Revelling in being a Research Associate of Gobabeb, or joining the ‘rogues gallery’ (Magg-Kölling, 2023). In 2022 I got back to fieldwork in the Namib Sand Sea, and back to Gobabeb for the first time since two wonderful conferences here in 2012: SASQUA XIX Biennial Congress and the SAAG Biennial Conference.
For this trip I was with a wonderful group of colleagues, George Leader, Rachel Bynoe, Dom Stratford, Kaarina Efraim and all facilitated by the navigational know-how of Eugene Marais. As part of George’s S.A.N.D.S. project, I had been awarded UoManchester SEED funding for sediment sampling and luminescence dating of our first set of samples, most from the site of Namib IV.
Namib IV (S23° 44.829’, E14° 19.720’) is one of few Earlier Stone Age sites in the Sand Sea of the Namib Desert, and a rare example of a tool-rich and fossil fauna-bearing pan system in the Namib Sand Sea. So far the team have published a paper that presents some preliminary results from the first visits to Namib IV.
Abi Stone 