science

Minnaar's Cave

Minnaar's Cave is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Minnaar's Cave rather than just read about it. In short: Minnaar's Cave, or simply Minnaar, is a palaeontological site located in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng province, South Africa. Lost after its discovery in the 1930s, its location was rediscovered in 2009.

Key takeaways

Minnaar's Cave belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Minnaar's Cave to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Minnaar's Cave from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Minnaar's Cave, or simply Minnaar, is a palaeontological site located in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, Gauteng province, South Africa. Lost after its discovery in the 1930s, its location was rediscovered in 2009. It is known for its well-preserved jackal skulls, dating to the Plio-Pleistocene at least 2 million years ago.

Geography Minnaar's Cave is located about 1 km (0.62 mi) north-northeast of Sterkfontein and 3 km (1.9 mi) from Kromdraai, palaeoarchaeological sites also in the Cradle of Humankind. It covers an area of 8,592 m2 (2.123 acres), making it the smallest known site in the Cradle of Humankind. It is bordered to the south by the Blaauwbank River. The site is dated to the Plio-Pleistocene, about 2 Ma.

History Minnaar's Cave area was first used as a lime mine in the early 20th century. A lime-burning kiln from this era is still on the site. There is also a graveyard dating back to the 1920s that is unrelated to the mine. Palaeontologist Robert Broom first explored Minnaar's Cave sometime between 1936 and 1939 during his expeditions into the Transvaal region in search of hominid fossils, but Broom only listed its location as "a cave about a mile away from Sterkfontein". Broom recovered 148 specimens from Minnaar's Cave, including a fossilized Thos antiquus (jackal) skull, which has been extensively studied by palaeontologists as the species's type specimen, albeit with no precise knowledge of its exact origins. Researchers attempted to rediscover the site multiple times over the subsequent decades, but the vague descriptions and field notes caused confusion. Different accounts variably placed Minnaar's Cave north, west, and east of Sterkfontein. It was theorized that Minnaar's Cave was actually another site called Hadeco, but this was dismissed as Hadeco was too distant from Sterkfontein. In August 2009, a team from the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria explored a site on private property that corresponded with descriptions of Minnaar given by Broom and later researchers.; it was just north of Sterkfontein and yielded fossils similar to those cataloged in the 1930s. Analysis of samples taken from this spot confirmed that this was indeed the lost Minnaar's Cave. Most specimens from Minnaar are stored at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History.

Species Most of the specimens recovered from Minnaar's Cave have yet to be extracted from their breccial matrices; however, most of the fossils belong to canids, primates, bovids, equus, and microfauna from the Plio-Pleistocene era. Most notable of these are Thos antiquus and Canis mesomelas jackal crania. Other species found in the Minnaar's Cave collections include Chasmaporthetes silberbergi (hyenas); Papio angusticeps, an extinct species of baboon; Alcelaphinae, possibly springboks; several species of the horse genus Equus, particularly the extinct Cape horse; and Dinofelis barlowi, a sabre-toothed cat.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Minnaar's Cave

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Minnaar's Cave claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Minnaar's Cave before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Minnaar's Cave ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Minnaar's Cave

In research: Minnaar's Cave appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Minnaar's Cave in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Minnaar's Cave is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Archaeological sites of Southern Africa, Caves of South Africa, Cradle of Humankind, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Minnaar's Cave outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Minnaar's Cave” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Minnaar's Cave in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Minnaar's Cave means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Minnaar's Cave out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Minnaar's Cave in simple terms?

Why does Minnaar's Cave matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Minnaar's Cave?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Minnaar's Cave.