food debris, whether these are in caves or in the open, reveal that

terrestrial foods were eaten as well as marine ones. The evidence for this dates from the

Upper Pleistocene, but is sparse until the late Pleistocene, and is best in the Holocene. All

sites in the coastal region that date to before 2000B.p. are to be assigned to hunter-

gatherers, but after that date there is evidence, in the western part, for the presence of

herders and, in the eastern part, for farmers. The evidence for herder subsistence is at

present restricted to the Kasteelberg sites, full information from which is still to be

published. Where the Iron Age farmers are concerned, the scanty evidence for the Early

Iron Age suggests that these people were agriculturalists who obtained their animal

protein from shellfish and fish as well as from terrestrial mammals; but, in the Late Iron

Age, pastoralism was added to their subsistence base and possibly became their main

source of animal protein.

Attempts at dietary reconstruction, or even at assessing the proportionate

contribution of marine and terrestrial foods, are hampered by the practice of retaining

all bone but, in most cases, of only sampling marine shell, so that this important

component is under-represented and the contribution of shellfish to the diet under-

estimated. The isotopic analyses of human bone by Sealy (1986, 1989) and Sealy & Van

der Merwe (1985, 1986a, 19866, 1987, 1988, 1992) appear to provide evidence that the

people on whose skeletons the analyses were carried out had diets that included marine

foods in varying amounts, and that this dietary component was more common in the

period 3000-2000 Bp. than in the preceding or succeeding periods. What is in question,

however, is the accuracy of the method, and whether it is capable of showing the

contribution of other dietary components besides protein. That people could live more or

less exclusively on a high-protein diet derived from marine foods was questioned on the

basis of evidence that excessive ingestion of protein can cause illness and even death

within a short period.

It was suggested that the isotope analyses do not effectively overturn the seasonal

mobility hypothesis, which is itself in need of re-evaluation, since the evidence for this

is based on positive seasonal identifiers and does not take into account the

contemporaneous presence of non-seasonal components. That the isotope analyses

appear to show that some people at some times had a higher intake of marine foods

THE ‘STRANDLOPER’ CONCEPT 373

than other people at other times is, in some cases, a reflection of the evidence

provided by the archaeological fauna. The isotopic data show, too, what the

archaeological fauna also shows: that people, in general, did not live solely by

‘strandloping’, but rather that they exploited the resources of the coastal region, both

terrestrial and marine. In this regard, future re-evaluation of the seasonal mobility

hypothesis should allow for the testing of the hypothesis that territories differed

according to the environment of the area and the resources it provided. The model of

movement between the coast and the mountains is too simplistic and should

encompass more complex and variable patterns of movement, both in time and space.

Because of the general homogeneity of artefact types in the coastal region, there is

little cause for optimism that archaeologists will be able to define with any reasonable

certainty the territories of individual groups. If this is indeed the case, they will also

not be able to reconstruct prehistoric diet to the extent that could be

desired—certainly not to that attempted by Buchanan (1988).

Plant foods are an appropriate dietary resource to mitigate the effects of a high

animal protein intake, but the archaeological evidence for the use of these is sparse,

leaving their contribution to prehistoric diet to be inferred rather than demonstrated.

Modern ethnographic evidence, in the form of Budack’s (1977) study of the Hurinin of

Namibia, is that this group was accustomed to living on a diet that consisted almost

entirely of a variety of marine resources, together with a single plant food species, the

‘nara melon. Although Budack did not carry out a comprehensive analysis of the

contribution of the various dietary components, his information provides evidence that

people can subsist on a largely marine diet as long as there is also input from plant foods,

and it is probable that this was also the case in the past.

To conclude, the evidence of both the early records and archaeology is that the diet

of people in the coastal region—hunter-gatherers, herders and farmers—included

terrestrial as well as marine foods, so that their subsistence mode cannot be described as

‘strandloping’: the eking out of their existence by beachcombing. That this appeared to be

the way of life of the Goringhaicona, the ‘Strandlopers’ of the seventeenth century, is a

mistaken view based on partial evidence and coloured by the cultural prejudices of the

observers. What the archaeological evidence does show is that the coastal region was

occupied by people who had an intimate knowledge of the resources of the coastal region,

and that they exploited these resources in ways best suited to their needs.

There is also no evidence to support suggestions that there were people in the

western half of the coastal region who were biologically or culturally different from the

Khoisan, making due allowance for the fact that there may be evidence for spatial and

temporal biological variation and that aspects of the culture of the Khoikhoi herders

differed from that of the San hunter-gatherers, and that the ‘culture’ of the

Goringhaicona was typical of neither group. There is no evidence for the presence of

the Khoikhoi in the eastern part of the coastal region, which was occupied initially by

hunter-gatherers and later by Nguni farmers, who differed from the Khoisan both

biologically and culturally.

There is, therefore, no justification for the general use of the name ‘Str. ndloper’,

which incorrectly reflects the various ways of life of the peoples of the coastal region. Use

of the name as an informal sobriquet for the Goringhaicona should be accompanied by

explanation that they were not mere beachcombers, but people who had adapted their

374 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM

life-style to accommodate their interaction with the European voyagers and settlers and

the Khoikhoi herders.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As will be seen from the text and bibliography, the author is considerably indebted

to all the researchers and recorders whose publications have been consulted, or to which

reference has been made, and the results of whose work have been used. Without the

benefit of their contributions, this study would have been immeasurably the poorer —if,

indeed, it would have been possible at all.

In addition to the assistance provided by these people, there are many others who

have contributed in numerous ways: colleagues at the South African Museum, Graham

Avery, Bill van Rijssen, Vivien van Zyl and Louis Lawrence (Archaeology); Margaret

Avery (formerly Archaeology, now Cenozoic Palaeontology); Thea Reyneke (now

retired), Rina Krynauw, Jacqueline Truman-Baker and Isgaq Bendie (Library); Bettie

Louw and Wendy Powell (Publications) and Gerald Klinghardt (African Studies &

Anthropology). Thanks are also due to Richard Klein, Stanford University; John

Lundy, Clark College, Vancouver WA; Alan Morris, University of Cape Town (UCT)

Medical School; John Parkington and Judy Sealy, UCT Archaeology Department;

Dieter Noli, a Ph.D. graduate, UCT Archaeology Department; Janette Deacon,

National Monuments Council; Lita Webley, Albany Museum, Grahamstown; Winston

Mahola, Port Elizabeth Museum; Jeff Peires, University of Transkei; and Thea

Toussaint van Hove, friend and voluntary co-worker in the Museum’s Archaeology

Department. Alan Barnard, Edinburgh University, Garth Sampson, Southern

Methodist University, Dallas, and Andrew Smith, UCT, are thanked for comments

on a previous version of this study.

The opportunity is taken to pay tribute to Professor G.S.Nienaber of the

Naamkundesentrum, Instituut vir Taal- en Kultuurnavorsing, Human _ Sciences

Research Council, Pretoria, now retired, whose onomastic research on the Khoekhoen

(to use his preferred orthography) is without equal, and whose friendly and instructive

correspondence over the years has been of great benefit.

This study is based on a thesis accepted by the University of Cape Town for the

M.A. degree in Archaeology (Wilson 1990). The University authorities are thanked for

permitting this to be mentioned, and for having waived the University’s rights to

publication (R. Purvis 1990 in Jitt.).

Whatever merits this study may have are largely due to those whose work has

contributed to it. The interpretations and any errors are, however, the author’s own and

the responsibility for these is entirely his.

REFERENCES

ARCHER, F. M. 1982. °n Voorstudie in verband met die eetbare plante van die Kamiesberge. Journal of

South African Botany 48 (4): 433-449.

Avery, D. M. 1982. Micromammals as palaeoenvironmental indicators and an interpretation of the late

Quaternary in the southern Cape Province, South Africa. Annals of the South African Museum 85 (2):

183-374.

Avery, G. 1974. Open station shell midden sites and associated features from the Pearly Beach area,

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v x j =

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6. SYSTEMATIC papers must conform to the /nternational code of zoological nomenclature (particu-

larly Articles 22 and 51).

Names of new taxa, combinations, synonyms, etc., when used for the first time, must be followed

by the appropriate Latin (not English) abbreviation, e.g. gen. nov., sp. nov., comb. nov., syn. nov.,

etc.

An author’s name when cited must follow the name of the taxon without intervening punctuation

and not be abbreviated; if the year is added, a comma must separate author’s name and year. The

author’s name (and date, if cited) must be placed in parentheses if a species or subspecies is trans-

ferred from its original genus. The name of a subsequent user of a scientific name must be separated

from the scientific name by a colon.

Synonymy arrangement should be according to chronology of names, i.e. all published scientific

names by which the species previously has been designated are listed in chronological order, with all

references to that name following in chronological order, e.g.:

Family Nuculanidae

Nuculana (Lembulus) bicuspidata (Gould, 1845)

Figs 14-15A

Nucula (Leda) bicuspidata Gould, 1845: 37.

Leda plicifera A. Adams, 1856: 50.

Laeda bicuspidata Hanley, 1859: 118, pl. 228 (fig. 73). Sowerby, 1871: pl. 2 (fig. 8a—b).

Nucula largillierti Philippi, 1861: 87. :

Leda bicuspidata: Nicklés, 1950: 163, fig. 301; 1955: 110. Barnard, 1964: 234, figs 8-9.

Note punctuation in the above example:

comma separates author’s name and year

semicolon separates more than one reference by the same author

full stop separates references by different authors

figures of plates are enclosed in parentheses to distinguish them from text-figures

dash, not comma, separates consecutive numbers.

Synonymy arrangement according to chronology of bibliographic references, whereby the year is

placed in front of each entry, and the synonym repeated in full for each entry, is not acceptable.

In describing new species, one specimen must be designated as the holotype; other specimens

mentioned in the original description are to be designated paratypes; additional material not regarded

as paratypes should be listed separately. The complete data (registration number, depository, descrip-

tion of specimen, locality, collector, date) of the holotype and paratypes must be recorded, e.g.:

Holotype

SAM-—A13535 in the South African Museum, Cape Town. Adult female from mid-tide region, King’s Beach, Port Eliza-

beth (33°51’S 25°39’E), collected by A. Smith, 15 January 1973.

Note standard form of writing South African Museum registration numbers and date.

7. SPECIAL HOUSE RULES

Capital initial letters

(a) The Figures, Maps and Tables of the paper when referred to in the text

e.g. ‘.. . the Figure depicting C. namacolus ...’: ‘.. . in C. namacolus (Fig. 10) .. .’

(b) The prefixes of prefixed surnames in all languages, when used in the text, if not preceded by

initials or full names

e.g. DuToit but A.L. du Toit; Von Huene but F. von Huene

e.g. Therocephalia, but therocephalian

Punctuation should be loose, omitting all not strictly necessary

Reference to the author should preferably be expressed in the third person

Roman numerals should be converted to arabic, except when forming part of the title of a book or

article, such as

‘Revision of the Crustacea. Part VIII. The Amphipoda.’

Specific name must not stand alone, but be preceded by the generic name or its abbreviation to initial

capital letter, provided the same generic name is used consecutively. The generic name should

not be abbreviated at the beginning of a sentence or paragraph.

Name of new genus or species is not to be included in the title; it should be included in the abstract,

counter to Recommendation 23 of the Code, to meet the requirements of Biological Abstracts.