Archaeology at the beach... the MSA

The inter-tidal zone is not exactly a usual place for an archaeological dig.

However after some vicious storms had shifted the boulders around, some interesting horizontal beds were exposed.

These beds are sandstones derived from solidified beach dunes dating to about 120 000 years ago.

This is in the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa and sea levels were much lower due to large ice sheets covering much of Europe.

The black boulders are from a lava intrusion and this lava baked some of the surrounding mudstones into a very useful tool making metamorphic rock.

As a result, the fossilized dunes are scattered with MSA tools and debris from making tools.

Here are some specimens that are exposed at low tides.

These are still partially embedded in the fossil dune sandstones and are covered in barnacles and other sea organisms.

Pictures are not of the greatest quality because of having to rush taking them between waves.

Around the same time, I took some shots, out of the airplane window, of uncharacteristic snow that had fallen in the drakensberg mountains, in the middle of Summer.

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