Sibudu Cave

Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago.

Evidence of some of the earliest examples of modern human technology has been found in the shelter (although the earliest known spears date back 400,000 years). The evidence in the shelter includes the earliest bone arrow (61,000 years old), and the earliest stone arrows (64,000 years old), the earliest needle (61,000 years old), the earliest use of heat-treated mixed compound gluing (61,000 years ago), and an example of the use of bedding (77,000 years ago) which for a while was the oldest known example (an older example from 200,000 years ago was recently discovered at Border Cave, South Africa).

The use of glues and bedding are of particular interest, because the complexity of their creation and processing has been presented as evidence of continuity between early human cognition and that of modern humans.

In 2024, the Sibudu Cave became a part of the World Heritage Site of Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa.