Ghilraen Laue

• PhD
• Curator at Kwazulu-Natal Museum

The Groot Winterhoek Mountains northwest of Port Elizabeth contain a body of largely unexplored rock art. McAll’s Cave, one of 38 recorded sites, contains exceptionally rich and well-preserved imagery. The range of images found in this shelter is representative of the rock art of the larger area. The content of the art places it firmly within the p...

Differences in southern African San rock art have long been noted, but defining these regions has met with little success. The interpretative approach that has dominated research in the last three decades focuses on similarities across space and through time rather than emphasizing difference. This paper considers the question of regionality in roc...

The identification of regional differences and stylistic boundaries has long been a topic of interest for rock art researchers. However, understandings of the social processes that underpin concepts of regionality and regional difference have been elusive. This paper approaches the problem by examining aspects of the San ethnographic material relat...

Rock art sites around the world are disappearing due to natural weathering, vandalism, and development. In Africa, conservation problems are compounded by the continent’s colonial legacy. Conservation can no longer just be seen in the narrow sense of conserving only the rock art; rather, there is a need for “consultative conservation” that includes...

The cliff terrace site, Woodstock Rocks, was exploited occasionally by hominins from the Earlier Stone Age to the Iron Age. A small excavation uncovered an Acheulean quartzite workshop with many flakes, but lacking large cutting tools and without organic preservation. Below the workshop site, a ferricrete river terrace cements Acheulean lithics tha...

Landscape studies of hunter–gatherer rock art often suffer from logical flaws. Some of these failings stem from the founding question that researchers ask: “Why do some places have images while others do not?” This question is misleading and not particularly helpful in some—but not all—contexts where there is no direct ethnographic evidence to prov...

Over the past two decades, scholars have proposed the existence of a strong relationship between sound, acoustics, and the production of San rock art in certain places. However, this intriguing hypothesis had never been tested through the systematic application of a rigorous method to a substantial sample of sites. In this paper, we present an unpr...

Over the past two decades, scholars have proposed the existence of a strong relationship between sound, acoustics, and the production of San rock art in certain places. However, this intriguing hypothesis had never been tested through the systematic application of a rigorous method to a significant sample of sites. In this paper, we present an unpr...

区域差异性和风格界限的确定一直是岩画研究者长期以来感兴趣的话题。然而，对支撑区域性和区域差 异性概念的社会进程的理解一直很难。本文通过对学习、领地行为和交流网络有关的桑人民族志材料的 研究来解决这个问题，以确定岩画区产生的可能过程。3个空间上不同的岩画区——格罗特温特霍克山 脉 (Groot Winterhoek Mountains) (南非东开普省) (Eastern Cape, South Africa) 、马罗提—德拉肯斯堡 (Maloti-Drakensberg) (南非和莱索托) (Lesotho and South Africa) 和赛德伯格 (Cederberg) (南非西开普省) (Western Cape, South Africa) ——作为一个案例进行了研究。根据民族志...

Kaingo Sheep Rock Shelter was used by Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter-gatherers between 4370±180 and 170±30 BP. The site has rock art that includes a fine-line painting of a large, fat-tailed sheep, animal finger paintings, and geometric motifs. There are many microlithic end scrapers, a few backed tools, and more than 500 complete, incomplete and bro...

The heuristic value of the ‘cognitive’ approach to San rock art over the last 50 years has meant that previously important issues, such as regionality, have enjoyed less attention. The study of regional difference in rock art was a dominant feature prior to the advent of the cognitive approach. Although this line of research was largely abandoned m...

In 2015, which marked 35 years since Beaumont had worked at the site, we renewed excavations at Border Cave. Our primary aims were to reassess the stratigraphic context of the sedimentary and cultural sequence, gain insight into site formation processes, make a detailed study of organic remains, identify long term cultural trends, and characterize...

At the time of writing, 16 years have passed since the inscription of the World Heritage Site (WHS) in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (uDP), South Africa. How has its cultural heritage been managed, and what lessons can be learned in order to inform its extension into the Kingdom of Lesotho? In 2013, UNESCO approved the inclusion of Lesotho’s Sehl...

At the time of writing, sixteen years have passed since the inscription of the World Heritage Site (WHS) in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (uDP), South Africa. How has its cultural heritage been managed, and what lessons can be learned in order to inform its extension into the Kingdom of Lesotho? In 2013 UNESCO approved the inclusion of Lesotho’s...

The last 40 years have seen little research into regionality in southern African rock art and consequently its potential as a means of exploring pre-colonial territoriality and identity has been neglected. Recent surveys in the Uitenhage District, Eastern Cape, South Africa, have identified thirty previously undocumented sites, and ongoing research...

Test excavations at Adullam Cave show that it contains a palimpsest of undated Oakhurst Industry occupations and an ephemeral recent Later Stone Age occupation. Faunal remains include Burchell’s zebra and bovids in the size range one to three. Charcoal analysis suggests that the vegetation near the site was of low species diversity.

Includes summary. Research Report (M. Sc.)--University of Witwatersrand, 2000. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-93).

Twyfelpoort is a Later Stone Age site in the eastern Free State, situated in a region where San and both Bantu-speaking and European farmers interacted during the nineteenth century. The artefact assemblages from the upper levels show evidence of interaction between the three groups. In these and the lower levelsthe stone tool assemblage is post-Cl...