Daily life at Sibudu rock shelter during the Middle Stone Age

At Sibudu rock shelter in present-day KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, archaeological finds preserve traces of people preparing living surfaces, assembling tools and obtaining animal food. These discoveries come from different occupation layers, not a single surviving household.

Preparing a place to rest and work

The bedding study published by Wadley and colleagues documents plant layers at Sibudu from approximately 77,000 years ago, with later examples around 58,000 and 48,000 years ago. These dates identify separate archaeological contexts rather than continuous residence by one community.

Plant stems and leaves provided prepared surfaces within the shelter. Leaves identified as Cryptocarya woodii occur in the approximately 77,000-year-old bedding. Their insecticidal properties suggest a possible practical benefit, although the inhabitants’ intentions cannot be observed directly. Later deposits preserve repeated construction and burning of bedding, interpreted as maintenance of the living area. Gathering and replacing plants therefore formed part of the work of making the shelter usable. Bedding study and archaeological figures.

Making tools involved more than shaping stone

Some Sibudu stone tools retain residues of plant gum and red ochre on areas interpreted as having been attached to handles or shafts. Hafting—the attachment of a working piece to a support—made tool production a task involving several materials.

Wadley, Hodgskiss and Grant tested reconstructed compound adhesives to investigate how such mixtures worked. Their experiments show that ingredient selection and controlled heating could affect the adhesive’s performance. These experiments illuminate the skills that manufacture may have required; they do not recover an exact recipe for every archaeological tool.

For everyday life, the evidence points to preparation, material knowledge and attention to the joining of separate components. It does not identify who performed this work or establish a division of labour by age or gender. Compound-adhesive study.

Obtaining animal food

Animal remains provide another view of activity around the shelter. Wadley’s study of possible trapping at Sibudu discusses small mammals and forest-associated animals, including blue duiker and bushpig, alongside a varied range of other animals.

The study proposes that snares or traps could explain aspects of this assemblage. This is an interpretation based on the pattern of animal remains, not the discovery of intact traps. It should not be presented as the only demonstrated hunting method.

Obtaining food required knowledge of animals and their surroundings, but these remains cannot supply a complete daily menu. Nor should evidence from particular occupation layers be treated as an unchanging diet throughout the Middle Stone Age. Study of possible snares and traps at Sibudu.

What an ordinary day cannot tell us

These studies support a picture of practical tasks: preparing plant surfaces, working with tool components and obtaining animal resources. Combining them into a precise timetable would go beyond the evidence. The finds do not establish named households, fixed meal times, sleeping arrangements or who taught particular skills.

Sibudu is best understood through dated layers and specific finds. Similar activities in different layers need not have involved identical routines or social arrangements. Explore the wider prehistoric daily life collection for other places and periods.

Sources

• Wadley and colleagues (2011), Middle Stone Age Bedding Construction and Settlement Patterns at Sibudu, South Africa. Science 334: 1388–1391.
• Wadley, Hodgskiss and Grant (2009), Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa. PNAS 106: 9590–9594.
• Wadley (2010), Were snares and traps used in the Middle Stone Age and does it matter? A review and a case study from Sibudu, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 58: 179–192.