BORDER CAVE
LOCATION
Cave high on the Lebombo scarp, some 13 km north
of Ingwavuma, Natal, South Africa, just inside the
border with Swaziland.
DISCOVERY
Excavations of H. Cooke, B. Malan, and L. Wells,
1941-1942, following initial discoveries of W. Horton
and T. Jones (BC1-3); excavations of P. Beaumont
(BC5).
MATERIAL
Four hominids of Pleistocene age represented by skull
fragments: BC1, fragmentary braincase with possibly
associated postcranial pieces; BC2, partial and edentu-
lous mandible; BC3, partial infant skeleton, ca. 4-6
months; and BC5, partial mandible with four teeth.
Also some isolated postrcranial fragments.
DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
Stratigraphy of the cave is dominated by a series of
alternating brown sands (BS) and white ashes (WA),
from which all the hominids were recovered (eg.,
Beaumont et al., 1978). The first diggers of the
cave were guano miners, in whose dumps BC1 and
2 were found. However, Beaumont (1980) claims that
the matrix adhering to BC1 most closely resembles de-
posits lying close to the bottom of the sedimentary pile.
BC3, from higher in the sediments, probably represents
an intrusive burial. BC5, uncovered by excavation inthe third WA layer, is also probably intrusive (Sillen
and Morris, 1996), but some nondescript forelimb
fragments may be of around this age. Beaumont
(1980) believes that hominids BC1-3 and^5 do derive
from early in the Late Pleistocene, and electron spin
resonance (ESR) dates reported by Griin and Stringer
(1991) on teeth from the lower levels of the cave sup-
port ages of ca. 80-70 Ka and 65-55 Ka for the levels
in which BC3 and BC5, respectively, were found.
Amino acid dates on ostrich egg shell suggest even
greater antiquity (Miller and Beaumont, 1989). How-
ever, given the manifold doubts surrounding the
stratigraphic provenances of the hominid fossils, most
authorities are, for the moment, suspending judgment
on their ages.ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
The levels from which BC3 and 5 (and possibly 1)
were recovered contain an abundant Middle Stone
Age (MSA) I industry. BC4 was found higher up, in a
Howieson’s Poort level. As noted, these associations
are questionable.PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
BC1-3 were initially described by Cooke et al. (1945),
and illustrated by Wells (1950); later, de Villiers (1973)
provided a fuller description. BC5 was also described
by de Villiers (1976). Each one of these authors
viewed all of these fossils as fully modern Homo sapi-
ens, an opinion shared by most later commentators,33