Standing on the beach at Paternoster, looking inland with the waves breaking behind you, is the skyline dominated by Kasteelberg. It is only 4km away and was a convenient camping location for the early herders using the site to have access to the rich marine resources of the West Coast. And use them, they did: young seals, shellfish, etc. were not only a major part of their diet, but seal fat was used, mixed with red pigment (ochre) as body covering, much as the Himba of Namibia and the Maasai of Kenya do today. How do we know? Around the major site location, Kasteelbeg ‘B’, are over 140 grooves in the granite bedrock (see image below). We also have portable versions of these grooves, and every one found in the excavation is ochre-stained.
Granite bedrock grooves at KBB
Kasteelberg is a collection of 36 discrete sites, of which only six have been excavated. The kopje was occupied by Middle Stone Age hunters some 30,000 years ago, but the main occupation is much later, after 1800 years ago. It was intensively used, so much so that an enormous amount of shell and bone has led to the suggestion that it was a place herding people aggregated to after the rains when there was plenty of forage...
