Marloth Park in the Stone Age

Standing in for Dr Aart Louw, Gerrit Nieuwoudt introduced a collection of stone tools and artefacts, including many found at Gruispan and along Seekoei Road.

The enthusiastic audience was impressed by the sheer number of artefacts that were and still are being found in Marloth Park. He explained how to look for the telltale signs of human working to produce the sharp edges used for cutting and scraping and the sharp points for spear and arrow heads.

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Nieuwoudt discussed the transition from the crude tools used by our ancient ancestors of the Early Stone Age to the delicate and elaborate tools used by more modern ancestors in the Late Stone Age. The collection also featured finds from elsewhere in South Africa, including stone axes and even a beautiful stone, crucible believed to have been used for smelting metal.

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To illustrate the depth of time involved, Nieuwoudt extended a tape measure to 4m. With each millimetre representing one million years, the tape spanned four billion years and the entire history of Homo sapiens was contained in the final 0.2mm. Similarly, for almost all of his history, modern man was a creature of the Stone Age.

After a question-and-answer session, audience members were able to handle and photograph the stone tools and artefacts. The conservancy intends to repeat this event in future to give more people the opportunity to appreciate this fascinating, but underappreciated part of human history in Marloth Park.

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