Before 1661: the first people of the valley

The written history of the Riebeek Valley usually starts in 1661, but people lived here for thousands of years before that. Stone tools found in the area go back through the Earlier, Middle and Later Stone Age.

The San, nomadic hunter-gatherers, were the first modern people in the region. About 2,000 years ago Khoikhoi pastoralists arrived in the Western Cape with herds of cattle and sheep. The Sonqua of this area are remembered in the farm name Zonquasdrift, a crossing on the Berg River.

When Dutch colonists moved into the valley in the early 1700s, conflict followed. In 1705 the Dutch East India Company kept a small military outpost at Zonquasdrift, manned by soldiers during commando raids. The governor disbanded it in 1706.

The farms and villages you see today stand on land that had been grazed and hunted long before. It is worth keeping that in mind on a walk through the valley.