Carolina’s Ancient Sites

  • July 10th, 2019

by Ton Sanders

Retail Price: R50

Dust cover:

…For a number of years Dr Sentker had been unearthing deposits in the Carolina area as a treasure-house of ancient sites, spanning South Africa’s past from the Earlier Stone Age onwards. In 2002 the author happened to retire near this treasure-house with its Late Stone Age rock paintings and Late Iron Age stone-walled ruins and petroglyphs. Till fairly recently only few people took an interest in Carolina’s ancient sites. Commissioned to write a book on Carolina’s history on the occasion of the town’s centenary, Hans Bornman mush have felt no need to go beyond a few passing remarks on the ruins. Yet, as part of the centenary celebrations, a monolith, harvested from the ruins, was erected in front of the town hall as a reminder of the municipal area’s ancient past. The conservative town fathers of the day obviously failed to recognise in the suggestively shaped monolith a pre-historic fertility or ancestor cult symbol.