Lauriston I

Brief description of site: The RSA LAS1 shelter is remarkable on account of a geological anomaly, namely that a thick layer of basalt that occurs underneath a layer of sandstone. This very large site - over 50 m long, high and deep with an upper tier at the northern end. The site faces NW and has and extensive and only slightly sloping floor of consolidated earth, rock blocs and boulder tumbles. The dark black basalt layer is immediately striking when one first sees the site.

RSA LAS1's surface archaeology is nothing short of amazing. The site has clearly been a long-term focus for San communities. This focus is brought about as much by the site's favourable size and location as by its unusual geology. This unusualness seems to have been noted and commemorated by the San of the area - a case of topophilia or 'love of place'. Lithics (stone tools) of every description literally carpet the surface of the site. These lithics all belong to the Later Stone Age, which covers the period from about 25 000 years ago until historic times. The raw materials used for these lithics are incredibly varied. Most are opalines - a crypto-crystalline silicate rock that forms in volcanic pipes and which then occurs either as nodules in rock strata or get washed down streams. At RSA LAS1 the opalines clearly come from many different locations. There are also hornfels (also known as lydianite or indurated shale) stone tools and this raw material is everywhere available in the form of river cobbles. Every stage of stone tool manufacture is present at RSA LAS1. There are cores - large lumps of rock from which stone tools are made. There are flakes - general-purpose cutting tools. Adzes are present and were used for woodworking in much the same way as a spokeshave. End and side-scrapers, often in the shape of a thumbnail were used to prepare leather. There are also rare burins and awls - used to pierce.

In addition to the stone tools, there are small pieces of grit-tempered, undecorated pottery fragments. There is also some bone and charcoal and a few metal items of recent vintage. The pottery may belong to herders or early farmers who used the site. The depth of deposit in the shelter is hard to determine because of its size and because of the hard, consolidated earth, but it does exceed 50 cm in places.
Brief description of art: There are over 200 individual San rock-paintings in the shelter, almost all on basalt except one eland on sandstone painted in the northern upper tier.

Eland panel: Well-known because it was copied by Townley Johnson in the 1970s, this panel shows a large ochre, black and white eland (Tragelaphus oryx) surrounded by over a dozen red human figures; some of which are pointing drawn bows at the eland. There is also a more recent painting episode of human figures.

Other paintings: There are few large 'scenes' or panels in the shelter; most of the art takes the form of small vignettes that have a tight conceptual focus. Thus we have isolated human figures and buck; small scenes of human interactions, several geometric fine-line zigzags and fine lines and so forth. One has to look closely at the art, which is often obscured by dust, to discern detail. Unlike the more usual sandstone, where the pigment is absorbed by the rock, the denser basalt is less absorbent and the paintings less well-preserved as a consequence.