The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgementTown of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Cape Published by the University ofof Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University THE EXPLOITATION OF FISH DURING THE HOLOCENE IN THE SOUTH- WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA. Town CEDRIC ALAN POGGENPOELCape of Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Arts Degree in Archaeology University DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN 1996 \ •. :! I Town TO MY PARENTS RAY, JOHN AND GWENNIECape of University II ABSTRACT This thesis describes the fish remains recovered from a number of sites in three different localities in South Africa; Elands Bay and Langebaan Lagoon on the west coast, and False Bay on the Cape Peninsula. Chapter One is an introductory account of ichthyology, its usefulness in archaeological research and the range of analytical work done in South Africa, whilst Chapter Two is an attempt to show the history and development of the study of fish bones recovered from prehistoric sites in South Africa. Chapter Three gives an account of the southernTown Oceans, the Benguela Current and fishing habitats. Chapters Four and Five give accounts of the fishing habitats within the Elands Bay area and of the identification and interpretation of fish assemblages excavatedCape at four sites and their implications in relation to habitat and palaeoenvironmental changes at Elands Bay. This information is ofused first to show that the presence or absence of certain species and the size of those species in the archaeological record can be used as an alternative means to interpret late Pleistocene and Holocene sea level fluctuations and to understand to what extent local fishing habitats have been influenced by those changes. An important observation made was the relative surplus or deficit of vertebrae compared to cranialUniversity parts through the sequence. The over-representation or under-representation of fish vertebrae in the fish assemblages points to changes in the procurement strategy employed. The consistency between cranial:vertebral ratios through the site sequences suggests that these patterns are related to both location and processing techniques. Chapter Six reviews the ecology of the Langebaan Lagoon, the identification of fish assemblages from three open midden stations; Stotbergfontein on the shores of the lagoon and Paternoster and Duiker Eiland which are located on the Vredenberg peninsula. Chapter Seven gives a short overview of the modern fishing situation at False Bay and --- --~~~~~~~~~------- III discusses the fish assemblages from Smitswinkelbaai Cave and Rooiels Cave in the False Bay area. Chapter Eight deals with the archaeological evidence for fishing equipment and the depiction of fishing scenes in the rock art of South Africa and addresses the historical evidence for indigenous fishing in the south-western Cape. Chapter Nine gives an overview of the historical fishing at the Cape, the use of outposts near Langebaan Lagoon and Muizenberg in False Bay by the Dutch to supply the Cape settlement with provisions. In Chapter Ten the relevant evidence from each of the chapters is summarised and the conclusions for the three areas are presented. Town Cape of University IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is difficult to conduct a project of this nature without the assistance and co-operation of many people, and I would like to thank all those that have participated at one time or another. My supervisor, John Parkington who initiated the Elands Bay project and knows the excitement and frustrations that we have had as the project developed during the excavations and at the University. I am most grateful for his infectious enthusiasm, his many suggestions and for supervising this project. Ray Inskeep was inspirational in starting the fish identification programme and I am indebted to him for giving me the opportunity to continue research at the University. Town Professors Martin Hall, John Parkington, Nick van der Merwe, Judith Sealy, Andrew Sillen and Andrew Smith, who are all members of the Department of Archaeology, made it possible for me to register at the University, and I thank them for theirCape sustained encouragement and the confidence that they have shown in my ability to complete this assignment. The following persons have givenof me access to their archaeological fish samples, without which this research could not have succeeded; Ray Inskeep, John Parkington, Richard Klein, Tim Robey, Peter Robertshaw, Carmel Schrire, Martin Hall, Andrew Smith and Sharma Saitowitz. My gratitude is also extended to my father, Abel Poggenpoel, in his capacity as a professional fishermen, for the many fish samples that he has collected and for the longUniversity discussions we have had on various fish species, their availability and habits in and around the False Bay area. Thanks are due to Mary Leslie and Judith Sealy for commenting on this thesis. Dawn Fourie, Mike Herbert and Tony Manhire helped in various ways while Royden Yates, John Lanham and Chris Henshilwood have been unfailingly helpful in providing computing assistance in the final stages of this project. A special word of thanks is due to my wife, Gwennie, who is a constant source of encouragement and who has participated in many of our archaeological expeditions, but especially for her support and inspiration over the last five years. d ~--- ------- -------------"-- ------- v BIOGRAPHIC PREFACE Like many a Kalk Bay lad, I am the son of a fisherman. My family has lived in Kalk Bay for four generations wresting a living from the sea rather than from the land. My great grandfather worked in Kalk Bay as a whaler and his son, Dirk Poggenpoel, at eighty years of age, became the oldest working fisherman in the False Bay area. My father, Abel Poggenpoel, is still fishing and working one of the family boats from Kalk Bay. From what I can remember, the first time I made contact with the sea was when Michael Gomez took me down to the harbour at the age of six years to watch the fishing boats return with their daily catches.Town He carried me on his shoulders and took me to the edge of the pier; there he dropped me into the water and encouraged me to swim. After that incident I lost my fear of the water and learnt to swim very quickly. In those days it was believed that all Kalk Bay children should be able toCape swim and pushing people in the water at the harbour was a common thingof to do. My early schooling started at the Holy Trinity primary school in Kalk Bay and every day after school we used to go to the harbour to participate in selling fish, cleaning boats and sometimes fishing from the pier to earn pocket money. As I got older the duties changed to going out with the boats to fish for bait, removing entangled lines from the prop shafts, making copper traces for fishing and going to the abattoir in Simonstown to collect blood for strengtheningUniversity the cotton lines for fishing. One of my major problems was that every time I went to sea I got sea sick. I would have done anything not to go to sea but coming from a fishing family I was compelled to go to sea over weekends and other holidays. I left school at the age of sixteen and whilst waiting for my matric results decided to spend the summer holidays with my mother's family in Sunny Dale near Fish Hoek, to avoid having to go to sea. An interesting bit of history is that my mother's family name is Skilder. They lived just below the mountain ridge where Skildergat is situated. My grandfather was the conservationist for the Skildergat Kop area, where his job entailed the ~I VI protection of wild life, preventing people from squatting in the area and sounding the alarm in the case of veld fires. During the late eighteenth century a man by the name of Skilder had lived in the Tokai area on a farm as a "bywoner". At some later stage there had been a dispute over payment and he had stolen some sheep and a few head of cattle and disappeared over the mountain into the Fish Hoek valley with his family. He had found a cave just below the escarpment in the valley and lived there for some time. The cave, Skildergat, was named after him and later it was renamed Peers Cave. It is possible that he was my ancestor since there were no other people of that surname living in the Fish Hoek valley and all the people with the name Skilder that I know of, living in the Peninsula area today, are decendants of or related to my grandfather. During my stay in Sunny Dale, Andrew Truter, who was a close friend of mine and who had completed his schooling at the same time, became mindful of our cash-flow position and kept a weather-eyeTown on newspaper columns which might yield vacation jobs. During this period nothing really excited me where jobs were concerned, but Andrew was intrigued by an advertisement which called for assistance for a lady archaeologist who was to conduct an excavation at Peers Cave Capein the Fish Hoek valley. He applied for the job and was awarded the position of field assistant. Meanwhile I had scant interest in diggingof up bones and artefacts and went about my holiday alone, not realising that my future was even then being planned, all unknowingly by my friend's mother. For Mrs Truter had no intention that her son should become a hole-digger, and she found him a job with the respected local firm of Irving and Johnson.