Cape St Blaize and Pinnacle Point Caves

• Mossel Bay

Cape St. Blaize Cave

This is an important archaeological site, and a popular point for whale and dolphin watching. It is situated in the cliffs below the Cape St Blaize Lighthouse.

It has revealed middens laid down by San hunter-gathers and Khoekhoen people in the period from about 200,000 years ago to the pre-colonial age (i.e. pre-1488).

The Cave has been the subject of a number of archaeological studies:

George Leith’s 1888 excavation was one of South Africa’s the earliest scientific archaeological excavations. His description of the lithics (stone tools) he found here are an important aspect of the study of the Middle Stone Age in the Mossel Bay area.

T. Rupert Jones studied the cave in 1899

A.J.H (John) Goodwin, who excavated in the 1920s, described the Middle Stone Age Mossel Bay Industry from his findings.

The Mossel Bay Archaeology Project in the late 2000s

The Cape St. Blaize Cave is open and accessible to the public. It’s also the point from which we start our Oystercatcher Trails.

St. Blaize Trail

The Cape St. Blaize Cave is found at The Point, just below the Cape St. Blaize Lighthouse. It’s situated at the starting point of the 13.5 km St. Blaize Trail - a contour-path walk that leads to Dana Bay in the west.

This is a moderately strenuous trail, with no water points.

If you’re going to tackle the whole thing, please arrange to be collected in Dana Bay.

It is possible to walk shorter sections of the trail.

Printed maps are available from Mossel Bay Tourism

Pinnacle Point Caves

Mitochondrial DNA research has shown that all humans alive today descend from a small population that lived between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago. The SACP4 Project and the Mossel Bay Archaeology Project ahave shown that at least some of those people lived in Mossel Bay.

Allow us to introduce you to Pinnacle Point - the place that’s revealed the earliest evidence for modern human behaviour.

Modern human behaviour 162,000 years ago?

Pinnacle Point, near Mossel Bay on the Garden Route of the Western Cape Province, has been the focus of both the Mossel Bay Archaeology Project, and the South African Coastal Palaeoclimate, Palaeoenvironment, Palaeoecology, and Palaeoanthropology (SACP4) Project – under the leadership of Professor Curtis Marean (an associate director of the Institute of Human Origins and professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at the Arizona State University) - since 2000.

Prof. Marean and others published ‘Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene’ in the 18 October, 2007 edition of the international journal of science, Nature (449, 905-908).

“We found that the people who lived in the Caves approximately 164,000 years ago were systematically harvesting shellfish from the coast; that they were using complex bladelet technology to produce complex tools; and that they regularly used ochre as pigments for symboling,” said Prof. Marean.

“This is some of the earliest evidence for modern human behaviour.”

Meeting point: Platinum Lounge, 1st Floor, Pinnacle Point Club House (-34.205578, 22.090259)