Windmill Beach Redux: Hidden Middens
This is a short offset multi cache which can be done in under 5 minutes. It is a replacement for GC1VED0 Windmill Beach which was hidden on 4/7/09 and archived on 14/12/22, after some 126 finds and 3 FPs, as the hide location became inaccessible following erection of protective fynbos regeneration fencing.
The cache, a small camo-taped, screw-topped sample tube, is hidden on the seaward edge of the golf course, accessed from the rear of the lovely and seldom busy beach by a small public gate.
To Reach the Cache Location:
a) From the west/as a one-off: park in the parking area at S 34 12.031 E 18 27.323 – the end of Links Cresent. Make your way towards the beach past the relief facilities, then at the old tree turn right and take the short track accessing the golf course.
b) From the east along the coastal path: park at S 34 12.141 E 18 27.285 near the end of Cruywagen Rd. Carefully cross over the M4, then make your way down to the gate at S 34 12.184 E 18 27.373 accessing the beach. Follow the trail as it curves around the corner of the golf course (passing the location of GCA314V Froggy Pond Redux - Clever Cuttles! on the rocks) and along the coastline to Windmill Beach, then once at the old tree continue as above.
To Find the Cache:
Go to the published coordinates where you will find a Simon’s Town Historical Society plaque recording the discovery of shell middens in the area by a naval officer & archaeologist, and their subsequent investigation. From this extract the following info:
1) The alphanumeric (A=1 B=2 C=3 etc) value of the first initial of the RN archaeologist = A
2) A team of archeologists from UCT investigated the site in 19B8
3 & 4) C types of dietary remains are mentioned of which D had 4 legs
5) Mrs Burnie was born in 190E
6) The plaque was erected in 200F
The cache is hidden at:
S 34 12.(B-7)A(E+F) E 18 27.(D+1)(C+1)(E-3)
Strandlopers (Afrikaans for ‘beach walkers’) are the people related to the San who lived as hunter-gatherers in coastal communities along the Southern African coast with subsistence economies based on beach-combing and a predominantly shellfish diet.
Most such communities did not survive the demographic and economic changes of the C19 and C20 and disappeared through assimilation.
Despite this archaeological evidence of their existence remains in the form of middens, which may contain (fragments of) seashells, carved stone implements (mostly made from quartzite or silcrete), pottery and the bones of whales and seals, as well as ash and charcoal.
A shell midden is basically an ancient dustbin generated by the strandlopers when they stopped (camped) at a suitable location (eg. near water and sheltered from the fierce south-easter) for any length of time. The strandlopers, having foraged for shellfish along a particular stretch of coast, would carry them back to the chosen nearby location (eg. a shady bush or rock shelter) where the meat was extracted from the shells with hand-fashioned stone implements in preparation for cooking. The removal of the shell contents also considerably reduced the weight of foraged material in case it needed to be carried some distance to a settlement.
They are typically densely packed collections of shells that are all of a certain size (large enough to be worth 
harvesting and eating) and from a limited set of edible species - the predominant shells in middens found near Simon's Town and Cape Point are those of Haliotis (abalone) and mussels – and so they are distinguishable from random heaps of shells. A large midden of would have built up in a relatively short time owing to the sheer number of molluscs required to provide a sufficient diet.
South Africa has the longest, best-preserved and most intriguing record of coastal dwellers in the world - more than 1,000 known middens of shells, bones and artefacts at sites between the Orange River in the west and Maputaland in the east. There are probably closer to 3,000 shell middens - one for every km of SA’s coastline, though not uniformly spread.
Those found on this part of False Bay coast are likely due to the rocky nature of the shoreline between Seaforth and Froggy Farm which is ideal for shellfish. It is believed that the consumption of extremely nutritious shellfish by early humans contributed to increased brain size and the development of more complex civilisations.
A short but detailed and fascinating paper on the discovery, The Shell Mounds of Simonstown, was published in the July 1946 The South African Archaeological Bulletin. In it the author, describes the discovery sites and the precise form of the stone implements (eg. scrapers, cutters and borers) and other remains found.
These middens are believed to originate from the Wilton culture which was common to parts of south and east Africa around 6,000 years ago, during the Stone Age period. The culture is characterized by a greater number of tool types, distinguishing it from its predecessors.
