Hiking Suikerboschfontein - Part 13 - The Digging Stick

in hiking •  8 years ago 

A stone-age artifact is found in the center of the chariot...

None other than a digging stick weight.

It is a stone with a hole bored in it to allow for placement on a stick.

These are quite common in Southern Africa and were extensively used but the San and others.

This turns a regular stick into a far more effective digging instrument. Very useful when foraging for bulbs and roots or hunting for animals hiding in burrows.

This one has been chained in place to prevent removal by passers by.

Below is a painting of a procession of San women all carrying digging sticks (note the weights) and leather skins full of foraged goodies on their backs.


Source

This painting is from Mpongweni cave in the Natal Drakensburg.

To be continued...

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awesome

It doesn't look that old (the stone that is) so it must have been well looked after or it has weathered in a way that makes it look like that.

The patina on the stone is not thick, indicating low age, but with frequent rugged use as these are accustomed too, very little patination would have a chance to develop until the artifact was discarded...

Something as useful and durable could be handed down through many generations or picked up and used again centuries or millennia later.

Re-use of stone artifacts discarded by earlier peoples is not uncommon and sometimes the gap can be tens of thousands of years or more...

Cool. Thanks for the info. I don't know much about this stuff but it is fascinating. If I had more time I would do some studying off it and live out my Indian Jones fantasies lol:)

This is cool! looking forward to more photographs!