Irreparable damage has been made to the Canteen Kopje heritage site near Barkly West in the Northern Cape after mining activity started in March this year.

While a temporary court interdict has halted the activity until April 8 when the mining company involved will make its case to the courts, archaeologists say the damage is massive.

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“A hole of around 80 by 80 metres going down five to six metres was excavated in one single day,” said Professor David Morris of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, who is dealing with the situation on the ground.

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According to Kathleen Kuman, Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, important archaeological finds dating back 300 000 years contained in the sands have been ripped from their context. “Context and the dating of deposits in context are the primary ways in which archaeologists interpret the past through fine-tuned excavation,” she said.

According to Dr Tim Forssman, postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, who worked on the Later Stone Age at Canteen Kopje and is the secretary of the Association of Southern African Archaeologists, the site is internationally recognised, with the earliest material culture yet found in southern Africa, dating to about 2,3 million years ago, found there.

“Mining an alluvial diamond deposit with low diamond yields at the expense of southern African heritage is unacceptable,” said Forssman. “On top of that, the fact that the earliest cultural material in southern Africa was found here means that this site is not only important to South Africans, but has global significance.”

He added that the jobs offered by a short-lived mine could not compete with the sustainability of tourism already in place at the site. “Mining will destroy this. The economic benefit of the few should not outweigh the economic benefit of the many, not to mention that we have a right to access our own heritage.”

Kuman agreed, saying the long-term sustainable benefits to heritage tourism were being jeopardised. The area currently developed for tourism has been fenced off, barring all public visitors to the site. “The tourism industry in this country is poised to help us preserve this unique heritage and work towards building its development. The Big Hole in Kimberley is only a half hour from Canteen Kopje, and both sites can be seen within a single day, if more tourism companies work toward this end,” she said.

Morris said that while the tourism opportunities at Canteen Kopje had not been fulfilled, destroying the site would prevent this happening.

According to Kuman, mining has been an ongoing problem for a number of archaeological sites over the years. “We hope that our fight over this case may be used to help strengthen the heritage laws in this country. While archaeo-tourism does not bring in the large profits that diamond mining does, it is a more sustainable solution for long-term employment in the tourism industry. And it protects our precious heritage.”