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| Home | About Us | "It, about TIME" | Rock art Trails | Accommodation | Teaching | Job Creation | Craft Shop | Events and Activities | Street Map | |
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The Living Landscape Project is a
community-based initiative to create jobs by using the results of many years
of archaeological research. Funding for this project is managed through the Krakadouw Trust. The main programmes are the development
of school curricula that incorporate archaeological materials and exercises
and the training of local people as guides, craftspeople and heritage
managers. The focal point of these activities is the old The facilities are constructed to teach About
Time, mainly but not only to schoolchildren. The landscape surrounding Clanwilliam is full of fossils, artifacts,
natural features and ruined structures that all point to the passing of time.
It seems an obligation of archaeologists (and geologists, palaeontologists)
to illustrate the dimension that houses all of these records of the past.
This is far from an academic exercise, as we will confront the difficult
issues of global warming, the sustainable use of resources and the protection
of diversity by better understanding long term environmental and human
history. The School Hall (Time Machine) has been transformed
into an interactive game-like opportunity to understand the enigmatic nature
of time, to learn about our increasing capacity to measure time, and to probe
the role of time and time measurement in the lives of local pre-colonial
hunter gatherers or San. These hunters and gatherers have much to teach us
about custodianship, sustainability and our place in the biological web of
life. One component of this project is a garden in the
grounds of the school that will embody the patterns of seasonal time that
framed the activities and behaviour of these hunters and gatherers, a Time
Garden, a garden that houses plants used by San people as food, as medicinal
aids and as artifacts. It acts as a supplement to
the displays and activities in the School Hall and is used as a prop to
illustrate the seasonal component of time measurement. We know from historic
documents, for example, that San people reckoned time by the flowering of
members of the Iridaceae family so we have planted
a range of species to illustrate this. The archaeological record also
provides evidence of the use of a range of plants (grasses, seeds, wood,
leaves, charcoals) as artifacts
of many kinds (string, beads, bows, poisons, bedding, firewood). The garden
will reflect a curriculum that introduces learners to the lives and habits of
San people, reinforcing the seasonal cycle of the local fynbos. The garden is part of our wish to build an
attraction for local tourists that will increase visitor numbers to Clanwilliam. The Craft Shop offers tea and catering to
visitors and is now a place where schools and other groups are able to learn
about the extremely rich archaeological history that marks the Cederberg landscape. From this we are confident that a
substantial number of local people will be able to support themselves as
guides to the sites, as craftspeople, as caterers and as custodians of local
heritage. |
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