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probably the best evidence for technical fishing equipment in the Later Stone Age, which

started between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago and continued until contact with European
settlers.

However, rock art and other observations show that, in addition to spearing fish inland San
used baskets, along with stones and reeds, as barriers for catching fish on spawning runs

(Smits 1967; Vinnicombe 1960, 1961; Lichtenstein 1815). Recent dates for the San rock art

(Bonneau et al. 2017) indicate a long history, perhaps as much as 5,000 years, in Botswana
(the dated images included a fish), and 1,000 to 3,000 years in Lesotho and the Eastern Cape.

This is in spite of some images being considered relatively recent (but at least as old as 1871
AD) when the last recorded artist was painting. In his seminal interpretation of the Linton

rock painting panel, removed from the Eastern Cape to Iziko South African Museum, Lewis-

Williams (1988) noted the symbolism of fish in trance. Challis, Mitchell, and Orton (2008)
suggest a symbolic relationship of fish with rainmaking, as well as their use as food

resources. When abundant, such as during spawning runs, it is clear that fish were important
resources amongst the inland San (Plug, Mitchell, and Bailey 2010).

Avery (1975) suggested that their age in the western Cape was related to increased group size

with the arrival of Khoekhoe herders, although (Hine 2008; Hine et al. 2010) suggested that
European farmers introduced this practice historically. That European farmers have added to

and maintained fish traps until the recent past is well known. The question, though, is
whether fish trapping was an indigenous practice prior to their arrival and the written record.

The above observations would suggest that indigenous people possessed an intimate

knowledge of fish and fishing and the possibility that this extended to the use of stone-walled
fish traps cannot be discounted. Indigenous people did not have written language thus no

direct written record by the Khoekhoen can be expected, so observations by early explorers,
farmers and archaeologists provide the limited record we have. So, in effect, historical

records likely reflect conditions at the time farming was already established and the
Khoekhoen had been displaced from their land. In the same vein, we named the passes, but

routes and names were often learnt from Khoekhoen, e.g. Sir Lowry’s Pass – the Pass of the

Eland (Ross 2009).