Southern African Field Archaeology 2023 Vol. 18: Article 2421 Research report (peer-reviewed): Received March 2023; Revised July 2023; Published August 2023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.36615/safa.18.2421.2023 ISSN 1019-5785 ISSN 2789-1844 1 USING AERIAL SURVEY TO RECORD NEW SITES IN THE KEIMOES KITE LANDSCAPE OF SOUTH AFRICA Matt G. Lotter a, *, Tim Forssman a, b, c , Sebastian Bielderman d & Marlize Lombard a, * a Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, P.O. Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa b Cultural and Heritage Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of Mpumalanga, Mbombela 1200 c Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield, 0028, South Africa d School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa *Corresponding author email: mmatt@uj.ac.za/mlombard@uj.ac.za ABSTRACT The recent identification of kite sites on the Keimoes landscape, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, has shed light on how past populations built and utilised low stone structures to funnel and capture game. By strategically identifying and using certain aspects of the surrounding landscape, in conjunction with key design aspects, local groups maximised hunting proficiency. With this contribution, we revisit the Keimoes landscape to continue our search for more funnel sites and to establish whether there is consistency in some of their key design aspects, as identified in earlier publications. We introduce three more kite sites and provide their morphological and landscape details. For the first time, we also demonstrate that some of the kites were purposefully located near rocky outcrops from which construction material could be collected. Keywords: Keimoes, desert kites, hunter-gatherers, Stone Age hunting, strategic landscape use 1. Introduction Over the last few years, the first kite-like structures from the southern hemisphere have been reported on the northern edge of the Nama Karoo Biome near Keimoes, in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa (Fig. 1a & c; van der Walt & Lombard 2018; Lombard et al. 2020, 2021). These structures are described as low, stone-walled V-shaped funnels, at times covering several hundred square metres with long converging guiding arms that sometimes end in a round enclosure or ‘head’ (Fig. 1b). These reports provide detail on the characteristics of funnel construction, function, chronology, and site placement relative to the local landscape. They also extended the geographical range for kite-like structures beyond those found in the arid regions of southwest Asia (e.g., Nadel et al. 2010; Bar-Oz et al. 2011; Crassard et al. 2015; Fradley et al. 2022; Barge et al. 2023), or the reindeer hunting and herding funnels of Scandinavia (Ingold 1986; Sommerseth 2011; Jordhøy & Hole 2015; Solli 2018). In terms of their functionality, kites or kite-like structures are most frequently considered as hunting traps (Holzer et al. 2010), where ungulates – such as springbok in the case of the South African funnels (see Lombard & Badenhorst 2019) – would have been guided between the funnel arms. It is, however, also possible that they were used for some forms of animal husbandry (e.g., Ingold 1986; Sommerseth 2011; Crassard et al. 2015). Identifying who made them, and when, from a southern African perspective is challenging because their construction is more informal when compared with Iron Age, or farmer, stone walling further east in the higher rainfall zones (i.e., organised, stone-packed and coursed, e.g., Huffman 2007), and the general lack of associated surface archaeology, faunal and datable materials make it difficult to establish group identities and chronologies (Lombard et al. 2020, 2021). The Keimoes kites represent fixed features on the landscape in a region that has been occupied by both hunter-gatherer and herder groups over the last 2000 years (Orton & Parsons 2018). It is most likely that they were used and managed by multiple groups over time, possibly handed down through generations, and their construction appears to be consistent with Holocene Later Stone Age (LSA) structures that post-date the last 2000 years (see discussion in Lombard et al. 2020 and 2021).