Middle Stone Age Man-Animal Relationships in Southern Africa: Evidence from Die Kelders and Klasies River Mouth

The Middle Stone Age (earlier upper Pleistocene) sites of Die Kelders Cave I and Klasies River Mouth Cave I, southern Cape Province, South Africa, have provided faunal assemblages which imply that Middle Stone Age peoples were exploiting local resources less effectively than Later Stone Age (later upper Pleistocene-Holocene) peoples in the same area. The age structure of the Pelorovis (giant buffalo) herd in the Klasies site suggests that Middle Stone Age hunters may have been responsible for initiating a decline in the species' abundance that culminated in its final disappearance 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.