Before Us: Life in the Field
The P5 team talks about mud, wind, ankles, and living in remote eastern Pondoland during field seasons.
Before Us: Site Mapping
Join P5 Project students from Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Australia as they talk about mapping archaeological sites using lasers.
Before Us: The Plants People Used
Join the P5 researchers as they talk about how they reconstruct ancient environments and the lives of the people who lived in them.
Stone Tools: A window into our cultural origins
Stone Tools: A window into our cultural origins Stone tools reflect archetypal human behaviors; they are pragmatic, the skills to make and use them are not genetically transmitted and must be learnt, and their production requires varying degrees of planning and problem-solving skills. They enable humans to do what cannot be accomplished with teeth and
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Where to dig?
Knowing where to dig is one of the trickiest parts of the archaeological sciences.
Field Season 2015. Part 1: Optimism and excitement.
In 2015, the P5 Project began excavation in Pondoland. With our small, but highly trained team, we excavated at four sites over 6 weeks. It was the first time we explored the archaeology at Waterfall Bluff and we also began to catalog the Early Stone Age artifacts at the red dunes at Msikaba.
How do we know what Pondoland was like 25,000 years ago?
Irene Esteban The reconstruction of past environments and climates is important because they might have led to shifts in habitats and therefore on resource (i.e. plants, animals, freshwater) availability for past hunter-gatherers. Coastal regions may have provided natural buffers against the effects of localized resource instability triggered by climatic and environmental variability. This is because
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Coastline Geomorphology
Various important things here.
The P5 Laboratory
Erich C. Fisher Running a scientific project isn’t just about research. There also needs to be a base of operations where equipment can be stored and maintained, samples can be curated, and people can work. Developing this kind of infrastructure poses unique challenges that can stifle research and even stop it altogether. But, once in