| Plovers Lake Fossil Site, Cradle of Humankind | |
|---|---|
 Plovers Lake cave entrance | |
  Location in Gauteng Show map of Gauteng Plovers Lake (South Africa) Show map of South Africa | |
| Location | Gauteng,South Africa |
| Nearest city | Krugersdorp,South Africa |
| Coordinates | 25°58′39″S27°46′36″E / 25.97750°S 27.77667°E /-25.97750; 27.77667 |
| Established | Incorporated into the Cradle of Humankind (1999) |
| Governing body | Cradle of Humankind and Private Landowner |
Plovers Lake Cave is a fossil-bearingbreccia-filled cavity inSouth Africa. The cave is located about 4 km southeast of the well-known South Africanhominid-bearing sites ofSterkfontein andKromdraai and about 36 km northwest ofJohannesburg. Plovers Lake has been declared aSouth African National Heritage Site.[1]
Plovers Lake had two periods of excavation: one in the late 1980s and early 1990s byC.K. "Bob" Brain and Francis Thackeray of theTransvaal Museum (now known as the Northern Flagship Institute) in the "Outer Deposits", and the second byLee Berger of theUniversity of the Witwatersrand and Steve Churchill ofDuke University between 2000 and 2004 in the "Inner Deposits".[2]
Thousands of fossils were found by both teams. In the Outer Deposits, Brain and Thakeray discovered a very fine fossilbaboon that had survived aleopard orsaber-toothed cat attack, as evidenced by a healed wound over the eye. They also discovered many other animals and some indeterminate stone tools. No hominid fossils were discovered.
Berger and Churchill worked in the Inner Deposits and quickly discovered that this site was younger than the Outer Deposits and contained the remains ofMiddle Stone Age occupation by humans. They recovered over 25,000 fossil remains, many hundreds of tools including knives and spear points and fragmentary hominid remains dated to around 70,000 years ago.[3]
Plovers Lake is a large series of deposits formed along huge fissures in a checkerboard pattern. The Outer Deposit is abreccia-filled dolomitic cave that has been de-roofed. The Inner Deposits have most of the roof intact and extend for several hundred meters. Most of the site has not been excavated.
The Outer Deposits have been dated to around 1.0 million years old based on the size of porcupines recovered. The Inner Deposits have been dated to greater than 70,000 years using radiometric techniques.[3]
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