Cape Flats

[anthrostudies]

What is the current interpretation, of Cape Flats? Has anyone studied Cape Flats recently, and what did they decide about the relationships?

[Daryl Habel]

Dear anthrostudies,

What is "Cape Flats"?  Perhaps known better by some other designation?  I've never heard of a "Cape Flats" hominid.

I'm still cogitating on my comment about Dali, but will get to it soon.

Dar

[anthrostudies]

Cape Flats is an early modern from South Africa, initially classified as a "South African Australoid". But the suggestion was not being made that Cape Flats was related to Australian aboriginals, but rather, that archaic features were retained in Cape Flats.

Cape Flats is associated with a Middle Paleolithic industry, and the cranial capacity is low. The modern classification, seems to be due to the appearence of the face. I wonder if Cape Flats is actually a hybrid between a modern and an archaic.

[Daryl Habel]

Thanks,

I think Cape Flats is what I've always known as the Boskop South Africans.  From memory, they aren't very "early" moderns, but rather from the Later Stone Age about 10-20 ka IIRC.  I have never heard of a recent study of Boskop.  They are mentioned only in some old books published in the 1960s and 1970s that are on my shelf.

Dar

[anthrostudies]

Thanks,

I think Cape Flats is what I've always known as the Boskop South Africans.  From memory, they aren't very "early" moderns, but rather from the Later Stone Age about 10-20 ka IIRC.  I have never heard of a recent study of Boskop.  They are mentioned only in some old books published in the 1960s and 1970s that are on my shelf.

Dar

No, the Boskopid race are Capoids, while Cape Flats is not. Besides, in my dendrograms, I don't think Cape Flats has ever come out as closest to Homa Shell Mound 4 which is Boskopid.

Unless Boskopid has a less defined use as well.

Thank you for trying to help, but this is obscure isn't it.

[Daryl Habel]

Very obscure.  I got out my copy of J.S Weiner's (1971) "The Natural History of Man", which says, that 23,000-year-old Stillbay-Pietersburg stone tool industry (Middle Stone Age) was associated with a 'Boskop' population at "Cape Flats, Capetown." (p. 113).  Later in the book (p. 117), Weiner ascribes the "so-called Boskop remains" as evidence of "pre-Hottentot stock scattered over a much wider area than that of their distribution when they were first encountered by Bantu and Europeans..."

A further reference from Weiner (p. 117) mentions Cape Flats and Boskop as separate populations, with other South African skeletal material ascribed "....as African Late Middle Stone Age of about 13,000-15,000 years BP, such as that from Matjes River, Fish Hoek and Cape Flats (Cape), Ingwavuna (Natal), Boskop and Springbok Flats in the Transvaal..."

Apparently Weiner groups these all together as "so-called Boskop populations" who lived all over South Africa prior to the arrival of other populations (Bantu) from the north.

Weiner doesn't provide any source references to these populations, and I never see any of them mentioned lately.

Sorry I can't help with anything here.  Also, I apologize for any insult perhaps given by my usage of the above South African ethnic groups. Not intended insult.  I'm only quoting Weiner's usage from 1971 to be clear.

You need someone with detailed knowledge of these skeletal remains.  Good luck!!!

Dar

[anthrostudies]

I think I mignt need luck.