摘要：This paper summarizes the results of a recent survey of the South African “Wild Coast” in Pondoland, Eastern Cape Province. The purpose of the survey was to locate and to describe coastal caves and rock shelters that may contain Early and Middle Stone Age archaeological deposits for future study. The study is part of a much larger research design to understand three basic and interlinked paleoanthropological questions: When did coastal intertidal foraging develop? How did it develop? What role did coastal intertidal foods have on the evolution and survival of early modern humans? Here, we provide the full results of our multi-disciplinary survey. We describe the archaeology, geology, marine, and terrestrial fauna from four near-coastal rock shelters and one coastal open-air site that we intend to test in the future. We also provide the first direct ages of the coastal red sands that contain in situ Early Stone Age Acheulian and early Middle Stone Age flaked stone tools. These optically stimulated luminescence ages show that humans have inhabited Pondoland for over 300,000 years, predating the currently known origins of the modern human lineage and systematic coastal foraging. We also describe the first dated paleoenvironmental sequences for Pondoland, which suggest a shift from C3 to C4 vegetation during the middle Holocene. Lastly, we provide comprehensive notes on all sites in Supplementary Online Materials to benefit future studies across the region and document an area that has seen very limited archaeological research
