Hominin footprint find reminds of journeys of discovery before Brenton was ‘on-Sea’
An article that was published in the March 14 edition of your newspaper, entitled ‘Forty steps closer to tracking our hominin ancestors’, caught my attention [read it on page 4 of that issue at www.cxpress.co.za].
My sister, Margaret Parkes, resides in Knysna and sends the local newspapers to me every week, and thus 1 was able to read this very interesting story.
I grew up in Knysna. As children, we spent many happy hours roaming the hills and shoreline of Brenton. There was no road to Brenton in those days and the only access was by rowing boat, yacht or travelling on the Knysna/George train and alighting at the Brenton siding.
The shelter was a small three-sided roofed structure which stood just beyond the end of the railway bridge. We rarely walked across the bridge – it was quite dangerous.
Brenton, between Belvedere and the Western Heads, belonged to Walter and George Duthie who farmed the land. They owned the only two homesteads on Brenton at the time, living there with their families. We were family friends.
No Brenton-on-Sea nor Brenton-on-Lake existed in those days. We used to walk across the hills to the sea and picnicked on the beach next to Castle Rock – the rocky outcrop just below the area now called Brenton-on-Sea.
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There were bushbuck, duikers (small buck), ostriches and other animals roaming the Brenton Hills, so it was always fun to explore.
I have had an interest in history and archaeology from a young age. Before 1 went to boarding school, I had a ‘museum’ in which to keep the ‘treasures’ I found. It consisted of two wooden whisky boxes joined together, standing on pine legs and covered with chicken wire. It was lined with straw onto which I put my ‘finds’.
One day, probably in the early 1940s, we beached our boat at Featherbed Bay and walked along a rough path, beach and rocks, to the end of the Western Head opposite the beacon and found a cave (there may have been two). We explored the cave and found Khoi artefacts – stones shaped into cutting tools.
It was confirmed that that is what they were and 1 was thrilled to have them to put into my ‘museum’. We realised the importance of our discovery of Khoi implements and were excited to have found them.
We were told when growing up in the town that the name Knysna’ was a Khoi word meaning ‘fern’, and Knoetzie the Khoi word for ‘blackish’.
– Anne Butler, Somerset West
(We Were delighted to receive Anne’s letter, preceded and followed by friendly phone calls twixt Plett and Somerset West to discuss the original story on Canadian palaeontological expert Dr Charles Helm’s discovery of ancient footprints in our ‘hood, and hear firsthand tales of the siblings’ excursions of discovery.
Anne’s sister Margaret is, of course, Knysna’s foremost historian so it’s clear that a keen interest in matters of antique significance runs deeply in the family. – Eds.)
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