With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Charles Bousman and his collaborators will conduct archaeological field work at the site of Blydefontein Rockshelter which is located in the Karoo region of South Africa. They will also analyze the excavated finds. Blydefontein is interesting because its deposits span the last several thousand years and it was during this period that domestic livestock first appeared in Southern Africa. Although the site contains no skeletal remains of domesticates from this period, one layer is composed largely of animal dung which may have been deposited by sheep. The goal of this project is to collect and analyze this material by a variety of techniques. The results will be compared to controlled samples which derive from modern day sheep and from hyraxes - small guinea pig-like animals which also inhabit caves in Southern Africa. Dr Bousman and colleagues will conduct microstratigraphic analysis at the site. They will also study pollen and plant phytoliths which are incorporated into the deposit. Similar analyses will be undertaken with diatoms and calcite spherolites. Disaggregated sediment samples will be inspected in an attempt to identify hair or other materials which could help identify contributors. This research is significant for several reasons. The first is methodological. Given the generally poor preservation of archaeological materials it is extremely difficult for archaeologists to reconstruct the past. Animal bones survive only very rarely and need very specific chemical and geological conditions to be preserved. The techniques that Dr. Bousman and his colleagues hope to perfect will be widely applicable in a large number of situations. Secondly, this research is important because of the new light it will provide on Southern Africa's past. Animals were not domesticated in this region of the world but rather were introduced from the outside. The adoption of sheep and goat and later cattle had an enormous impact of the way people lived. It is unclear when, how or by what means domesticates arrived in this region and Dr. Bousman's research will shed new light on the subject. Finally domestic animals have had major effect on environment and the planned research will increase our understanding of human-environment interactions.
