Coastal foraging and transgressive sea levels during the terminal Pleistocene: Insights from the central west coast of South Africa

Abstract

World shorelines were reconfigured after the Last Glacial Maximum due to rising sea levels. A few South African sites are known to document human adaptive responses on this trajectory, and Elands Bay Cave (EBC) is one among them. EBC faunal and cultural assemblages have been studied, but marine invertebrate remains have not received due attention until now. Successive stages of socio-economic and settlement changes moved in tandem with an approaching coastline. EBC chrono-stratigraphy shows an increasing use of the cave and a domestic character since ~13.2 cal BP when coastal foraging began. Terrestrial resources were common initially, but marine invertebrates were increasingly incorporated into peoples’ diet, with the heaviest predation and smallest limpet sizes by ~11.5 cal BP. Black mussels were dominant almost throughout and, because of unfavourable ecological conditions affecting their growth, sizes were small. Subsistence was reformulated immediately thereafter, around 10.9 cal BP, to include large quantities of marine and terrestrial vertebrates in order to satisfy the demands posed by frequent and long visits at EBC. Some visits seem to have had a ritual component associated with them, probably related to wide and active social networks. This trend ended ~9.0 cal BP when people stopped using EBC.