Shellfish use at the Oakhurst Period at Klipdrift Cave, South Africa.
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Early evidence for the exploitation of Shellfish for subsistence traces back to at least 164 thousand years during the Middle Stone Age in South Africa, and by 100 000-60 000 years ago Shellfish were systematically and intensively exploited at a handful of sites. Evidence for the use of Shellfish for purposes other than food, such as making containers and ornaments, appears from 100 000 to 75 000 years ago in the southern Cape. It is, however, possible that many older sites containing Shellfish remains were destroyed by the Marine Isotope Stage 5e sealevel transgression (between 124 000 and 119 000 years ago, the last interglacial period before the present, when global mean surface temperatures were at least 2°C warmer than today and mean sealevel was 4–6 m higher than at present, following reductions of the Greenland ice sheet). Furthermore, there is little evidence for shellfish exploitation between 50 000 and 14 000 years ago, mainly because of the paucity of coastal sites from this time period (during the last glacial maximum, when sealevels were as much as 125 m lower than today, with the effect that most coastal areas in Southern Africa at the time are now bellow sealevel). Evidence for Shellfish use re-appears at around 14 000 years ago in the southern Cape, at the end of the period associated with the Robberg techno-complex. Shellfish become more abundant in sites during the subsequent period linked to the Oakhurst techno-complex, around 14 000 to 7000 years ago, although sites from this period with shellfish are still relatively uncommon. The most abundant evidence for intensive Shellfish exploitation in South Africa comes from the ‘megamidden’ period, between 3000 and 2000, from the West coast, which is dotted with extensive open shell middens.