The rockshelter of Sibhudu is a key site of the South African Middle Stone Age (MSA), a crucial time period for the early cultural evolution of our species. Sibhudu is located about 40km north of Durban and 15 km from the Indian Ocean, overlooking the uThongathi River in KwaZulu-Natal on the eastern seaboard of South Africa (Figure 1).

The MSA occupations of Sibhudu span from over 80,000 years ago – 35,000 years ago (>80-35 kya). Sibhudu is among the most high-resolution MSA sites in Africa and preserves organic material, providing detailed information on the behavior of its inhabitants and how the site’s usage changed over thousands of years. Due to this unique archive and outstanding archaeological finds, Sibhudu has become a key locality for studying the cultural evolution of modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa. Among other things, the site has produced the earliest evidence for deliberate bedding constructions, an early bone tool industry as well as shell beads and evidence for the use of bow and arrow technology. Sibhudu was discovered as an archaeological locality in 1983 with research into the MSA at the site beginning in 1998, with excavations continuing into the present day led by Prof. Nicholas Conard from the University of Tübingen.

After being discovered by Aron Mazel in 1983, the site was noted but ultimately abandoned, as Mazel was more interested in studying the Later Stone Age, which is missing at Sibhudu. In 1998, Lyn Wadley of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, began excavations at the site in order to study the MSA, mostly in an area today known as the Deep Sounding. After over a decade and over 20 field seasons, Wadley handed over the excavation of Sibhudu to Nicholas Conard in 2011. The field work by the University of Tübingen focused in particular on excavations in the area labelled as the Eastern Excavation with current work continuing to excavate the Deep Sounding (Figure 2). The team excavates the site by 1-3 cm thick Abträge, or thin layers, following the contour and slope of stratigraphy. Every bucket of sediment recovered is sieved in 1 and 5 mm meshes before contents are recovered and stored. Individual finds encountered during excavation are measured in 3D with a total station.

Sibhudu has high-resolution, centimeter-level detail of archaeological contexts, particularly in the Eastern Excavation (Figure 3). The great preservation of organic material at Sibhudu is unusual for this time. The organic find spectrum includes beddings made of vegetation, bone tools, and even adhesive, animal, and plant residues on stone tools. These artifacts provide unique glimpses of activity at the site, which included tool making, using hearths to various means, burning and creating beddings, and plant and animal processing. The find densities of archaeological material are extremely high, including tens of thousands of stone tools and animal bones, indicating repeated and intense use of the site as a residential camp by early modern humans (Figure 4).

The University of Tübingen has provided a new lens with which Sibhudu is studied, adding modern field methods such as 3D measuring of finds. The long-term goal of this research is to provide a detailed chronological sequence for the MSA of KwaZulu-Natal and to understand the cultural evolution of early modern humans in this area. The interdisciplinary and international team of researchers are examining trends and changes in technology and behavior across time to create a more complete picture of the changes across both specific technocomplexes and during the overall MSA.
The team examines material from all excavated layers, but especially from those which do not come from heavily-studied time periods or technocomplexes, such as the periods pre- and post-dating the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort. Among other findings, this has led researchers to develop the name Sibhudan technocomplex for the “post-Howiesons Poort” assemblages dating to ~58 ka at the site based on a new and detailed study of over 10,000 stone tools from 23 archaeological layers.

There are currently six main phases of the MSA at Sibhudu, with all periods reflecting intense occupations of the site, though to varying degrees (Figure 5).

The earliest finds come from over 80 kya, informally named as the “Pre-Still Bay” period, and are currently being dated by luminescence methods. Excavations here are ongoing, and the site’s bedrock has not been reached yet. The layers are characterized by a very high find density of lithics, including serrated points manufactured by pressure flaking, which are characteristic of this time period, but also include findings of bone tools. Pressure flaking technology in particular is notable, as its presence at Sibhudu pushes back the development of this technique by around 30,000 years.
The following occupation phase encompasses the Still Bay and dates to ~77 kya – 69 kya. This phase is characterized by the typical finely retouched bifacial points which were likely hafted. A special type of find from this period at Sibhudu is naturally perforated shell beads, which were brought from the nearby ocean to the site and show signs of being strung and worn.
After the Still Bay phase, from 69 kya – 65 kya during the Howiesons Poort, new technologies appear, such as the use of small backed tools potentially used as a bow and arrow (Figure 6). During this time, people focused particularly on hunting small animals, such as blue duiker, in a more forested environment. There is continued evidence of carved bone, bedding, resin and bone tools. Additionally, more organic residue has been found on tools, including animal tissue, bone, fat, and possibly blood. A human tooth, belonging to a juvenile Homo sapiens, has been found as well.

The subsequent Sibhudan phase (formerly known as post-Howiesons Poort), continuing from around 58 kya, has a particularly dense occupation and technological change is significant. Here, lithic technology is very diverse, with backed forms abandoned and replaced by various forms of finely-crafted unifacial points (Figure 7) that were likely hunting weapons for larger bovids that lived in a now more open grassland environment around the site.  Other tools from this period include grindstones with plant fibers, animal fat, and bone residues, suggesting a different processing technology for those types of materials. Compared to the preceding phases, usage of bedding changes with regular burning and replenishing is apparent.

The final occupation phases at the site encompass the Late and Final MSA at ~47 kya and ~35 kya. Both phases are characterized by intense and repeated occupations, with a focus on the production of unifacial points. The Final MSA has very specific hollow-based points that only occur in the region of KwaZulu-Natal at the very end of the MSA. Sediments from these phases were only excavated by Wadley, not during the Conard excavations.

The University of Tübingen continues to host annual excavations at Sibhudu in spring, led by Nicholas Conard, with bedrock not yet having been reached at the site. The interdisciplinary and international team conduct further research on material recovered from the site, which is housed at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg. The research is funded by a DFG grant with PIs Prof. Conard and Dr. Manuel Will (CO 226/34-1/WI 4978/1-1). Undergraduate and graduate students from over 20 nations have participated in the excavations and can contact co-PI Manuel Will (manuel.will@uni-tuebingen.de) to take part in future field campaigns. There are also ample opportunities for Bachelor, Master, and PhD projects.
Sibhudu has reached National Heritage status in South Africa, and Tübingen University is helping the local and national government to gain a UNESCO World Heritage Nomination together with other key South African MSA sites like Diepkloof, Klasies River, Blombos, and Pinnacle Point.

Bader, G.D. Will, M., 2017. Recent research on the MSA in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Urgeschichte. 26, 53-82.
Conard, N. J., Porraz, G., & Wadley, L. 2012. What is in a name? Characterising the 'Post-Howieson's Poort' at Sibudu. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 180-199.
d'Errico, F., Backwell, L. R., Wadley, L., 2012. Identifying regional variability in Middle Stone Age bone technology: The case of Sibudu Cave. Journal of Archaeological Science. 39, 2479-2495.
Goldberg, P., Miller, C.E., Schiegl, S., Ligouis, B., Berna, F., Conard, N.J. Wadley, L., 2009. Bedding, hearths, and site maintenance in the Middle Stone age of Sibudu cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. 1, 95-122.
Lombard, M., Phillipson, L., 2010. Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64 000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Antiquity. 84, 635-648.
Rots, V., Lentfer, C., Schmid, V. C., Porraz, G., Conard, N. J., 2017. Pressure flaking to serrate bifacial points for the hunt during the MIS5 at Sibudu Cave (South Africa). PloS One, 12, e0175151.
Wadley, L., 2006. Partners in grime: results of multi-disciplinary archaeology at Sibudu Cave. Southern African Humanities (Pietermaritzburg). 18, 315-341.
Wadley, L., 2013. MIS 4 and MIS 3 occupations in Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The South African Archaeological Bulletin. 68, 41-51.
Wadley, L., Hodgskiss, T., Grant, M., 2009. Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 106, 9590-9594.
Will, M., Conard, N. J., 2018. Assemblage variability and bifacial points in the lowermost Sibudan layers at Sibudu, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (London). 10, 389-414.
Will, M., Conard, N.J. 2020 Regional patterns of diachronic technological change in the Howiesons Poort of southern Africa. PLoS ONE 15(9), e0239195.
Will, M., Bader, G., Conard, N. J., 2014. Characterizing the Late Pleistocene MSA Lithic Technology of Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. PLoS One. 9, e98359.
Will, M., El-Zaatari, S., Harvati, K., Conard, N. J., 2019. Human teeth from securely stratified Middle Stone Age contexts at Sibudu, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (London). 11, 3491-3501.