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A Review of the Geomorphological Context and Stratigraphy of the Sterkfontein Caves, South Africa

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Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the World

Part of the book series: Cave and Karst Systems of the World ((CAKASYWO))

Abstract

The Sterkfontein Caves, located in the southwest of the Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng, is the world’s richest Australopithecus-bearing locality and has yielded iconic fossils like Mrs Ples (StS 5) and Little Foot (StW 573), as well as Paranthropus robustus, Homo ergaster and Homo habilis fossils and large Earlier Stone Age lithic assemblages. The cave deposits have also yielded enormous assemblages of associated fossil fauna and document over three and a half million years of landscape, environmental, faunal and hominid evolution. These fossiliferous cave deposits represent a more recent episode of a geological history spanning 2.6 Ga years, beginning with the deposition of the dolomites, to the commercial exploitation of the caves by lime miners in the early twentieth century. The location and morphology of the karst caves is a result of a combination of factors including lithological variation within the two host dolomite formations, an early karstification and infilling of the dolomites over two billion years ago and local dolomite fracturing. Vadose zone collapse in densely fractured areas has enlarged chambers and passages, and played a major role in the location and nature of the openings to the landscape. When open to the landscape, a broad range of geomorphological processes, including re-dissolution of interred deposits, creates dynamic sedimentary environments with complex stratigraphic histories. This article reviews the geomorphological history of the Sterkfontein Caves in an effort to consolidate this information as we press forward with new stratigraphic and geomorphological work at the site.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Alexander Klimchouk for inviting me to contribute to this book and Alexander Klimchouk and Augusto Auler for their constructive reviews of this work. I would also like to thank Panagiotis Karkanas for his useful comments during the draft stages of the manuscript and Laurent Bruxelles for his help in studying the site. None of this work would have been possible without the invaluable financial support of PAST, NRF, CoE for Palaeosciences and the Leakey Foundation.

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  1. Department of Archaeology, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Dominic Stratford

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  1. Dominic Stratford
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Correspondence to Dominic Stratford .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hydrogeological Problems, Institute of Geological Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine

    Alexander Klimchouk

  2. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, State University of New York, Oneonta, New York, USA

    Arthur N. Palmer

  3. Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences, Universita di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Jo De Waele

  4. Instituto do Carste, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil

    Augusto S. Auler

  5. University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

    Philippe Audra

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Stratford, D. (2017). A Review of the Geomorphological Context and Stratigraphy of the Sterkfontein Caves, South Africa. In: Klimchouk, A., N. Palmer, A., De Waele, J., S. Auler, A., Audra, P. (eds) Hypogene Karst Regions and Caves of the World. Cave and Karst Systems of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53348-3_60

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