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7327625 
Journal Article 
Strandloping as a Resource-Gathering Strategy in the Cape, South African Holocene Later Stone Age: The Verloren Vlei Record 
Parkington, J; Fisher Jr., JW; Poggenpoel, C; Kyriacou, K 
2014 
1 
Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology
ISSN: 1556-4894
EISSN: 1556-1828 
Routledge 
9 
2 
219-237 
English 
CCC:000340191300006 
Elands Bay and adjacent coastline near the mouth of the Verloren vlei on the South African Atlantic coast offered Later Stone Age foragers a variety of marine, estuarine, and terrestrial food resources. We suggest that strandloping (beachwalking or beachcombing) by latest Holocene foragers as a regular practice constituted an important component in their repertoire of subsistence activities. Washed-up mussels, seals, birds, whales, and other recently dead animals would have been available to such strandlopers. We distinguish strandloping as a subsistence practice from the procurement of living prey, including shellfish, mammals, birds, and other animals. The Holocene archaeological record of the Elands Bay area suggests changes through time in resource use, and these changes appear to be recognizable in patterns of shellfish gathering. During the latest part of the Holocene, between about 1,500 and 300 years ago, subsistence practices display a distinctive character that perhaps conforms more strongly than previously to what we conceive of as strandloping. © 2014 Copyright © 2014 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. 
hunter-gatherers; shellfish; South Africa; strandloping (beachcombing); Western Cape; coast; foraging behavior; Holocene; resource use; shellfish; Stone Age; subsistence; Atlantic Coast [South Africa]; Elands Bay; South Africa; Western Cape