Historical and Cultural Significance of the West Coast Fossil Park
Anyone with the vaguest knowledge of South Africa’s geography would be well aware of the fact that the further west you move along our coastline, the more arid it gets.
In contrast to the opulent greenery of the KwaZulu-Natal and the dense indigenous forests of the Garden Route, the West Coast is characterised by hardy fynbos vegetation, large swathes of duneland (sandveld), a harsh Mediterranean climate and the ever-icy Atlantic Ocean lapping along the shoreline.
Should you, however, step into a time machine in modern-day Saldanha and turn the dial back five million years, you’d find yourself transported to a subtropical wonderland comprising lush, riverine forests and open grasslands; home to an array of exotic creatures such as short-necked giraffes, African bears and sabre-tooth cats.
Although, sadly, no such time travelling device exists (just yet), the West Coast Fossil Park (WCFP) in Langebaanweg does an excellent job of bringing this long-lost land-before-time to life in a way that will capture the imaginations of young and old alike.
What is the WCFP?
Located 150km north of Cape Town, WCFP is a National Heritage Site of approximately 700 ha boasting a rich deposit of exceptionally well-preserved faunal fossils dating back about 5.2 million years to the terminal Miocene/early Pliocene.
Home to almost 300 marine, terrestrial and freshwater fossil animal species, it’s one of the richest fossil sites in the world.
“The preservation is also extremely good,” says Pippa Haarhoff, Director of WCFP. “From the tiniest, tiniest birds to the biggest elephant.”
One of the most exciting things about the park is the fact that it is home to an active dig site, where visitors can see fossils in situ.
“What sets it apart is that it’s open to the public,” says Haarhoff. “It’s a site museum where the public can come and see the bones in the ground exactly as we uncovered them.”
It forms part of the Cradle of Human Culture Artist’s Route, which provides insight into ancient fauna, flora and civilisations that once inhabited the Cape West Coast.
How was it established?
In the early 1940s, Langebaanweg was identified as a promising location for the mining of phosphate for fertiliser. After a few years of surveying, Baard’s Quarry was established on Langeberg Farm in 1943 and extraction began.
The fossil deposits first came to light when Mr I.S. Brown, one of the mine employees, started noticing and collecting unusual phosphate samples and bones. Catching wind of these extraordinary finds, Dr Ronald Singer from the anatomy department at the University of Cape Town, accompanied by Dr Hooijer from Leiden University and Dr Crompton, Director of the South African Museum, visited the quarry in 1958.
Amongst Brown’s collection, the scientists found an ankle bone of an extinct short-necked giraffe belonging to the sivathere group and a tooth of an extinct elephant called Stegolophodon (this became the subject of the first scientific paper published on the site. Stegolophodon has since been re-classified as Mammuthus subplanifrons).
In the 1960’s when the mining operations moved onto another portion of Langeberg Farm to open up “C” Quarry and “E” Quarry the palaeontological significance became more evident. Under the leadership of Dr Brett Hendey, head of the Cenozoic Palaeontology Department in the then South African Museum, fieldwork was conducted for almost 20 years and a huge collection of fossils was amassed for research purposes. However, although the mine co-operated with the museum it is estimated that about 80% of the fossil deposit was destroyed in the mining process.
Ironically, the closure of the mine also put the fossil site’s future at risk. Fortunately, South African Museum (now the Iziko South African Museum) personnel, prompted by Pippa Haarhoff, together with the then National Monuments Council, managed to get a 14 ha fossil-rich area within the mine property declared a National Monument Site in 1996. Subsequently the entire mine area, approximately 700ha, has been declared a National Heritage Site.
Iziko Museums of Cape Town and SAMANCOR entered into a public-private partnership to form the West Coast Fossil Park, which was officially launched on 22nd September 1998.
What fossils have been found here?
As mentioned earlier, the site boasts close to 300 fossil animal species, including from marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments.
Some of the most noteworthy finds include the remains of African bears, Sivatheres (a species of short-neck giraffe), Proboscideans (elephants and their close relatives), sabre tooth cats, three-toed horses and whales.
Find out more by visiting the Discoveries page on the WCFP website.
Why are the fossils so well preserved?
“The bodies of these different animals were buried relatively quickly in a moist environment where the minerals in the surrounding sediments could penetrate the bones, molecule by molecule, thus replacing the organic matter with inorganic matter,” explains Haarhoff. “This means that the highly mineralised bones have virtually turned into stone over time.”
The moist environments included riverbeds, floodplains, ponds, marshes, intertidal mudflats and beach gravels.
What to see at WFCP?
Apart from an active dig site that is open to public viewing, the park is also home to a fascinating (and particularly aesthetically-pleasing) Visitor Centre where you can explore the Pliocene Garden Amphitheatre, the Sivathere Hall and a subterranean display.
With its variety of subtropical trees and shrubs, the garden is a far cry from the surrounding fynbos scrub. Using modern-day relatives of ancient plant species that would once have grown here (identified through fossil pollen and phytoliths), the Pliocene Garden offers an accurate representation of what this world would have looked like about 5 million years ago.
In the large and airy Sivathere Hall, you will learn all about some of the larger animal species that once roamed this habitat, as well as the otherworldly environment they inhabited. A large multi-media panels depicting a day (from dawn till dusk) in the life of these creatures stretch along the walls, following the ancient Berg River from its source in the Franschhoek mountains to where it entered the sea in Saldanha Bay when the sea level was about 30m higher than today.
The Subterranean Display is something of an ode to the vibrant life under our feet – so often forgotten as we go about our daily lives. Because the creatures living in the soil are typically so minute, the display of every mammal, reptile, spider and insect depicted in this space is shown a hundred and fifty times bigger than it is in real life.
Why is it significant to us today?
“What is significant about this site, is that it’s a clear indication about climate change and how it actually affected the animals at this point,” says Darryl Dreyer, Public Programmes Manager at WCFP. “From here, we are able to understand that climate change has major effects just in general and leads to extinction of some animals, but also to the adaptation of other species to new circumstances.”
Dreyer concludes that the WCFP reminds us that the lessons of the past can be applied to the present to come up with solutions for the future.