science

Pinnacle Point

Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point rather than just read about it. In short: Pinnacle Point is a small promontory immediately south of Mossel Bay, a town on the southern coast of South Africa. Excavations since the year 2000 of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point, first recognized and documented in 1997 by South African professional archaeologists, Jonathan Kaplan and Peter Nilssen, have revealed occupation by Middle Stone Age people between 170,000 and 40,000 years ago.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Pinnacle Point is a small promontory immediately south of Mossel Bay, a town on the southern coast of South Africa. Excavations since the year 2000 of a series of caves at Pinnacle Point, first recognized and documented in 1997 by South African professional archaeologists, Jonathan Kaplan and Peter Nilssen, have revealed occupation by Middle Stone Age people between 170,000 and 40,000 years ago. The focus of excavations has been at Cave 13B (PP13B), where the earliest evidence for the systematic exploitation of marine resources (shellfish) and symbolic behaviour has been documented, and at Pinnacle Point Cave 5–6 (PP5–6), where the oldest evidence for the heat treatment of rock to make stone tools has been documented. The only human remains have been recovered from younger deposits at PP13B which are c. 100,000 years old. In 2024, the Pinnacle Point Site Complex became a part of the World Heritage Site of Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa.

History of the research

After the initial recognition and documentation of the sites by Kaplan and Nilssen in 1997, Nilssen from Iziko South African Museum introduced the sites to Curtis Marean in 1999 after which they co-directed excavations for several years. The discoveries at Pinnacle Point have been made by an international team, headed by palaeoanthropologist Curtis Marean from the Institute of Human Origins of the Arizona State University as well as researchers from South Africa (UCT and Iziko South African Museum), Australia (Archaeology Program, La Trobe University, UoW), Israel, and France. After debating for decades, paleoanthropologists now agree there is enough genetic and fossil evidence to suggest that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa c. 200,000 – c. 160,000 years ago. At that time, the world was in an ice age, and Africa was dry and arid. As archaeological sites dating to that time period are rare in Africa, palaeontologist Curtis Marean analysed geologic formations, sea currents, and climate data to pinpoint likely archaeological sites; one such was Pinnacle Point.

Pinnacle Point 13B and its implications for modern behaviour At PP13B, the evidence for symbolic behaviour comes in the form of scraped and ground ochre (usually referred to as limonite bearing powders) that may have been used to form a pigment for body painting. This is similar to more complex ochre utilisation known from Blombos Cave slightly farther to the west at roughly 70,000 years ago. These discoveries contradict the classical hypothesis that the modern behaviour emerged only 40,000 years ago and was reached through a "large cultural leap". The harsh climate and reduced food resources may have been why people moved to the shore at Pinnacle Point, where they could eat marine creatures like shellfish, whale, and seal. Also at PP13B are an anomalous quantity of dicotyledonous tree leaf phytoliths in sediments that are roughly 90,000 years old. Though alteration of phytoliths introduce uncertainty to these findings, the quantity of tree phytoliths relative to grass phytoliths has been suggested to indicate a history of wood burning in hearths.

Provincial heritage site On 14 December 2012, the provincial heritage resources authority Heritage Western Cape declared Pinnacle Point a provincial heritage site in the terms of Section 27 of the National Heritage Resources Act. This provides the site with the highest form of protection under South African heritage law. In 2015, the South African government submitted a proposal to add the cave to the list of World Heritage Sites and it has been placed on the UNESCO list of tentative sites as a potential future 'serial nomination' together with Blombos Cave, Sibudu Cave, Klasies River Caves, Border Cave, and Diepkloof Rock Shelter. Three of the sites gained the World Heritage Status in 2024.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pinnacle Point

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point

In research: Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point 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: Pinnacle Point is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Archaeological sites in South Africa, Archaeological sites of Southern Africa, Caves of South Africa, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pinnacle Point 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.

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How to study Pinnacle Point in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pinnacle Point in simple terms?

Why does Pinnacle Point 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 Pinnacle Point?

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 Pinnacle Point.