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118-685: The Karoo ( / k ə ˈ r u ə / kə- ROO -ə ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ǃ’Aukarob "Hard veld ") is a semi- desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is also not precisely defined. The Karoo is partly defined by its topography, geology and climate, and above all, its low rainfall, arid air, cloudless skies, and extremes of heat and cold. The Karoo also hosted

236-722: A Moravian Brother from Herrnhut , Saxony, now Germany, founded Genadendal in 1738, which was the first mission station in southern Africa, among the Khoe-speaking peoples in Baviaanskloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains . The colonial designation of "Baasters" came to refer to any clans that had European ancestry in some part and adopted certain Western cultural traits. Though these were later known as Griqua (Xirikua or Griekwa) they were known at

354-681: A 1.6 km thick layer basaltic lava, but it also forced its way, under high pressure, between the horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks belonging to the Ecca and Beaufort groups, to solidify into dolerite sills . The long vertical fissures through which the lava welled up solidified into dikes which resemble the Great Wall of China from the air. From about 150 million years ago the South African surface has been subjected to an almost uninterrupted period of erosion, particularly during

472-669: A NS geological cross-section through the Klein and Great Karoos). The valley is an integral part of the Cape Fold Mountain Belt, with the two ranges on either side composed of extremely hard, erosion-resistant, quartzitic sandstone belonging to the 450- to 510-million-year-old Table Mountain Group (i.e. the oldest layer of the Cape Supergroup). The valley floor is covered, in the main, by the next (younger) layer of

590-526: A decade later to the British. They are related to the same kinds of clan formations as Rehoboth Basters , who could also be considered a "Khoekhoe" people. The broad ethnic designation of "Khoekhoen", meaning the peoples originally part of a pastoral culture and language group to be found across Southern Africa, is thought to refer to a population originating in the northern area of modern Botswana . This culture steadily spread southward, eventually reaching

708-470: A horse.) They were consequently also easy prey for hunters, who hunted them for sport rather than their meat. By the middle of the 1800s, they were almost extinct, and in 1883, the last one died in an Amsterdam zoo. Probably the strangest and most puzzling zoological phenomenon in the Great Karoo was the periodic, unpredictable appearance of massive springbok migrations. These migrations always came from

826-617: A large and successful region of the Cape that subsisted more or less autonomously. The people were predominantly Afrikaans-speaking !Gonakua, but the settlement also began to attract other diverse groups. Khoekua were known at the time for being very good marksmen, and were often invaluable allies of the Cape Colony in its frontier wars with the neighbouring Xhosa politics. In the Seventh Frontier War (1846–1847) against

944-577: A place of great heat and frosts, and an annual rainfall of between 50 and 250 mm, though on some of the mountains it can be 250 to 500 mm higher than on the plains. However, underground water is found throughout the Karoo, which can be tapped by boreholes, making permanent settlements and sheep farming possible. The xerophytic vegetation consists of aloes , mesembryanthemums , crassulas , euphorbias , stapelias , and desert ephemerals , spaced 50 cm or more apart, and becoming very sparse going northwards into Bushmanland and, from there, into

1062-439: A region previously occupied by the subsistence foragers . Ntu-speaking agriculturalist culture is thought to have entered the region in the 3rd century AD, pushing pastoralists into the Western areas. The example of the close relation between the ǃUriǁ'aes (High clan), a cattle-keeping population, and the !Uriǁ'aeǀ'ona (High clan children), a more-or-less sedentary forager population (also known as "Strandlopers"), both occupying

1180-712: A single volcanic center. The Palisades Sill which makes up the New Jersey Palisades on the Hudson River , near New York City , New York, United States, is an example of a diabase sill. The dike complexes of the British Tertiary Volcanic Province includes Skye, Rum, Mull, and Arran of western Scotland , the Slieve Gullion region of Ireland , and dolerite dike swarms extending across northern England towards

1298-436: A spring or other water source within their territory. Sometimes these territories were very large and the family group moved from one part to the other. Their only domestic animals were dogs. The Ntu -speaking agriculturalists to the east of the Great Karoo did not occupy this arid region due to the scarce rainfall which prevented the farming of cattle. In 1854, Daniel Halladay invented the multibladed windpump (windmill) in

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1416-604: A time when that part of Gondwana which would eventually become Africa, lay over the South Pole. Icebergs that had calved off the glaciers and ice sheets to the north deposited a 1 km-thick layer of mud containing dropstones of varying origins and sizes into this basin. This became the Dwyka Group consisting primarily of tillite , the lowermost layer of the Karoo Supergroup. As Gondwana drifted northwards,

1534-676: A titanic scale, which brought an end to a flourishing reptile evolution. These genera represent some of the extinct, mainly predinosaur, animals of the Karoo: Karoo Koppies hills are capped by hard, erosion-resistant dolerite sills . This is solidified lava that was forced under high pressure between the horizontal strata of the sedimentary rocks that make up most of the Karoo's geology . This occurred about 180 million years ago, when huge volumes of lava were extruded over most of Southern Africa and adjoining regions of Gondwana, both on

1652-529: A tourist destination. This area was explored by European settlers in the late 17th century, who encountered the Khoisan people as the original inhabitants of this area. The latter called the Swartberg Mountains kango meaning "a place rich in water". The Cango Caves in the Swartberg Mountains are named after this Khoisan word. The Klein Karoo, and especially Oudtshoorn, became synonymous with

1770-459: A well-preserved ecosystem hundreds of million years ago which is now represented by many fossils. The ǃ’Aukarob formed an almost impenetrable barrier to the interior from Cape Town, and the early adventurers, explorers, hunters, and travelers on the way to the Highveld unanimously denounced it as a frightening place of great heat, great frosts, great floods, and great droughts. Today, it is still

1888-607: Is a well-watered area both from the rain and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Klein Karoo: Montagu , Barrydale , Ladismith , Calitzdorp , Oudtshoorn , and De Rust , as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar , Amalienstein , and Dysselsdorp . The southern 30– to 50 km-wide strip, north of

2006-459: Is also believed to be the creator and the guardian of health, while ǁGaunab is primarily an evil being, who causes sickness or death. Many Khoe-speakers have converted to Christianity and Nama Muslims make up a large percentage of Namibia's Muslims. UNESCO has recognised Khoe-speaking culture through its inscription of the Richtersveld as a World Heritage Site . This important area is

2124-487: Is best viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. The Upper Karoo is indeed an ideal site for an astronomical observatory. This is not only because of the clear skies, absence of artificial lights, and high altitude, but also because it is tectonically completely inactive (meaning that there are no fault lines or volcanoes nearby, and no earth tremors or earthquakes occur, even at great distances). The Klein Karoo

2242-519: Is considered, by convention, to form the approximate arbitrary eastern extremity of the Klein Karoo. Its extent is much smaller than that of the Great Karoo. It is called the Klein Karoo , which is Afrikaans for Little Karoo. The Great Karoo straddles the 30° S parallel on the west of the continent, in a similar position to other semidesert areas on earth, north and south of the equator. It

2360-755: Is furthermore in the rainfall shadow of the Cape Fold Mountains along the western coastline. The western "Lower Karoo" (the Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo) contain remnants of the Cape Fold Mountains (e.g. the Witteberg and Anysberg Mountains) which give it a moderate hilly appearance, but further east, the Lower Karoo becomes a monotonously flat plain. The "Upper Karoo" has been intruded by dolerite sills (see below), creating multiple flat-topped hills, or Karoo Koppies, which are iconic of

2478-473: Is located entirely on the central plateau mostly at altitudes between 1000 and 1500 m. It incorporates nearly the whole of the historical and geographical Great Karoo, but also includes a portion of southern Namibia's Namaqualand, and South Africa's Bushmanland (both local geographical names, not names of biomes). It is the second-largest biome in South Africa, and forms the botanical transition between

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2596-539: Is separated from the Great Karoo by the Swartberg Mountain range. Geographically, it is a 290 km-long valley, only 40–60 km wide, formed by two parallel Cape Fold Mountain ranges, the Swartberg to the north, and the continuous Langeberg - Outeniqua range to the south. The northern strip of the valley, within 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is least karoo-like, in that it

2714-527: Is termed diabasic and is typical of diabases. This diabasic texture is also termed interstitial . The feldspar is high in anorthite (as opposed to albite ), the calcium endmember of the plagioclase anorthite-albite solid solution series, most commonly labradorite . Diabase is usually found in smaller, relatively shallow intrusive bodies such as dikes and sills . Diabase dikes occur in regions of crustal extension and often occur in dike swarms of hundreds of individual dikes or sills radiating from

2832-629: Is the Swartberg Pass between Oudtshoorn in the Klein Karoo and Prince Albert on the other side of the Swartberg mountains in the Great Karoo. Also, the main road between Oudtshoorn and George, on the coastal plain, crosses the mountains to the south via the Outeniqua Pass . The only exit from the Klein Karoo that does not involve crossing a mountain range is through the 150 km-long, narrow Langkloof valley between Uniondale and Humansdorp, near Plettenberg Bay . In geological terms,

2950-664: Is the preferred name in North America, while dolerite is the preferred name in the rest of the English-speaking world, where sometimes the name diabase refers to altered dolerites and basalts. Some geologists prefer to avoid confusion by using the name microgabbro . The name diabase comes from the French diabase , and ultimately from the Greek διάβασις (meaning "act of crossing over, transition") whereas

3068-523: The Calvinia magisterial district, in particular, contributing a significant number of fighters to the Republican cause. Fought both conventionally and as a guerrilla struggle over the Karoo's vast expanses, it was a bloody war of attrition wherein both sides used newly developed technologies to their advantage. Numerous abandoned blockhouses can still be seen at strategic locations, especially along

3186-686: The Griqua , Gona, Nama , Khoemana and Damara nations. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots , a term now considered offensive. While the presence of Khoekhoe in Southern Africa predates the Bantu expansion , according to a scientific theory based mainly on linguistic evidence, it is not clear when, possibly in the Late Stone Age , the Khoekhoe began inhabiting the areas where

3304-699: The Kalahari Desert . The driest region of the Karoo, however, is its southwestern corner, between the Great Escarpment and the Cederberg-Skurweberg mountain ranges , called the Tankwa Karoo , which receives only 75 mm of rain annually. The eastern and north-eastern Karoo are often covered by large patches of grassland. The typical Karoo vegetation used to support large game, sometimes in vast herds. Today, sheep thrive on

3422-559: The Karoo dolerites of South Africa , the Ferrar Dolerites of Antarctica , and the largest of these, the most extensive of all dolerite formations worldwide, are found in Tasmania . Here, the volume of magma which intruded into a thin veneer of Permian and Triassic rocks from multiple feeder sites, over a period of perhaps a million years, may have exceeded 40,000 cubic kilometres. In Tasmania, dolerite dominates much of

3540-667: The Karoo Supergroup refers to an extensive and geologically recent (180–310 million years old) sequence of sedimentary and igneous rocks, which is flanked to the south by the Cape Fold Mountains , and to the north by the more ancient Ventersdorp Lavas, the Transvaal Supergroup and Waterberg Supergroup . It covers two-thirds of South Africa and extends in places to 8000 m below the land surface, constituting an immense volume of rocks which

3658-686: The Malmesbury Group that forms the base of Table Mountain on the Cape Peninsula , and similar outcrops in the Western Cape . In the Klein Karoo, the outcrop is composed of limestone , into which an underground stream has carved the impressively extensive Cango Caves . The World Wildlife Fund has classified the Great Karoo and Klein Karoo as almost entirely within two of what they consider South Africa's eight botanical biomes , they have coined their biomes succulent Karoo and

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3776-725: The Nama or Namaqua and they have among them 11 formal clans: Among the Namaqua are also the Oorlams who are a southern Khoekhoe people of mixed-race ancestry that trekked northwards over the Orange River and where absorbed into the greater Nama identity. The Oorlams themselves are made up of five smaller clans: These Namaqua inhabit the Great Namaqualand region of Namibia . There are also minor Namaqua clans that inhabit

3894-537: The Nama Karoo , although both, like the geological Karoo Supergroup , are more extensive than the geographical or historical Karoo described in South African atlases and guide books (compare the map on the right with the map at the beginning of the article). The succulent Karoo biome runs along the West Coast , from approximately Lamberts Bay northwards to over 200 km into southern Namibia . It starts in

4012-939: The Nama people of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa (with numerous clans), the Damara of Namibia, the Orana clans of South Africa (such as Nama or Ngqosini), the Khoemana or Griqua nation of South Africa, and the Gqunukhwebe or Gona clans which fall under the Xhosa-speaking polities. The Xirikua clans (Griqua) developed their own ethnic identity in the 19th century and settled in Griqualand West. Later, they formed another independent state in Kwazulu Natal named Griqualand East , losing their independence barely

4130-704: The Northern Territory , forming curved ridges of Oenpelli Dolerite stretching over 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi). Further west, on the northern coast of Arnhem Land, a "subsurface radial dyke swarm" known as Galiwinku Dolerite, taking its name from the Aboriginal name for Elcho Island, occurs on the Gove Peninsula and continues under the Arafura Sea and on Wessel Islands , including Elcho and Milingimbi Islands . In

4248-659: The Tankwa Karoo and Moordenaarskaroo regions of the Lower Karoo, and adjoining Upper Karoo region of the geographic Great Karoo. It also occurs to the south, in part of the Breede River Valley , as the Robertson Karoo . From here, it continues eastwards into the western half of the Klein Karoo. The succulent Karoo biome is dominated by dwarf, leafy-succulent shrubs, and annuals, predominantly Asteraceae , popularly known as Namaqualand daisies, which put on spectacular flower displays covering vast stretches of

4366-806: The Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia , a Proterozoic 200-kilometre (120 mi) long dolerite dike, the Norseman-Wiluna greenstone belt is associated with the non-alluvial gold mining area between Norseman and Kalgoorlie , which includes the largest gold mine in Australia, the Super Pit gold mine . West of the Norseman–Wiluna Belt is the Yalgoo-Singleton greenstone belt , where complex dolerite dike swarms obscure

4484-468: The fynbos biome to the south and the savannah biome to the north. It is defined primarily by the dominance of dwarf (less than 1 m high) shrubs with a co-dominance of grasses especially towards the north-east and east where it grades into the grassland biome of the highveld and the Eastern Midlands. The shrubs and grasses are deciduous, mainly in response to the irregular rainfall. Much of

4602-448: The martial eagle (3.0–6.2 kg) are arguably the largest predators likely to be seen in the Great Karoo today. Leopards (20–90 kg) do occur, especially in the mountains, but are very secretive, so are rarely seen. Many of the animals that formerly inhabited the Karoo in large numbers, including lions, have been reintroduced to the area in nature reserves and game farms. As in the Great Karoo, antelope and other big game inhabited

4720-594: The 1860s, a farmer in the Graaff-Reinet district was apparently the first person to demonstrate that the ostrich could successfully be domesticated, bred in captivity, and the eggs hatched in incubators, while still producing the magnificent feathers. This idea was quickly adopted by farmers in the Little Karoo, where they started growing lucerne as the birds' favorite food. During 1880, no less than 74,000 kg of feathers were exported, and in 1904, it passed

4838-412: The 210,000-kg mark. The First World War brought about a slump in the ostrich feather market, but the industry recovered in later years, when not only the feathers were sought after, but also ostrich leather, and its meat, which is very tasty, and a major export item. Today, several farms can be visited by tourists, near Oudtshoorn, the center of the ostrich industry. The first European settlers landed in

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4956-605: The Beaufort period, Southern Africa (still part of Gondwana) became an arid sand desert with only ephemeral rivers and pans. These sands consolidated to form the Stormberg Group , the remnants of which are found only in the immediate vicinity of Lesotho. Several dinosaur nests, containing eggs, some with dinosaur fetal skeletons in them, have been found in these rocks, near what had once been a swampy pan. Finally, about 180 million years ago, volcanic activity took place on

5074-412: The Camdeboo district, but no records exist of any having been seen alive in that region. The quagga roamed the Karoo in great numbers together with wildebeest and ostriches , which always seemed to accompany them. These quagga seemed gentle and easy to domesticate. (A pair of quagga was used to draw a horse carriage through London, more for curiosity than for any superiority the quagga might have had over

5192-444: The Cape approximately 2,000 years ago. "Khoekhoe" groups include ǀAwakhoen to the west, and ǀKx'abakhoena of South and mid-South Africa, and the Eastern Cape. Both of these terms mean "Red People", and are equivalent to the IsiXhosa term "amaqaba". Husbandry of sheep, goats and cattle grazing in fertile valleys across the region provided a stable, balanced diet, and allowed these lifestyles to spread, with larger groups forming in

5310-409: The Cape of Good Hope in 1652, and between 1659 and 1664, made several unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Great Karoo from the south-west. The Europeans who first entered the Great Karoo did so from the south-east (traveling north from Algoa Bay ), which is slightly less arid than the western Karoo. These were the trekboers of the mid-1700s, who led a nomadic existence, enduring great hardships in

5428-420: The Gcaleka, the Khoekua gunmen from Kat River distinguished themselves under their leader Andries Botha in the assault on the " Amatola fastnesses". (The young John Molteno , later Prime Minister, led a mixed commando in the assault, and later praised the Khoekua as having more bravery and initiative than most of his white soldiers.) However, harsh laws were still implemented in the Eastern Cape, to encourage

5546-444: The Great Escarpment along a broad valley to Three Sisters on the Central Plateau and the Upper Karoo. Turning north from the N1 between Touws River and Beaufort West, at Matjiesfontein , the road ascends the Great Escarpment through the Verlatenkloof Pass to reach Sutherland , at 1456 m above sea level, which is reputedly the coldest town in South Africa with average minimum temperatures of −6.1 °C during winter. Parts of

5664-618: The Great Karoo. Great locust swarms also frequently invaded or arose in the Great Karoo, and still occur from time to time today. The riverine rabbit , a critically endangered animal, lives exclusively in seasonal river basins and a very particular set of scrubland in the central semiarid region in the Karoo. It is hunted by falconiformes and Verreaux's eagles . Its numbers have been consistently lowering due to destruction of its habitat. They are unique relative to similar species through how they are polygamous and how each female can only produce one or two offspring per year. The introduction of

5782-400: The Great Karoo. The vegetation of the Upper is similar to the Lower Karoo, so few people make a distinction between the two. The main highway (the N1) and railway line from Cape Town to the north enter the Lower Karoo from the Hex River Valley just before Touws River and follow a course about 50 km south of the Great Escarpment up to Beaufort West . Thereafter, they gradually ascend

5900-402: The Great Karoo. Further branch lines were later built from points further north to Bloemfontein , Durban , and, of course, to Johannesburg . During the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, three Republican commando units, reinforced by the sympathizers ("rebels") from the Cape Colony , conducted widespread operations throughout the Karoo. Countless skirmishes took place in the region, with

6018-410: The Highveld. The boundary to the east grades into the grasslands of the Eastern Midlands. The Great Karoo is itself divided by the Great Escarpment into the Upper Karoo (generally above 1200–1500 m) and the Lower Karoo on the plains below at 700–800 m. A great many local names, each denoting different subregions of the Great Karoo, exist, some more widely, or more generally, known than others. In

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6136-416: The Karoo sedimentation 180 million years ago, some of the eroded material was trapped in the valleys of the Cape Fold Mountains, especially during the Cretaceous period , about 145  million years ago to 66 million years ( Ma ) ago. These "Enon Conglomerates ", as they are known, were deposited by high energy, fast flowing rivers, and are found between Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, where they form

6254-414: The Khoekhoe form of government. Goringhaiqua: The Goringhaiqua are a single tribal authority made from the two houses of the Goringhaikona and Gorachouqua. A commissioned Grammar and Dictionary of the Zulu Language , published in 1859, put forward the idea of an origin from Egypt that appears to have been popular at the time. The reasoning for this included the (supposed) distinctive Caucasian elements of

6372-534: The Khoekhoe's appearance, a "wont to worship the moon'", an apparent similarity to the antiquities of Old Egypt, and a "very different language" to their neighbours. The Grammar says that "the best philologists of the present day ... find marked resemblances between the two". [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " Hottentots ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Dolerite Diabase

6490-425: The Khoena political rights to avert future racial discontent. Attorney General William Porter was famously quoted as saying that he "would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings, voting for his representative, than meet him in the wilds with his gun upon his shoulder". Thus, the government enacted the Cape franchise in 1853, which decreed that all male citizens meeting a low property test, regardless of colour, had

6608-412: The Khoena to leave their lands in the Kat River region and to work as labourers on white farms. The growing resentment exploded in 1850. When the Xhosa rose against the Cape Government , large numbers Khoeǀ'ona joined the Xhosa rebels for the first time. After the defeat of the rebellion and the granting of representative government to the Cape Colony in 1853, the new Cape Government endeavoured to grant

6726-477: The Klein Karoo in the past. However, the dominant zebra was not the quagga, but the Cape mountain zebra , ( Equus zebra zebra ) which is adapted for life on rugged, mountainous terrain. Their hooves are harder and faster-growing than those of Burchell's zebra ( Equus quagga burchellii ), which lives on the plains. The two species are, therefore, rarely seen in the same habitat. The quagga is closely related to Burchell's zebra, and appears also to have been confined to

6844-413: The Langeberg range, is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except in the east, where the Langeberg range (arbitrarily) starts to be called the Outeniqua Mountains. The Klein Karoo can only be accessed by road through the narrow defiles cut through the surrounding Cape Fold Mountains by ancient, but still flowing, rivers. A few roads traverse the mountains over passes, the most famous and impressive of which

6962-564: The Little Namaqualand regions south of the Orange River in north western South Africa . The southern Khoekhoe peoples (Sometimes incorrectly called the Cape Khoe due to the importance of the Cape of Good Hope) inhabit the Western Cape and Eastern Cape Provinces in the south western coastal regions of South Africa . They are divided into four subgroups: Eastern Cape Khoe , Central Cape Khoe , Western Cape Khoe and Peninsular Cape Khoe . Each of these subgroups are further divided into nations and subtribes who constitute an integral part of

7080-404: The Lower Karoo through the Hex River valley , where it followed a course almost midway between the Swartberg Mountains to the south and the Great Escarpment to the north. Along the way, it passed through the quaint Victorian village of Matjiesfontein , with the historic Lord Milner Hotel, which is still operational today. The railway reached this point in 1878, before proceeding to Beaufort West at

7198-461: The Lower Karoo, going from west to east, they are the Tankwa Karoo , the Moordenaarskaroo, the Koup, the Vlakte, and the Camdeboo Plains . The Hantam, Kareeberge, Roggeveld, and uweveldare the better known subregions of the Upper Karoo, though most of it is simply known as the Upper Karoo, especially in the north. The Klein Karoo's boundaries are sharply defined by mountain ranges to the west, north, and south. The road between Uniondale and Willowmore

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7316-526: The Midlands, for example Rowley Rag . Parts of the Deccan Traps of India, formed at the end of the Cretaceous , also include dolerite. It is also abundant in large parts of Curaçao , an island off the coast of Venezuela . Another example of diabase dikes has been recognized in the Mongo area within the Guéra Massif of Chad in Central Africa. In the Death Valley region of California, Precambrian diabase intrusions metamorphosed pre-existing dolomite into economically important talc deposits. In

7434-427: The Nama Karoo biome is that the former receives the little rain that falls as cyclonic rainfall in winter, which has less erosive power than the infrequent but violent summer thunderstorms of the Nama Karoo. Frost is also less common in the succulent Karoo biome than in the Nama Karoo biome. The number of mainly succulent plant species is very high for an arid area of this size anywhere in the world. The Nama Karoo biome

7552-411: The Nama Karoo biome is used for sheep and goat farming, providing mutton, wool, and pelts for local and international markets, especially since livestock can frequently be provided with a regular supply of water from boreholes. Overgrazing exacerbates the erosion caused by the violent thunderstorms that occur, infrequently, in the summer. It also promotes the replacement of the grasses by shrubs, especially

7670-402: The Supergroup, namely the much softer Bokkeveld shales. The dolerite of the Great Karoo did not penetrate these rocks, so Karoo Koppies are not seen in the Klein Karoo. The Klein Karoo contains two other geological features that give the landscape a special character. During the erosion of the African interior following the bulging of the continent during the massive lava outpourings that ended

7788-412: The Swartberg. The only sharp and definite boundary of the Great Karoo is formed by the most inland ranges of Cape Fold Mountains to the south and south-west. The extent of the Karoo to the north is vague, fading gradually and almost imperceptibly into the increasingly arid Bushmanland towards the north-west. To the north and north-east, it fades into the savannah and grasslands of Griqualand West and

7906-482: The Thuringian-Franconian-Vogtland Slate Mountains of central Germany the diabase is entirely of Devonian age. They form typical domed landscapes, especially in the Vogtland . One geotourist attraction is the Steinerne Rose near Saalburg , a natural monument, whose present shape is due to the typical weathering of lava pillows. A geological event known as the Oenpelli Dolerite intrusive event occurred about 1,720 million years ago in western Arnhem Land , in

8024-406: The USA. It was perfected in 1883, and soon South Africa (and elsewhere) produced them in large numbers. These windpumps transformed the Great Karoo, making permanent settlement and stock farming (predominantly sheep) possible over large parts of the Karoo for the first time. Like the Karoo Koppie, the multibladed windpump became an iconic feature of the Great Karoo. Sheep farming and the fencing off of

8142-487: The ancestors of the !Ora nation of today. In the late 16th century, Portuguese, French, Danish, Dutch and English but mainly Portuguese ships regularly continued to stop over in Table Bay en route to the Indies. They traded tobacco, copper and iron with the Khoekhoe -speaking clans of the region, in exchange for fresh meat. Local population dropped after smallpox contagion was spread through European activity. The Khoe-speaking clans suffered high mortality as immunity to

8260-490: The area of ǁHuiǃgaeb , shows that the strict distinction between these two lifestyles is unwarranted, as well as the ethnic categories that are derived. Foraging peoples who ideologically value non-accumulation as a social value system would be distinct, however, but the distinctions among "Khoekhoe pastoralists", "San hunter-gatherers" and "Bantu agriculturalists" do not hold up to scrutiny, and appear to be historical reductionism . Portuguese explorers and merchants are

8378-406: The base of the Marine Corps War Memorial is made of black diabase "granite" (a commercial term, not actual granite). Diabase can also be cut for use as ornamental stone for countertops, facing stone on buildings, and paving. A form of dolerite, known as bluestone , is one of the materials used in the construction of Stonehenge . Diabase also serves as local building stone. In Tasmania, where it

8496-620: The basin turned into an inland sea with extensive swampy deltas along its northern shores. The peat in these swamps eventually turned into large deposits of coal which are mined in KwaZulu-Natal and on the Highveld. This 3 km-thick layer is known as the Ecca Group , which is overlain by the 5.6 km-thick Beaufort Group , laid down on a vast plain with Mississippi-like rivers depositing mud from an immense range of mountains to

8614-403: The beginning nor end of the moving mass. In 1849, a massive herd of springbok, amongst which were intermingled wildebeest, blesbok , quagga, and eland , moved through Beaufort West. Early one morning, the town was awakened to a sound like that of a strong wind, and suddenly the town was filled with animals. They devoured every sprig of foliage in the town and surrounding countryside. The last of

8732-412: The blanket designation of "coloured" (ignoring any nuances of the Khoekhoe peoples' specific cultures or subgroups) contributed to an erasure of Khoekhoe identity and culture, one which modern Khoekhoe people are still working to undo. Apartheid ended in 1994 and so too did the "Coloured" designation. After apartheid, Khoekhoe activists have worked to restore their lost culture, and affirm their ties to

8850-638: The borders of the Cape Colony. In the face of gradual Boer expansion and then large-scale Boer migrations away from British rule at the Cape, Jonker Afrikaner brought his people into Namaqualand by the mid-19th century, becoming a formidable force for Oorlam domination over the Nama and against the Bantu-speaking Hereros for a period. By the early 1800s, the remaining Khoe-speakers of the Cape Colony suffered from restricted civil rights and discriminatory laws on land ownership. With this pretext,

8968-414: The continuously moving herd left the town 3 days later, to disappear towards the west. The Karoo looked as if a fire had swept through it. During these migrations, the plains and hillsides on every side were thickly covered by one vast mass of springbok, packed like sheep in a fold. As far as the eye could see, the landscape was alive with them. During these migrations, the springbok never ran or trotted. On

9086-600: The disease was rare. This increased, as military conflict with the intensification of the colonial expansion of the United East India Company that began to enclose traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century, the Khoe-speaking peoples were steadily driven off their land, resulting in numerous northwards migrations, and the reformulation of many nations and clans, as well as the dissolution of many traditional structures. According to professors Robert K. Hitchcock and Wayne A. Babchuk, "During

9204-479: The early phases of European colonization, tens of thousands of Khoekhoe and San peoples lost their lives as a result of genocide, murder, physical mistreatment, and disease." During an investigation into "bushman hunting" parties and genocidal raids on the San, Louis Anthing commented: "I find now that the transactions are more extensive than did at first appear. I think it not unlikely that we shall find that almost all

9322-537: The east. Francois Le Vaillant , the famous French explorer, naturalist, and ornithologist, who traveled through the Great Karoo in the 1780s, killed a hippopotamus in the Great Fish River in the Karoo (and ate its foot for breakfast). He also recorded that he saw the spoor of a rhinoceros near Cranemere, in the Camdeboo Plains (eastern Lower Karoo). Elephant tusks have been found by farmers in

9440-504: The eastern Mpumalangan Highveld do at times experience lower temperatures than Sutherland, but not as consistently as Sutherland does. Snowfalls are not infrequent during the southern winter months. The South African Astronomical Observatory has an emplacement of telescopes about 20 km east of the town, on a small plateau 1798 m above sea level, and is home to the Southern African Large Telescope ,

9558-510: The farmers living near this border are implicated in similar acts ... At present I have only heard of coloured farmers (known as Bastards) as being mixed up with these matters." "Khoekhoe" social organisation was thus profoundly damaged by the colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, many Khoekhoen settled on farms and became bondsmen (bondservants, serfs) or farm workers; others were incorporated into clans that persisted. Georg Schmidt,

9676-645: The first contact with Europeans occurred. At that time, in the 17th century, the Khoekhoe maintained large herds of Nguni cattle in the Cape region . They mostly gave up nomadic pastoralism in the 19th to 20th century. Their Khoekhoe language is related to certain dialects spoken by foraging San peoples of the Kalahari , such as the Khwe and Tshwa , forming the Khoe language family. Khoekhoe subdivisions today are

9794-575: The first to record their contacts, in the 15th and 16th centuries A.D. The ongoing encounters were often violent. In 1510, at the Battle of Salt River , Francisco de Almeida and fifty of his men were killed and his party was defeated by ox-mounted !Uriǁ'aekua ("Goringhaiqua" in Dutch approximate spelling), which was one of the so-called Khoekhoe clans of the area that also included the !Uriǁ'aeǀ'ona ("Goringhaicona", also known as "Strandlopers"), said to be

9912-723: The foot of the Great Escarpment. From there, it reached the top of the African Plateau near Three Sisters along a valley with such a low gradient that passengers were (and still are) hardly aware that they were ascending the Great Escarpment. From there it continued through the Upper Karoo, to De Aar , and crossed the Orange River at Hopetown , where South Africa's first diamond, the Eureka Diamond ,

10030-605: The land have meant that antelope numbers have dwindled significantly, and with them, the big carnivores. Leopards still occur in the mountains, but lions now only occur in nature reserves, where they have been recently reintroduced into the Great Karoo. In 1872, construction was started to connect the Cape Colony 's coastal railway system with the diamond fields in Kimberley , The new line started in Worcester and entered

10148-507: The land. Khoekhoe and Khoisan groups have brought cases to court demanding restitution for 'cultural genocide and discrimination against the Khoisan nation’, as well as land rights and the return of Khoesan corpses from European museums. The religious mythology of the Khoe-speaking cultures gives special significance to the Moon , which may have been viewed as the physical manifestation of a supreme being associated with heaven. Thiǁoab (Tsui'goab)

10266-484: The landscape in the southern spring-time (August–September) after good rains in the winter. Grasses are uncommon, making most of the biome unsuitable for grazing. The low rainfall, in fact, discourages most forms of agriculture. An exception is the thriving ostrich-farming industry in the KLein Karoo, which is heavily dependent on supplementary feeding with lucerne . The difference between the succulent Karoo biome and

10384-634: The landscape, particularly alpine areas, with many examples of columnar jointing . Early Jurassic activity resulted in the formation of dolerite intrusion in Prospect in Sydney , and quarrying of basalt for roadstone and other building materials has been an important activity there for over 180 years. Diabase is crushed and used as a construction aggregate for road beds, buildings, railroad beds (rail ballast), and within dams and levees. Diabase can be cut for use as headstones and memorials;

10502-593: The largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. To the north, still on the Plateau, and 75 km north-west of Carnarvon , seven radio dishes form part of the Square Kilometer Array which will, 2500 in total, be scattered in other parts of South Africa and Australia, to survey the southern skies at radio frequencies. Our galaxy , the Milky Way , one of the main targets of this enterprise,

10620-519: The late 18th century, Oorlam communities migrated from the Cape Colony north to Namaqualand . They settled places earlier occupied by the Nama. They came partly to escape Dutch colonial conscription, partly to raid and trade, and partly to obtain herding lands. Some of these emigrant Oorlams (including the band led by the outlaw Jager Afrikaner and his son Jonker Afrikaner in the Transgariep ) retained links to Oorlam communities in or close to

10738-460: The less edible varieties such as the threethorn ( Rhigozum trichotomum ), bitterbos ( Chrysocoma ciliata ), and sweet thorn ( Acacia karroo ). However, there are few rare or Red Data Book plant species in the Nama Karoo biome. The Great Karoo used to support a large variety of antelope (particularly the springbok ), the quagga , and other large game, especially on the grassy flats in

10856-836: The most well-known of these being the Mountain Zebra National Park near Cradock in the Great Karoo. Cape mountain zebras are still found in protected areas managed by Cape Nature, including the Kamanassie and Gamkaberg Nature Reserves . The ostrich is found throughout Africa, but the most handsome specimens came from the Klein Karoo, where the dry weather, but plentiful water in the streams formed an ideal habitat for these large, flightless birds. Here, they grow to over 2 m in height, and weigh over 100 kg. The male's feathers have been prized by many cultures in Africa, Europe, and Asia over thousands of years. In

10974-597: The name dolerite comes from the French dolérite , from the Greek doleros (“deceitful, deceptive”), because it was easily confused with diorite . Diabase normally has a fine but visible texture of euhedral lath -shaped plagioclase crystals (62%) set in a finer matrix of clinopyroxene , typically augite (20–29%), with minor olivine (3% up to 12% in olivine diabase), magnetite (2%), and ilmenite (2%). Accessory and alteration minerals include hornblende , biotite , apatite , pyrrhotite , chalcopyrite , serpentine , chlorite , and calcite . The texture

11092-527: The nation address. Khoekhoe were classified as "Coloured" under Apartheid. While this meant that they were offered a few privileges not given to the population deemed "black" (such as not having to carry a passbook), they were still subject to discrimination, segregation, and other forms of oppression. This included the forced relocation caused by the Group Areas Act , which broke up families and communities. The destruction of historical communities and

11210-533: The north, and could either go west towards Namaqualand and the sea, south-west through towns such as Beaufort West , or south through the Camdeboo district. These vast herds moved steadily and inexorably across the plains, trampling all before them, including their own kind. Le Vaillant gave the first eyewitness account of such a migration in 1782. He rode through the herd filling the Plains of Camdeboo, seeing neither

11328-482: The only place where transhumance practices associated with the culture continue to any great extent. The International Astronomical Union named the primary component of the binary star Mu¹ Scorpii after the traditional Khoekhoe language name Xami di mûra ('eyes of the lion'). The classification of Khoekhoe peoples can be broken down roughly into two groupings: Northern Khoekhoe & Southern Khoekhoe ( Cape Khoe ) . The Northern Khoekhoe are referred to as

11446-479: The ostrich feathers from the Klein Karoo's ostrich farms could be exported to Europe. That line is no longer in use today. The Swartberg Pass was built, with convict labor, between 1881 and 1888 by Thomas Bain , son of the famous Andrew Geddes Bain , who built Bain's Kloof Pass and many others in the Western Cape. The main motivation for building the pass was to provide an all-weather road connection between

11564-586: The ostrich-feather industry in the 1880s. The resulting "feather millionaires" built Victorian "Feather Palaces" all over town, using the red rocks belonging to the Enon Conglomerate, and related Kirkwood Formation, to build them. These grand red palaces and other buildings in Oudtshoorn can still be admired today. A railway line was built to connect Calitzdorp and Oudtshoorn, to Willowmore and from there, via Klipplaat, to Port Elizabeth , from where

11682-409: The past 20 million years, shaving off many kilometers of sediments. This exposed the dolerite sills, which were more resistant to erosion than the Karoo sediments, forming one of the most characteristic features of the Karoo landscape, namely the flat topped hills, called "Karoo Koppies". The geology of the Klein Karoo bears no resemblance to that of the Great Karoo (see the diagram on the left, of

11800-541: The plains. The mountain zebra occurred in the mountain regions of the Cape Fold Belt and along the southern portion of the Great Escarpment. Thus, they were endemic to, amongst others, the western Lower Karoo and the Klein Karoo. However, they were hunted to near extinction, leaving fewer than 100 individuals by the 1930s. Conservation efforts since then brought their numbers up to 1200 by 1998, mainly by concentrating these zebra in nature reserves and protected areas,

11918-519: The powerful Commissioner General of the Eastern Districts, Andries Stockenstrom , facilitated the creation of the "Kat River" Khoe settlement near the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. The more cynical motive was probably to create a buffer-zone on the Cape's frontier, but the extensive fertile land in the region allowed people to own their land and build communities in peace. The settlements thrived and expanded, and Kat River quickly became

12036-503: The railway line, throughout the Great Karoo. A prime example still "guards" a bridge over the Buffels River , 12 km (7.5 mi) to the east of the town of Laingsburg , in the Lower Karoo, between Matjiesfontein and Beaufort West. Recently, nature reserves and game farms have been established in many parts of the Great Karoo, turning what was once regarded as a forbiddingly desolate and unattractive geographical barrier into

12154-506: The relentless aridity, the intense heat (such that even their dogs could not walk on the scorching ground and had to be lifted into the overcrowded wagons), and the bitter cold in winter, especially at night. Before that time, the only inhabitants were the Khoe -speaking clans migrating through the area, and !Ui -speaking peoples, who lived in small family groups and, it is believed, remained largely in their own "territories", killing their own game, and gathering bulbs and roots and drinking from

12272-640: The right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. However, this non-racial principle was eroded in the late 1880s by a literacy test, and later abolished by the Apartheid Government. From 1904 to 1907, the Germans took up arms against the Khoekhoe group living in what was then German South-West Africa , along with the Herero . Over 10,000 Nama, more than half of the total Nama population at

12390-460: The south just north of the sandveld geographical region, about 250 km north of Cape Town, and continues through Namaqualand , the Richtersveld , immediately south of the Orange River , and on into the Namaqualand or Namaland region of southern Namibia . None of these regions is ever referred to, either geographically or locally, as "Karoo". However, it has a major extension inland into

12508-500: The south. Ancient reptiles and amphibians prospered in the wet forests, and their remains have made the Karoo famous amongst palaeontologists . The first of these Karoo fossils was discovered in 1838 by Scots-born Andrew Geddes Bain at a road cutting near Fort Beaufort. He sent his specimens to the British Museum , where fellow Scotsman Robert Broom recognised the Karoo fossils' mammal-like characteristics in 1897. After

12626-648: The southern Great Karoo, and Oudtshoorn (and from there to the sea). The two alternative roads, through the Meiringspoort and the Seweweekspoort defiles, were subject to periodic flooding, after heavy thunderstorms in the Great Karoo. The Swartberg Pass is not tarred and can be treacherously slippery after rain. It also becomes impassable after heavy snowfalls on the mountain, a not infrequent occurrence in winter. Khoekhoe Khoekhoe ( /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ KOY-koy ) (or Khoikhoi in former orthography) are

12744-623: The strikingly red "Redstone Hills". The second special geological feature that marks the Kelin Karoo is the 300 km-long fault line along the southern edge of the Swartberg Mountains. The Swartberg Mountains were lifted up along this fault, to such an extent that in the Oudtshoorn region, the rocks that form the base of the Cape Supergroup are exposed. These are locally known as the Cango Group, but are probably continuous with

12862-478: The surface and deep below the surface between the sedimentary strata. Since this massive extrusion of lava, Southern Africa has undergone a prolonged period of erosion, exposing the older, softer rocks, except where they were protected by a cap of dolerite. The genera present include: The lava outpourings that ended the Karoo deposition of rocks, not only covered the African surface, and other parts of Gondwana with

12980-647: The time as " Basters " and in some instances are still so called, e. g., the Bosluis Basters of the Richtersveld and the Baster community of Rehoboth, Namibia , mentioned above. Arguably responding to the influence of missionaries, the states of Griqualand West and Griqualand East were established by the Kok dynasty; these were later absorbed into the Cape Colony of the British Empire . Beginning in

13098-508: The time, may have died in the conflict. This was the single greatest massacre ever witnessed by the Khoekhoe people. As native African people, Khoekhoe and other dark-skinned, indigenous groups were oppressed and subjugated under the white-supremacist Apartheid regime. In particular, some consider Khoekhoe and related ethnic groups to have been some of the most heavily marginalized groups during Apartheid's reign, as referenced by previous South African president Jacob Zuma in his 2012 state of

13216-405: The traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San (literally "Foragers") peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe -speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as

13334-684: The volcaniclastic sediments. Large dolerite sills such as the Golden Mile Dolerite can exhibit coarse-grained texture, and show a large diversity in petrography and geochemistry across the width of the sill. The vast areas of mafic volcanism/ plutonism associated with the Jurassic breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent in the Southern Hemisphere include many large diabase/dolerite sills and dike swarms. These include

13452-696: The whole, they were silent, except for the shudder of their stamping hoofs. Nothing could divert them, and hunters could ride amongst them, shooting them at random, without apparently causing alarm. People could move amongst them and kill them with sticks, or cripple them by seizing a leg and breaking it. Not only people followed these herds for the easy meat they provided, but also lions , leopards , cheetahs , African wild dogs , hyenas , and jackals preyed on them. No one knew how, why, or where these migrations started, nor where they ended, nor did anyone know if these animals ever returned to where they had started. The migrations were always unidirectional, from north of

13570-473: The windpump to tap the Great Karoo's underground water resources in the late 1800s made permanent human habitation and sheep farming possible over large parts of the Great Karoo for the first time. As a result, the teeming number of large antelope in the Karoo has dwindled into insignificance, and with them, the large carnivores have all but disappeared. Today, the caracal (7–19 kg), black-backed jackal (6–10 kg), Verreaux's eagle (3.0–5.8 kg) and

13688-547: The xerophytes, though each sheep requires about 4 hectares (9.9 acres) of grazing to sustain itself. The Karoo is divided into the Great Karoo and the Klein Karoo. The Klein Karoo is delimited in the south by the Outeniqua–Langeberg Mountains that run east–west parallel to the coast, and in the north by the Swartberg Mountain Range that also runs east–west. The Great Karoo lies to the north

13806-430: Was formed, geologically speaking, in a short period of time. Although almost the whole of the Great Karoo is situated on Karoo Supergroup rocks, the geological Karoo rocks extend over a very much larger area, both within South Africa and Lesotho, but also beyond its borders and onto other continents that formed part of Gondwana . The Karoo Supergroup was formed in a vast inland basin starting 320 million years ago, at

13924-414: Was found. The Orange River, at this point, forms the local unofficial boundary between the Great Karoo and the Highveld. The line reached Kimberley in 1885, and has since been extended via Botswana (then Bechuanaland) to reach Zimbabwe and Zambia (when they were still known as South and North Rhodesia), and branch lines have been constructed to Namibia and Port Elizabeth through a hub at De Aar, in

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