Exciting news. The remains of two people who lived at Noetzie thousands of years ago may be reburied here at long last.
This would end a saga that started twenty years ago when the skeleton of a young “Strandloper”, or San, was dug up in the grounds of the Pezula Castle at Noetzie during unauthorised excavation work.
The skeleton was found in front of the castle in a prehistoric midden – a collection of shells, bones, tools and other remains discarded by humans who had lived at the coast thousands of years ago. Prehistoric coastal middens were built up over centuries by nomadic San people – often called Strandlopers – and are a mine of information for archaeologists.
Now Kai Terblanche, leader of the Knysna Khoi-Khoi, is in talks with the Iziko Museum about the reburial of the two skeletons, he hopes at Noetzie.
“It is a lengthy process. We still need a burial space,” Terblanche said.
Around 2004 Knoetzie Castle owner Alan Henerson sold the castle to Pezula Private Estate. Pezula applied to redevelop the property. An archaeologist was appointed to assess the site and found a prehistoric midden where a swimming pool was to be built.
Heritage Western Cape said the midden had to be excavated by a professional archaeologist before the pool could be built.
This did not happen.
In 2006 when labourers were working at the site they dug up an ancient human skeleton. Luckily someone spotted the skull and bones lying in a heap and phoned my sister Julie who alerted the authorities. The unauthorised earthworks were immediately halted. Sadly, important information about that burial was destroyed forever.
The good news is that UCT archaeologists did excavate the midden in late 2006 and 2007 and unearthed stone and bone tools, ornaments, pottery fragments – and a second skeleton. This was a woman of about 40 who had been buried in a typical San manner, lying curled up on her side. A rock had been placed above her head and red ochre appeared to have been applied to her head at the time of her burial.
The grave is about 2,500 years old.
The midden itself is between 3,500 to 4,000 years old.
I can imagine those Strandlopers on the Noetzie rocks gathering oysters and mussels, coming back to where the castle is now and cooking them on a fire. There were several large stones found with charcoal where they had made a fireplace. There were also antelope, seal and fish bones, including musselcracker and steenbras.
Successive generations used this spot for thousands of years. Just think, some of the coastal paths we walk along now may have been made by their feet.
Terblanche is talking to many parties about the repatriation of the skeletons, and will also talk to Buccara, the current owners of Pezula Castle.
I don’t know how the San regarded burials, whether being nomadic meant they had less attachment to graves than settled people, but I’m pretty sure they would want their people to remain buried.
It seems right that this woman and teenaged boy, who both lived, died and were buried at Noetzie, should be brought home.
