Stephan Woodborne

Biographic Data

ID358342
NAMEStephan Woodborne
GIVEN NAMESStephan
FAMILY NAMEWoodborne
SIGNATUREWOODBORNE S
AFFILIATIONSiThemba Laboratory
ORCID0000-0001-8573-8626
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS30
TOTAL CITATIONS59
AUTHOR COUNT30
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1992
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX5

  • Revisiting, redating, and reframing the earliest excavations at Paternoster, South African west coast

    Open AccessA Jerardino, Stephan Woodborne et al.ARTICLESouthern African Field Archaeology2026

    The Holocene archaeology of the South African west coast is arguably the most studied among other coastal stretches in this country. It has helped to understand the shifts in the lifeways and technology of coastal hunter-gatherers in relation to their environment, climate changes and cultural contact with herder groups. Among the momentous and varied records, the appearance of very large shell middens known as ‘megamiddens’ stands out. They are d…

  • The stratigraphic context, chronology, and cultural sequence at Little Muck Shelter, southern Africa

    Open AccessTim Forssman, Chanté Barnard et al.ARTICLESouthern African Field Archaeology2025

    Hall and Smith’s (2000) excavations at Little Muck Shelter in the late 1990s uncovered a Later Stone Age sequence purported to span the last 2000 years. They identified four occupation phases that included what they called workshop phases when resident foragers were crafting vast amounts of goods for the purpose of trade with nearby farmers. In return, foragers obtained domestic items, ceramics, metal and glass beads. Despite the site’s distinct …

  • Variability among South African west coast megamiddens

    Open AccessA Jerardino, Stephan Woodborne et al.ARTICLEThe Journal of Island and Coastal…2025References: 20

  • Continuity and Transition from the Early to Mid-Holocene at the Foothills of the Drakensberg

    Open AccessJerome P Reynard, Tanya Hattingh et al.ARTICLEAfrican Archaeological Review2025References: 74

    The foothills of the Drakensberg are a significant region in understanding the links between environmental conditions and the spread of social networks across southern Africa. Strathalan Cave is an important site in this region yielding an extensive Holocene-aged deposit. Here, we report on the preliminary results from the ongoing excavations of Strathalan Cave A. Radiocarbon dates place the occupations between c. 5500 and 9000 yrs cal. BP with m…

  • First AMS radiocarbon dates from the Kirakle-Tobe settlement

    Open AccessDamir Soloviev, Sergey Kotenkov et al.ARTICLERadiocarbon2025References: 8

    In this article, we present the first results from radiocarbon dating of the Kirakle-Tobe settlement located in the central part of the Volga River Delta, southern Russia. Archaeological artifacts and 14 C measurements on charcoal indicate three stages of settlement development on the Kirakle-Tobe knoll. The oldest 14 C age corresponds to the Late Sarmatian period—early 4th century CE. The abundance of archaeological artifacts associated with the…

  • Signaling Shifts and Economic Defensibility at Boomplaas Cave, South Africa

    Open AccessJ Pargeter, J Mcgrath et al.ARTICLEArchaeometry2025References: 89

    This study tests predictions of the Economic Defensibility Model (EDM) regarding the relationship between resource density and distribution, as well as signaling behavior among Late Pleistocene foragers. The EDM proposes that territorial signaling intensifies when resources are dense and predictable, as the benefits of broadcasting group membership and maintaining alliances outweigh signaling costs. We evaluate this model using data from Boomplaa…

  • Methodologies for the identification of historic forest pathogen dynamics

    Open AccessMatthew H Watkins, Sofia Consuegra et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2025References: 132

    The scale, severity, and synchronicity of recent outbreaks of forest pests such as bark beetles (Coleoptera, Scolytinae) and defoliators (Lepidoptera, Choristoneura) within coniferous forest ecosystems of North America, Europe, and Asia are widely regarded as ‘unprecedented’. Despite such devastating outbreak occurrence in recent times, very little is known about historic outbreak occurrence. Traditional methods of reconstructing historic outbrea…

  • Foragers Downstream of Mapungubwe

    Tim Forssman, Alexander Antonites et al.ARTICLEJournal of Field Archaeology2024Cited by: 1References: 3

    In recent decades, interest in the Later Stone Age of the Mapungubwe region has increased. Here, we present the results of an investigation from a shelter downstream from Mapungubwe called Skirbeek. The shelter is in a sandstone koppie (tor) adjacent to another that was occupied in the 19th century a.d. by a Venda community. Radiocarbon results show three primary occupation phases in the mid-Holocene, final millennium b.c., and mid–late 2nd mille…

  • The remediation of Kruger Cave

    Open AccessJustin Bradfield, Emma Cleminson et al.ARTICLESouthern African Field Archaeology2023

    We report on a programme of work to remediate Kruger Cave, a Later Stone Age painted rock shelter in the western Magaliesberg, South Africa. Kruger Cave, originally excavated in the 1980s and never backfilled or stabilised, has deteriorated through forty years of erosional and quotidian processes that have significantly reduced the extent of the archaeological deposit. The cave is currently occupied by a lay Christian pastor whose activities at t…

  • Pollen records of the 14th and 20th centuries AD from Lake Tsizavatsy in southwest Madagascar

    Open AccessEstelle Razanatsoa, Lindsey Gillson et al.CHAPTERQuaternary Vegetation Dynamics2021

    Lake Tsizavatsy is located at the north of the Mangoky River, in the southwest of Madagascar (21.780oS, 43.897oE, at 45 m asl, Figure 1). The region has an extensive formation of sandstone eroded from the Precambrian basement and also less eroded tertiary limestones of marls and chalks from marine facies formed during the Eocene (Du Puy and Moat 1996; Moat and Smith 2007) that occur near the coast between 0 and 300 m asl. The region’s climate is …

  • Synergy between climate and human land-use maintained open vegetation in southwest Madagascar over the last millennium

    Open AccessEstelle Razanatsoa, Lindsey Gillson et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2021Cited by: 2References: 27

    Madagascar experienced environmental change during the Late-Holocene, and the relative importance of climatic and anthropogenic drivers is still the subject of an ongoing debate. Using palaeoecological records from the southwest region at Lake Longiza, we provide additional records to elucidate the complex history of the island and to identify the changes that occurred in the tropical dry forest during the Late-Holocene. The data showed vegetatio…

  • Can social impact assessment improve social well-being in a future where social inequality is rife

    Ilse Aucamp, Stephan WoodborneARTICLEImpact Assessment and Project…2020

    SIA is a recognised form of impact assessment, and is implemented in many parts of the world. The difference between emerging and developed economies provides a background to the social context in which SIA takes place, and project-scale benefits of SIA are often lost due to factors that operate at a much broader scale. Deteriorating governance and increased migration in the context of increased economic and well-being disparities are examples th…

  • Contemporaneity and entanglement

    Open AccessJ Parkington, J Fisher et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2020References: 5

  • AMS Dates and the Chronology of Great Zimbabwe

    T N Huffman, Stephan WoodborneARTICLEJournal of African Archaeology2020References: 8

    Salvage excavations in the 1970s uncovered a sizeable commoner occupation at Great Zimbabwe, as well as evidence for the early construction of an elite stonewalled enclosure. As a result of these excavations, we can revise somewhat the chronology of Great Zimbabwe. The most important changes are the extension of Period IV a, lasting from AD 1285±10 to 1395±10, and the appearance of P, P/Q and Q-coursed walling in Period IV a. The small Nemanwa pa…

  • The Rhino Early Iron Age site, Thabazimbi, South Africa

    T N Huffman, Gavin Whitelaw et al.ARTICLEAzania Archaeological Research in…2020Cited by: 2References: 17

    The Rhino Early Iron Age site near Thabazimbi in the far north of South Africa is a sixth- to eighth-century AD example of an agricultural settlement that followed the principles of the Central Cattle Pattern. In addition to settlement features, salvage excavations yielded a fragment of a ‘Lydenburg Head’ in association with Happy Rest pottery. Together with other data, head sculptures appear to be a Kalundu Tradition trait. The head, long-term o…

  • Past Climatic Conditions for Bokoni at Buffelskloof, Mpumalanga, Using δ13C Analysis of Prunus africana and Pittosporum viridiflorum Tree Rings

    Maria H Schoeman, Byron Aub et al.ARTICLEJournal of African Archaeology2019Cited by: 3References: 7

    Terrace farming flourished in Bokoni from the sixteenth century CE onwards. Bokoni farmers’ resilience strategies, however, were severely tested during the third occupation phase (approx. 1780 to 1840 CE ), when the mfecane destabilised the region. In order to reflect on the environmental conditions Bokoni farmers faced in this period the stable carbon isotope proxy rainfall records from Prunus africana and Pittosporum viridiflorum specimens that…

  • Dating the southern African landscape

    Open AccessStephan WoodborneCHAPTERQuaternary Environmental Change…2016

    The southern African landscape has been subject to denudation, sediment mobilisation, and deposition over the last 5 Ma. Dating the geological, geomorphological and archaeological evidence of these processes has been achieved through the application of different dating techniques (cosmogenic, luminescence, radiocarbon, electron spin resonance and uranium series disequilibrium). Dating evidence can address issues such as tectonic versus isostatic …

  • Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa

    Open AccessStefan Grab, S McCourt et al.BOOKQuaternary Environmental Change…2016

    Ongoing climate change necessitates advances in our understanding of the interrelationships between climate, landscape-shaping processes and human activity over long time periods, especially in areas that are already climatically stressed. This volume presents new ideas on macroscale landscape evolution; mountain, fluvial and aeolian processes; and environments in southern Africa, a key region in the story of human evolution during the last two m…

  • M deep palaeosols exposed at Vaalputs, Namaqualand, South Africa

    Open AccessM A G Andreoli, C Clarke et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2016

  • Variability of stable-carbon isotopic pattern of baobab (Adansonia digitata L.)

    Open AccessP Zisadza-Gandiwa, Jemma Finch et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2016

  • Archaeology, baobabs and drought

    Open AccessT N Huffman, Stephan WoodborneARTICLEThe Holocene2015Cited by: 4References: 10

    Ethnographic and archaeological data from the Mapungubwe landscape show that rainmaking deposits on hilltops, along with burnt grain bins in ordinary villages, represent cultural responses to severe drought by Iron Age agricultural communities. In ordinary villages, burnt granaries were the result of cleansing rituals, rather than violence or natural causes. A total of 13 episodes of severe droughts were previously documented in hilltop and villa…

  • Past Environmental Proxies from the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

    Grant Hall, L Wadley et al.ARTICLEJournal of African Archaeology2014Cited by: 6References: 16

    Middle Stone Age technological and behavioural developments in southern Africa are central to understanding the emergence of modern humans, and elucidating the role of environmental change in this trajectory is dependent on emerging palaeoclimatic reconstructions. Climate proxies from Middle Stone Age sites are often poorly preserved, coarsely resolved or subject to anthropogenic selection and are not considered in favour of global environmental …

  • Beyond the drip-line

    Open AccessPeter Mitchell, Ina Plug et al.ARTICLEAntiquity2011Cited by: 8References: 22

    The activities of hunter-gatherers are often captured in rockshelters, but here the authors present a study of a riverside settlement outside one, with a rich sequence from 1300 BC to AD 800. Thanks to frequent flooding, periods of occupation were sealed and could be examined in situ. The phytolith and faunal record, especially fish, chronicle changing climate and patterns of subsistence, emphasising that the story here is no predictable one-way …

  • Dating the Mapungubwe Hill Gold

    Stephan Woodborne, Marc Pienaar et al.ARTICLEJournal of African Archaeology2009Cited by: 1References: 3

    This paper presents direct dating evidence for the manufacture of some of the gold artefacts from the Iron Age archaeological site of Mapungubwe Hill (South Africa). The results confirm that the artefacts are contemporaneous with the occupation of the site and are the product of a mature indigenous metalworking tradition. The Mapungubwe Hill gold artefacts were manufactured at a time when a substantial reorganisation of society led to the separat…

  • Rainfall control of the δ 13 C ratios of Mimusops caffra from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

    Open AccessGrant Hall, Stephan Woodborne et al.ARTICLEThe Holocene2009Cited by: 1References: 5

    High-precision radiocarbon dating of individual growth rings demonstrates that Mimusops caffra produces annual growth rings. Direct comparison of the carbon isotope composition of the annual rings from two specimens from the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, with the historic climatic record that exists from AD 1927, shows a response to the amount of rainfall recorded for each year. The δ 13 C response is particularly sensitive to ex…