HISTORICALLY KNOWN FOODPLANTS OF SOUTHERN AFRICA CURRENTLY GROWING AROUND KLEIN KLIPHUIS, WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA

Foraging for plant foods was a key activity throughout our evolutionary history, shaping land-use patterns and strategies to cope with famine and drought. Yet, the reconstruction of foodplant foraging-scapes and dietary ecologies is seldom attempted for Middle Stone Age landscapes. With this contribution I introduce a checklist for known foodplants currently growing around Klein Kliphuis, just west of the Cederberg range in the Western Cape. The site was used by foragers during MIS4–3, as well as within the last 2000 years. The foodplant species list is derived from the list of plants recorded over the past 200 years by the South African Biodiversity Institute to grow around the site, and/or listed as important, dominant or endemic with the associated vegetation types at different foraging intervals around Klein Kliphuis. The checklist is intended as middle-range tool to build hypotheses that can be tested with archaeological and/or palaeo-environmental data. In this context, I analyse the current foodplant data of Klein Kliphuis across three different foraging ranges (day-range, home-range and regional) to assess proportional increases in foodplant species and edible plant parts. I also report on a pilot study to identify possible staple foods available on the site’s home-range, highlighting twelve plant foods that stand out as having the highest overall nutritional values in terms of moisture, ash, protein, fat, fibre, carbohydrates and energy.