The Vredefort Dome in the Free State Province of South Africa is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its geological distinction. It is the largest and oldest impact crater on Earth and is named after the town of Vredefort. For further information regarding its geological importance, refer to the suggested readings below.
Introduction
Earth is currently in the grip of the Quaternary glaciation, where climate alternates between cold temperature intervals, called glacial periods, and phases of warmer climate, called interglacial periods. Glacial-interglacial cycles have waxed and waned throughout the Quaternary Period (the past 2.6 million years) and are believed to be driven by changes in the orbital pattern of the Earth that has periods of about 20 000, 40 000 and 100 000 years.
The girdled lizards (genus Cordylus) are a group of 21 species of well-armoured insectivorous lizards found only in sub-Saharan Africa. These diurnal and mainly rupicolous lizards occur from the south-western Cape of South Africa northwards through Botswana and Namibia to Angola, and elsewhere to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Kenya, with an isolated population in southern Ethiopia.
The Department of Archaeology at the National Museum, Bloemfontein, is involved in several projects aimed at reconstructing the behaviour and biology of past human populations, from the start of the archaeological record in the Pliocene period up into the ethnographic present of southern Africa.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines traditional medicine (TM) as “the sum total of knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, that are used to maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve or treat physical and mental illnesses” (WHO 2008).