Report on some Fossil Human Remains from Otjiseva, S.W.A., by Wolfgang Sydow

Report on some Fossil Human Remains from Otjiseva, S.W.A., by Wolfgang Sydow. Scientific Research in South West Africa. S.W.A. Scientific Society. Windhoek, South West Africa 1970

I. Introduction and history of the find: Report on some Fossil Human Remains from Otjiseva, S.W.A., by Wolfgang Sydow.

Wolfgang Sydow  

South West Africa with its area of 317,725 square miles or 882,907 square kilometres is one of the most arid regions in the whole of Africa. Only the Orange River at its southern border and the Kunene and Okavango Rivers in the North are perennial flowing rivers. The climate as it is today seems not very favourable for the preservation of bones. In most cases bacterial action makes them deteriorate before they get a chance to fossilize. Swamps are and probably were always extremely rare. The discovery of fossilized bones is a special occurrence and a not very frequent event, especially when human remains are in question. It is therefore quite understandable that the remnants of Otjiseva man were at first taken as potsherds by its finder who handed them to me as such on the evening of the 16th of June, 1964. The "sherds" which had a fairly even thickness of up to 10 mm were covered with a thick yellow-grey crust but showed an almost white fracture revealing bone tissue. The preliminary reconstruction of the more than twenty odd fragments resulted in a well rounded, fairly large cranium. Here and there pieces were missing but the overall size and shape were already clearly recognisable. Although I am not a trained specialist in this field the skull seemed to me to belong to a very robust and big-headed individual, and looked not to modern. I therefore thought that further research would be justified. The next day I drove out together with my son to Mr. H. J. Wiss, Farm Otjiseva, some 26 miles northwest of Windhoek on the edge of the Khomashochland, a partially deeply eroded plateau of mica schist. This rock belongs to the top layers of the Damara System of the fundamental complex of Southern Africa which is a very old formation. This part of the Khomashochland is drained by the Otjiseva River which flows into the Swakop River where it breaks through the footmountains of the plateau to the West near Gross Barmen. These rivers are however only in flood after good rains which happens only sometimes and during weak rain-seasons not at all. When reconstructing a road damaged by floodwaters near a cattle post one of Mr. Wiss' native contract labourers had excavated the skull and other odd bones out of a shallow deposit near the road (photo 1). The skull as well as the brickhard roadmaterial were smashed by a second labourer who had to level the roadsurface. When Mr. Wiss received the first bone specimens the cast of the skull was still visible in the more or less 60 cm high earth wall. We now revisited the site which is situated some six miles to the west from the farmhouse in a beautiful mountain landscape. Ovambo Josef showed us the actual site where he had dug the cranium out of the alluvial deposit. The road which is leading to a nearby damsite — the cattle post — at a watershed between Swakop and Otjiseva River, accompanies and crosses several times a small rivulet which flows into the dam. The road is damaged every time the rivulet is on flood after rains or thunderstorms, and has accordingly to be repaired. We then searched the newly raised road very carefully and were lucky enough to find some further fragments of the cranium as well as several pieces of limb bone. [...]

This is an excerpt from Report on some Fossil Human Remains from Otjiseva, by Wolfgang Sydow.

Title: Report on some Fossil Human Remains from Otjiseva, S.W.A.
Author: Wolfgang Sydow
Series: Scientific Research in South West Africa 9tm
Publisher: S.W.A. Scientific Society
Windhoek, South West Africa 1970
Original softcover and dustjacket, 17 x 24 cm, 48 pages, 14 figures, 7 bw-photos, 1 map