Mossel Bay has World Heritage Site potential

The picturesque harbour town of Mossel Bay in the Southern Cape is poised to join the esteemed company of African-based World Heritage Sites such as the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng, and Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge.

In a series of coastal caves, buried under layers of ancient sediment, Mossel Bay’s Pinnacle Point may hold the answers to many questions about how and when modern humans evolved, what they ate and the climate of the day, which is why its well-preserved archaeological digs were recently declared a Provincial Heritage Site.

The December 2012 declaration was made in terms of Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Act, based on the fact that the caves reveal evidence of human existence covering a period of around 170 000 years – a time when modern human behaviour was first exhibited.

Once a site has achieved Provincial Heritage Site status, this paves the way for it becoming a National Heritage Site and, in time, possibly a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage Site, according to Professor Curtis Marean, head of the South African Coastal Palaeoclimate, Palaeoenvironment, Palaeoecology, and Palaeoanthropology (SACP4) Project team currently studying evidence unearthed at Pinnacle Point.

Evidence of Stone Age dwellers has been found in the caves, which means people lived there some 165 000 to 50 000 years ago at a time, scientific research tells us, when humans developed the intellectual capacity that eventually led to their migration from the African continent. Some of the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour – the use of fire and pigments, and gathering of shellfish – has been discovered at the site.

The tourism benefits for the local economy are already becoming evident in the growing numbers of academics and students who have been drawn to Mossel Bay by the caves.

To capitalise on the town’s new-found evo-tourism potential, plans have been put in place to build a museum that will house the artefacts being found by SACP4 scientists. Public tours of the sites are expected to become available in the near future, once legalities relating to the archaeological integrity of the sites have been formalised.

It seems Mossel Bay is about to shrug off its former fishing town status and emerge as a site of international palaeontological value. In the words of Alderlady Marie Ferreira, the town’s executive mayor: “The world is learning about Mossel Bay because of Pinnacle Point.”