Public Lecture by Prof Lyn Wadley

"Barefoot in the kitchen: cooking and sharing food in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa" by Professor Lyn Wadley

Join archaeologist Professor Lyn Wadley for a public lecture and viewing of 200,000 year old evidence of cooked food, from the important archaeological site of Border Cave.

Cooking food in the past was dependent on the ability to make fire at will. Our Middle Stone Age (MSA) Homo sapiens ancestors seem to have been capable of creating fire from scratch, perhaps by striking rocks to create sparks. Many archaeological sites have evidence for domestic hearths with burned bone, but remains of cooked plant food are rare in the deep past. Burnt rhizomes/corms dating close to 200,000 years ago were found at Border Cave, and Klasies also yielded evidence for cooked starchy food in the MSA. The transport of raw foods to a home base for cooking demonstrates that people who lived in the MSA shared resources and took care of the aged and young members of the group that were not easily able to feed themselves.

Prof Wadley is an Professor Emeritus in the Evolutionary Studies Institute, at Wits. Her research focuses is the southern African Stone Age, specializing in Middle Stone Age cognitive archaeology. She has directed multiple excavations around the country, including the important archaeological sites of Sibudu Rock Shelter and Border Cave and Rose Cottage Cave. She is an A1-rated NRF researcher, a Fellow of the British Academy, and is listed on the Tomson Reuters list of the top 1% of researchers globally.

Sponsored by GENUS.
Tickets on Webtickets or at the door. R30 for students and Wits staff, R60 for adults and pensioners.

Enquiries: +117174700; bookings.origins@wits.ac.za; tammy.hodgskiss@wits.ac.za

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