Much of Southern Africa has deep soils and as a hunter gatherer you need something to dig with, to get to all those tasty tubers, roots and animals hiding in burrows.
Sticks by themselves worked for a while, but then someone figured out that a weighted stick would work better.
That idea evolved into a large rounded stone with a hole bored into it.
Below is such a stone with a broomstick inserted through it for scale.
The above stone is actually for a stick larger in diameter than a broom stick but they are found in all shapes and sizes.
The hole is bored by using hard grit or sand and a stick as shown in the video below.
The inside of this one has been worn perfectly smooth from many years of much use.
The larger one is made of a fine grey green siltstone and the smaller one from a grittier yellow sandstone.
Both of these stones can easily be identified as having come from certain distinctive Karroo rocks that are found in the foothills of the Drakenberg Mountains.
There stones can be found hundreds of kilometers from their original point of manufacture and may be passed down from generation to generation or exchanged as highly prized gifts.
The below video shows how digging for tubers was an important part of surviving in the drier parts of the country.
