Using aerial survey to record new sites in the Keimoes kite landscape of South Africa

Abstract

The recent identification of kite sites on the Keimoes landscape, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, has shed light on how past populations built and utilised low stone structures to funnel and capture game. By strategically identifying and using certain aspects of the surrounding landscape, in conjunction with key design aspects, local groups maximised hunting proficiency. With this contribution, we revisit the Keimoes landscape to continue our search for more funnel sites and to establish whether there is consistency in some of their key design aspects, as identified in earlier publications. We introduce three more kite sites and provide their morphological and landscape details. For the first time, we also demonstrate that some of the kites were purposefully located near rocky outcrops from which construction material could be collected.