Wonderwerk Cave

The Wonder Factory Cave is an archaeological site in South Africa's Northern Cape Province, about 45 kilometers south of Kuruman, on the east side of the Kuruman Hills. In the big cave artifacts have been demonstrated in numerous soil layers, including stone tools from the Early Stone Age, the Middle Stone Age and Late Stone Age, suggesting colonization from the Early Pleistocene to the Holocene.

The Wonder Factory cave is about 140 meters long and has an area of ​​about 2400 square meters. It extends almost horizontally into which they from which it was washed out surrounding cap rock of Precambrian dolomite. The up to six meters thick deposits above the bedrock may be up to two million years old.

The Wonder Factory Cave was first investigated the early 1940s, archaeological, after stone tools were discovered while excavating of bat guano. From the 1970s, initially explored by Karl W. Butzer and then Peter B. Beaumont ( McGregor Museum, Kimberley ) the cave.

In addition to the stone tools found numerous remains have been discovered repeat of burnt bones and parts of plants, as evidence of a very early control of fire - were interpreted by the former residents - already a million years ago.

There are also near the opening some dating from the Stone Age cave paintings that have been damaged in recent times by graffiti of visitors.