This short essay describes what is currently known about the archaeology and history of the Stone Age people who lived in the vicinity of Stellenbosch and adjacent Winelands in the Western Cape before European colonisation.

When and where did the human story begin?

There is abundant archaeological evidence from stone tools, and a few human remains, that Stone Age hunter-gatherer people lived in the Western Cape for about a million years. As yet, there is no evidence in this region for the earliest stone tools and fossil hominin remains that date to between 1 and at least 3 million years ago in the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng, Limpopo and North-West provinces. It is not clear whether this is a result of a limited ecological range in which the early hominins lived, or of the absence of suitable geological formations for the preservation of bone.  Read more.