First published: 05/02/25.

Little Lauren Travels 3.0

The Pleistocene Occupation Sites Of South Africa

The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa (Inscribed)

The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa by Jay T

I visited one of the three inscribed sites, Pinnacle Point, near Mossel Bay. It was the only one of the inscribed sites that had readily available online information about how to visit, and it’s an easy stop when driving the Garden Route. 

Tours are arranged in advance, via WhatsApp, and occur daily at 9, 11, 1, and 3. They arranged a special tour for us at an extra fee, which was so kind, to accommodate other activities in the area.  The actual site is a series of caves under the golf course in a gated community. Although locals knew of the caves for some time, the archaeological assessment in connection with building the golf course led to further study.  The golf course went ahead, but the caves are preserved and recently opened for visits.

The tour itself lasted around 90 minutes and was one of our highlights of the Garden Route.  The guide explained that these caves were important in understanding that humans were more sophisticated than previously thought around 100,000 years ago.  Different floor layers from different periods in history have been preserved, showing things like dyes used for decorative paint, much earlier than previously thought  

The tour does involve around 200 steps down to the caves and back up.  As a bonus, the views of the Indian Ocean and surrounding coast as incredible.

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