Implications of a mass kill site of springbok ( Antidorcas marsupialis) in South Africa: hunting practices, gender relations, and sharing in the Later Stone Age

Abstract

A Later Stone Age site from the Namaqualand coast, South Africa has produced a large sample of springbok ( Antidorcas marsupialis) (MNI = 123) with a catastrophic mortality profile. The ethnography of hunting from the region focuses mainly on the use of bows and poisoned arrows by small groups of male hunters, who targeted individual animals. This site is more consistent with mass harvesting or the capture of a whole herd of animals by trapping, similar to an ethnographic account recorded by Bleek and Lloyd in 1911. This method of hunting is likely to have had far-reaching social implications, especially in terms of gender relations and meat sharing, which have been considered fundamental in organizing dimensions of hunter–gatherer societies.